ABSTRACT
My present moment As a thirty-something community worker, I seemed to be able to bring energy and optimism to bear upon difficult circumstances, and remember some very generous comments, such as ‘There’d have to be something wrong with anyone who didn’t like you, Brian’—this from a woman, of course. Twenty years on, I’m still optimistic at heart, and perhaps more contented than I was, but I have elicited some strikingly negative responses, from people ranging from pensioners in my local post office apparently afraid that I might be the next armed robber, to market traders suspecting me of shoplifting. Someone even thought I was ‘shy’. So what has changed?
