Sarah Miller of Leumeah is calling on people to be nicer to each other. Picture: Jeff McGill
PLEASE, be nice.
That's the simple plea of Sarah Miller, who says she is fed up with rudeness.
Not that she blames Campbelltown for that; this is where she proudly grew up, and where she is raising a young family of her own.
She said bad behaviour — from road rage to shopping centre bullies — had become a Sydney-wide problem.
But, because she knows the heart of her home town and the way it supports so many good causes, she wants Campbelltown to lead the resistance to rudeness.
"We've all seen those signs saying Campbelltown is 'Australia's First Green City' — but I'd love us to be known as 'Australia's Most Polite City' as well," she said.
Ms Miller, who runs a freelance marketing business, encourages a grassroots community campaign.
Two weeks ago, she wrote a letter to the Advertiser complaining about "travelator rage" in a shopping mall.
"Pushy, well-dressed busy sorts grunting and groaning at those with prams and trolleys on the travelator — I mean, aren't those for the pram and trolley users?" she wrote. "I had my three-year-old and newborn baby and got the words, 'For God's sake' by a uptight woman who was somehow inconvenienced by my use of the travelator for my pram.
"It's ridiculous that you can get picked on for doing the right thing."
Ms Miller said petty reactions such as that can erode a community's morale.
"These people are rude for the sake of being rude, for some personal self-perceived inconvenience," she said.
"When is this nastiness OK?
"I'm sure I am not alone in being at the receiving end of this type of anti-social behaviour. The me-first behaviour seems to have spread out from the 'big city' to our city.
"Let me tell you, the real original culture of our city Campbelltown is not this. We live out here because it is away from the 'big city' crap."
Ms Miller said Campbelltown culture is the ladies waiting in line in the post office who pat your son's head lovingly; it is the countless strangers who engage you with happy conversation in the aisle of the supermarket; it is the people who flock to local events such as the 24 Hour Fight Against Cancer.
"It is the people who leave you smiling and laughing, often without even finding out their name," she said.
"This is our sub-culture people; the original sub-culture of Campbelltown."