My parents generation lived through a world war. I was born the year it ended. The experience shaped our attitudes & for years afterwards we lived our lives based on those hard learned lessons. "Waste not want not" "A stitch in time saves nine" You can dismiss it as a world of cliches or you can compare the values then, to those pertaining now & learn from the comparison.
It was a much simpler & less affluent world. It was a world of hard work & fewer choices. There was Hire Purchase, but people didn't tend to get into debt & live on credit. If you wanted something you saved up for it & maybe valued it more because of that. Instant gratification simply didn't exist. Women were tied to the home as housewives & mothers.
Children weren't spoiled materially because neither the money or the "stuff" was there. But they did amuse themselves & play with eachother. There certainly wern't paid clubs & groups apart from Girl Guides, Boy Scouts & Youth Clubs. I remember a lot of freedom & numerous games which we could play on our own or in groups in the street. I think we became independent early because the life of adults was too busy with work to amuse us all the time. So I walked about a mile to Primary school as a 5 year old, and crossed Birmingham by 2 buses as an 11 year old.
The change has been inexorable & exponential & not necessarily for the good. I imagine it was ever thus, that the older generation shake their heads in bemusement at the lives the younger generation live. My parents would be amazed at the affluence & comfort of my life. I'm certain they would think that I waste money on things they would never have considered buying or doing.
Now I look at the world around me, which I know so much about from books, TV & travel, & find myself despairing at the sheer unfairness & inequality of it. The Rich world steamrollers onwards, while the Poor world continues to live in poverty & dies young. And we have the cheek to complain about the austerity brought on by our own greed.
At the end of the day I am truly blessed to have been born here in the UK, with not only 3 good meals a day, but all sorts of treats on top of that. I have a warm and comfortable bed at night, every night. I have a health service to keep me as fit as possible. I have access to all sorts of possibilities for entertainment & can afford any I chose.
We have lost sight of how fortunate we are. I doubt that we are capable of returning to the bare necessities unless something catastrophic happens. Maybe it already has & maybe now we should be making more effort to share out the blessings more evenly.
It was a much simpler & less affluent world. It was a world of hard work & fewer choices. There was Hire Purchase, but people didn't tend to get into debt & live on credit. If you wanted something you saved up for it & maybe valued it more because of that. Instant gratification simply didn't exist. Women were tied to the home as housewives & mothers.
Children weren't spoiled materially because neither the money or the "stuff" was there. But they did amuse themselves & play with eachother. There certainly wern't paid clubs & groups apart from Girl Guides, Boy Scouts & Youth Clubs. I remember a lot of freedom & numerous games which we could play on our own or in groups in the street. I think we became independent early because the life of adults was too busy with work to amuse us all the time. So I walked about a mile to Primary school as a 5 year old, and crossed Birmingham by 2 buses as an 11 year old.
The change has been inexorable & exponential & not necessarily for the good. I imagine it was ever thus, that the older generation shake their heads in bemusement at the lives the younger generation live. My parents would be amazed at the affluence & comfort of my life. I'm certain they would think that I waste money on things they would never have considered buying or doing.
Now I look at the world around me, which I know so much about from books, TV & travel, & find myself despairing at the sheer unfairness & inequality of it. The Rich world steamrollers onwards, while the Poor world continues to live in poverty & dies young. And we have the cheek to complain about the austerity brought on by our own greed.
At the end of the day I am truly blessed to have been born here in the UK, with not only 3 good meals a day, but all sorts of treats on top of that. I have a warm and comfortable bed at night, every night. I have a health service to keep me as fit as possible. I have access to all sorts of possibilities for entertainment & can afford any I chose.
We have lost sight of how fortunate we are. I doubt that we are capable of returning to the bare necessities unless something catastrophic happens. Maybe it already has & maybe now we should be making more effort to share out the blessings more evenly.
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