Clean Shoes & Doors in Walls - We Are All Victims of Circumstance!

Roger, my son’s university friend, always explained the many scrapes that he seemed to get into as being the result of being a “victim of circumstance”. They were never his fault, always caused, he asserted, by factors beyond his control! Of course, this resulted in much leg pulling and good hearted banter. But increasingly, as I get older, I am drawn to the conclusion that maybe Roger had a point. Not so much to condone his getting very, very drunk or  being involved in some particularly silly student prank that went horribly wrong, but rather that, increasingly, all our lives are to a degree governed and certainly profoundly affected by unplanned events, coincidences, unsolicited meetings and the like over which we have little control.

I have absolutely no doubt that this has always been so, and the modern world is, it seems to me, a much more uncertain place than it was when I was growing up. As a teenager and young man everything seemed simple and possible - I could gain this qualification or that, take this course of action or another, mould my own life and that of my family, move on to greater things, be in charge of my life - everything seemed possible and within my control. But, as I have got older I have come to believe that it isn't like that - nor has it ever been. I have come to realise the world's great uncertainties and that nothing can be taken for granted. I have come to realise that there are always two sides to every story and always other courses of action - that nothing is simple and anyone who has a quick fix solution to life's problems and society's needs is undoubtedly wrong. I have come to realise that even as a young person, filled with great plans, confidence and optimism circumstances are influencing how one behaves, which choices one makes and how the rest of one's life will "pan out". I have come to realise that as an individual I am not excluded from the buffeting and the impact of wider society and the world - in short, I am a very small boat in a very big rough sea - with little real control over my destiny or my world. This might seem a little harsh - but I believe it is true.   

When I was going through the school system the world seemed a much more certain place and pre-destined. We had largely full employment, jobs were relatively easy to find. A youngster could work hard at school, get some qualifications or a good reference and find a job. They could begin their working life and be reasonably optimistic that as long as they worked hard then this job would provide for them; they might work their way up through “the system” and reach the pinnacle – stories are legion of the managing directors of big companies who began their life sweeping the floor of the workshop. They had, in short, a job for life – whether it be a teacher, policeman, bus driver, bank worker or whatever. Today it is very different. A youngster can work hard at school, get all the right qualifications and still find it very difficult to get a job. Having got a job, nothing is certain – takeovers, economic climate, the pace of change, technology and many other factors mean that it is virtually certain that no one can begin a career and expect to still be in that same job or even that same sector on their retirement half a century later. People can be the most skilled, hard working staff imaginable and yet they can be, and are, still made redundant and find themselves unemployed. They are in short, "victims of circumstance"; victims of events over which they have little or no control - but which profoundly affect their lives.

These “circumstances”, these unplanned and unsought events often start as insignificant occurrences quite forgettable and unimportant at the time but over time impinge and impact on one’s life. Sometimes the impact is simply an inconsequential  and trivial aspect of one’s daily routine but others go to the very heart of who and what you are. One or two trivial snippets from my own life illustrate the points well.

Ahhhhhh! Young love-what might
have been! - but Doreen had better
fish to fry! How she must regret it today!

As I stood yesterday morning cleaning the household’s shoes – a regular job to pass my retirement days! – I mused great Satre-like thoughts about the nature of being - as I do each time I stand polishing and brushing! And the focus of my existential musings? -  the lovely Doreen! Each week - usually on a Sunday when get I get out the shoe polishing stuff I, without fail, mutter to myself, "C'mon Doreen, let's have a good scrub!" Whenever I mention Doreen each Sunday my wife Pat's eyes look up to heaven, glaze over and I'm sure that I hear something that sounds like  "you wish" or“sad old man” being muttered across the kitchen!!! You see, Doreen was the love of my life over half a century ago – she was the pinnacle that I only briefly reached. Sadly, Doreen soon tired of me and found, as she saw it, more worthy young men (spotty youths they were!) on whom to dispose her many attractions. But despite our very brief teenage romance Doreen left me with something that is still very much part of my life – my shoe cleaning kit! A thing used weekly for over a half a century and something that always brings fond memories of my teenage love - but, more importantly, reminds me who I am and where I have come from!

I had been at school with Doreen – but, as I say, Doreen soon found others upon whom to lavish her abundant affections. A year or two later, after I had left school, I again met her - once a week when I went to her house  to collect money for the newspapers that had been delivered throughout the week. I worked in the evenings for the local newsagent as I worked my way through college, and week after week, each Friday night, Doreen or her Mum would pay their newspaper bill to me on their doorstep - as I stood there mumbling and tongue tied! When Preston North End reached the FA Cup Final in 1964 - by sheer good fortune I found myself with a few spare tickets - I had no hesitation, of course,  in offering one to Doreen’s Dad.  Yes, there were no depths to which I would not sink to win Doreen back! But it was all to no avail - it didn’t re-kindle any fond thoughts for me in Doreen - however popular I was with her Dad! All came to nought.  Doreen had more worthy pebbles to pick up off the romantic teenage beach!

Eventually came the time for me to leave Preston to go to teacher training college in Nottingham. I had to give up my newspaper collection job and bid Doreen and her Mum farewell, as I packed my bags for a new stage in my life – 150 miles away! And, on my last visit to collect the newspaper money, a little leaving gift was waiting – all gift wrapped.  A shoe cleaning kit in a fine leather holdall. The leather holdall has long gone, as have the tins of polish and cleaning dusters, but the three brushes remain intact and are still used each week. When I pick up the one inscribed in faded and blackened gold lettering  “I remove mud” and scrub the remnants of our walk around the country park from Pat’s boots or when I take up the brush inscribed with “I put on polish” or I brush up my shoes to a gleaming shine with the polishing brush labelled "I shine" I wistfully think of Doreen and what might have been!!!!! They still evoke those memories of a life time ago and of standing, tongue  tied, each Friday evening  on a Preston doorstep - and, as I say, remind me, too, of who I am, what I am and where I have come from. 

I remove mud, I polish, I shine!

This little melodramatic tale is, of course, the stuff of all our lives – little events that happened and which for some reason remain with us. My shoe cleaning kit hasn’t changed my life, it is simply a remnant from the past – lofts and cupboards the whole world over are full of such items. But it not only evokes memories, but in its small way defines me and what I am. As I write this I am reminded of my oft quoted story about the great socialist politician Nye Bevan.  He famously commented that when walking on the hills surrounding his Ebbw Vale constituency he often got lost in the mist. He found his way by looking back – towards the town where the great steel mills with their towers, glowing fires and industrial heat tended to keep the mists at bay. This enabled Bevan to assess where he was relative to the town – where he had come from - and so he knew where he was. Bevan was firm – ‘you need to know where you have been and where you have come from if you are to know where you are at the present and where you should go next.’ The memories that we have, the people that we have met, the small perhaps  forgettable experiences that have occurred throughout our lives each in its small way is a powerful former of our beliefs, successes, failures, ideals, prejudices and all the other aspects of our character. They might be small, petty, insignificant,  unplanned and indiscriminate events within the great scheme of things - but they are not unimportant. My little going away present given to me on a wet doorstep on a Friday evening over half a century ago still plays a small part in my life and as such defines me.
The things that have happened to us, and do happen to us each provide us with unplanned opportunities, grave problems, profoundly held beliefs or in the case of my shoe cleaning kit, simply fond memories. They are the impact of the world crashing into our consciousness - the buffeting of that great rough sea across which we all cross during our lives. And with each wave that laps against us or crashes over us we in turn adapt, harden, become more caring, develop as people or look at life with different glasses because our experiences are giving us a different perspective upon which to make and base our judgements. They make us the people we are - we are "victims of circumstance"!

This is reinforced each week for me in the Guardian. One of the regular features that I always search out is on the obituaries page. I rarely read the obituaries of the great and good – unless I have some connection or reason to do so – but always read what the Guardian terms “Other Lives”. These are small items placed by friends, family or colleagues of some “ordinary” person who has recently passed away. I say “ordinary” In reality, however, each one I read suggests a rather extraordinary individual. One thing that always strikes me is how the lives of most of these people were, more often than not, in some way determined or at least influenced by external factors or specific events which they had not planned or sought. For example, only this morning I read of a lady who ultimately had a very distinguished academic career but who might have died as a child had her parents and she sailed on the ship from America to Britain they had planned for. They were delayed , however, and did not catch the ship and so had to take a later one. The first ship was sunk by submarines in the second World War and all perished. Circumstance, looked kindly on that lady and her family. Reading these little “obituaries’ one is struck by how many people did not have the life that they might have expected when they came into the world; chance meetings, war, marriage, unemployment or whatever changed the courses of their lives. Time after time I exclaim over the breakfast table “Gosh, this guy (or woman) has died and they could never have thought when they were young that they were going to have the life or do the things that they have done”. They were, in short, “victims of circumstance”!

Certainly, my life is filled with such instances. I went into teaching as a result of being made redundant when the company I worked for as a draughtsman  closed down. Teaching was the furthest thing from my mind – I had just passed my ONC, the qualification required for my work as a draughtsman - until I walked into the Labour Exchange one day and happened to see a notice advertising the teaching option. Had that notice not been there, if I hadn’t gone to the Labour Exchange on that day it might never have happened. My love and lifelong interest in classical music came from a visit with my auntie to the home of Kathleen Ferrier and a night out arranged by school (see blog: http://arbeale.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/i-have-always-been-surprised-and.html  ). When I applied to attend teacher training college I had three applications in – the interview for Nottingham happened to arrive first and I was accepted there. Had I gone to one of my other two options, the York or Chester training colleges then I would not have met Pat, my wife, would not have finished up spending my whole working life in Nottingham, would have had a very different set of professional experiences working elsewhere in the country – and all these in turn would have made me a very different person. Take anyone of the millions of outside, unplanned factors that have occurred to me in my life time and I would undoubtedly have had  a different life and to a degree been a different person. Great life plans, ambitions and schemes seem significantly less important in this context. I could go on and on – yes, the various academic qualifications that I have amassed over the years and the planned career moves etc. have been important but in terms of my progress through life, my beliefs, my prejudices, my family, my friends and who/what I am it all seems a bit more related to chance and minor events than some great plan. In short, my life seems to have been more governed by some aspect of the chaos theory - the butterfly flapping its wings and causing a storm on the other side of the world - than any great plan or certainty. I don’t think that I’m alone – I suspect the same is true about the majority of man and womankind – especially so, now, in this uncertain world. We are all “victims of circumstance”.

Nothing for me illustrates this more than my love affair with The Guardian newspaper. My attachment to The Guardian began over half a century ago – before, even, my love affair with Doreen! I was happily reminded of this a week or two ago. I had occasion to look on Google maps to find an address in Preston. I have not returned to Preston since my Dad died several years ago. Whilst looking at the map I idly noticed some of the streets where I grew up. I “clicked” on the little man on the map, placed him in  a street and hey presto! – there was a photo of the very street where I was born. I could see my old house – number 18! Intrigued I moved the little man around the streets and it wasn’t long before I came across a place that still influences me each day and is responsible, in its way, for the person I am.

Brockholes View today - and I can just see the top of the
house behind the wall!

When I was about twelve years old, in the late 1950s, I began to work as a newspaper delivery boy. I thoroughly enjoyed walking round the narrow Preston streets  reading the newspapers as I delivered them. The majority of papers I delivered where everyday tabloids – Mirror, Express, Herald, Pictorial, Mail etc. One house, however was special  – and the house was at the furthest point of the round  - 220 Brockholes View I think it was. It was to this house that the Google map and my meandering  mouse had taken me.  All those years ago I never saw the house itself as I delivered the newspapers - it had a high wall around it - and so I posted the newspaper through a small door in the wall. The only time I saw the owner - a vicar I seem to remember - was each Christmas, when the wall door would open as I pushed the newspaper through, and he would press a small Christmas tip into my hand. But, he took the Manchester Guardian (as The Guardian then was) - it was the only Guardian I delivered and I quickly learned that this was the only paper worth reading. By 13 or 14 I was an avid Manchester Guardian reader. And, as I sat looking at my computer screen the other day that door in the wall was, once again, in front of me; the wall had changed – now painted white and the door had a different letter box – but this was it. Day after day – each morning I had posted the Manchester Guardian through the letter box; each evening I had posted the Lancashire Evening Post there. It was like time travelling to see it again!

The Manchester Guardian I used to push
through the door of 221 Brockholes View!

As I walked the streets all those years ago, reading the closely printed paper – I read football reports first. But then, as I became a little older, political and news reports which  seemed, so far as I could judge, to be far more factual and unbiased than those I read in other papers in my bag. Political parties and people  of all persuasions seemed to be praised or chastised in equal measure - but always with an argument based on fact rather than prejudice, inference or emotive language. Much of the stuff I read was at that stage beyond me, but I soaked it up, went home and looked in my Mother’s old battered dictionary for words that I didn’t understand. I leafed through my second hand set of Arthur Mee’s Encyclopaedias to find out about places and events that were mentioned in the Manchester Guardian.  The Manchester Guardian headlines seemed to my young eyes and mind to be factual statements and not emotive clarion calls. As I walked the streets all those years ago, with my bag of newspapers around my neck, I knew it was quite different from every other paper that I pushed through letter boxes. It satisfied my inner desire for clarity and detail with news that had some worth, not tabloid dross or scurrilous tittle tattle.  Each day, as I left the paper shop with my  bag full, I took the Manchester Guardian out and read it all the way round the streets.  It was very crumpled and often wet by the time I delivered it to 220 Brockholes View! I devoured it and dragged my feet as I approached the doorway in the wall and knew that I would have to push it through the letter box. Once I began to buy my own paper there was only one for me!

Where my love affair with the Guardian began!

The rest, as they say, is history – The Guardian has been my lifelong companion since – and has influenced my thinking for good or ill - and to a very large degree made me what I am.

But, what, if all those years ago, I had not made this single Guardian delivery to Brockholes View, then who knows, I may have become a convinced Sun or Mail or DailyTelegraph reader – the ramifications of that are too awful to contemplate! But, had that happened I would certainly have become something very different. What if The Guardian that I delivered all those years had been at the first house on my paper round rather than the last - then I might never have read it and become addicted, What if all the other unplanned and unsought events that have happened to me (and you) had not happened? All big "ifs", but important. They are the sum of who and what we are and as such dictate how we act, react, respond to others and to situations, define our beliefs and prejudices and to a large degree, I believe help us make sense of the world.  Roger was right all along -we are all "victims of circumstance"!