Another day in Paradise!

I read this morning of our Prime Minister’s latest words on the subject of immigration. I am determined not to rise to the bait – I’ll save that for another blog! Indeed, as each day passes, I find that rather like the mythical 'Angry of Tunbridge Wells' in his or her letters to the Times or Telegraph there is so much I could (and perhaps should) rail about in relation to government, politics,  people, society, the world at large, bankers, etc. etc. etc!

1930's Nottingham family

But no, this morning I will strike a more positive note.

In the past year or so we have all complained about banks, austerity, changes to the health service, Wayne Rooney, educational issues, the price of petrol – the list is endless. And it is true there is much to complain about, there is much to change for the good of all, there is much that we should not be pleased about. There are indeed many – too many - in our society who are deprived and on the wrong end of the good life. On a more pessimistic day I might argue that the present government (if indeed that is what it is!) are doing their damndest to ensure that the disadvantaged group becomes even greater and more disadvantaged – but , no, I will be optimistic!

The reality is that for the vast majority and indeed for society as a whole we live in what many would describe as paradise. When thinking about this I’m often reminded of the Phil Collins' song 'Another Day in Paradise' or the even more poignant and biting 'Streets of London' by Ralph McTell

So how can you tell me you're lonely, 
And say for you that the sun don't shine? 
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London 
I'll show you something to make you change your mind

There are indeed many in our society who usually though no fault of their own are seriously disadvantaged or living in situations and conditions that the rest of us cannot appreciate. But, for the majority we are better off than we have ever been.

Childhood illness and deformity was
 commonplace until relatively recently

In 1957 Macmillan famously said 'You’ve never had it so good......'  and no matter how much we might think otherwise he was right then and still right now. The policies pursued by Macmillan and his contemporaries – especially Atlee - meant improvements for ordinary people that only a few years before would have been quite unbelievable. Oh, for politicians of the intellectual and moral vigour of Macmillan and Atlee today – instead we get PR men completely devoid of ideas, intellect or moral fibre and who are 'stage managed' like puppets in thrall to unelected advisers and big corporations of the Murdoch type.

But to return to the positive. Look back at old photographs and films and the living conditions of most of the population were far removed from today’s expectations. Go into any major city any day of the week and see ordinary people coming back with shopping bags and car boots laden with purchases – many of them undeniably 'luxury goods' – in the sense that they are not 'necessities'. Credit cards mean instant gratification and although the bill ultimately has to  be paid, the reality is that people still enjoy the 'good life'. Houses with bathrooms, hot water, labour saving machines, dining out, a well stocked fridge, a car on the drive, a doctor easily available if required, hospital treatment 'free' when needed, major diseases a relative thing of the past because of the improved hygiene and living conditions available, our refuse taken away on a regular basis, a free school for our children to attend and so on. What is there not to like about it?

Go to many third world countries and residents there would very quickly swap their conditions for ours. No, compared with many and compared with the past most of us live in paradise.

But of course we do moan, we find fault. Perhaps it is part of the human condition. Perhaps we have become 'soft' and dependent. Perhaps the maxim 'familiarity breeds contempt' has a resonance. Perhaps, like the society envisaged in H.G. Wells’ 'The Time Machine', we have become a society of lotus eaters who are unable to grasp reality because our every need is met.

A Sheffield miner after the shift
in his 1930s 'bathroom'

I read this week a number of letters in the Guardian where readers complained at the 'poor service' they got in relation to the collection of their rubbish – too many separate bins to fill, only collected every second week etc. Now many of the points might have some validity but my bins have been collected this morning on their usual two weekly cycle – one week for household rubbish and the second week for paper/cans and garden waste. All I have to do is put out my bin the night before and by breakfast time next day my rubbish has gone. What is there, when one is realistic, to complain about? I was talking a couple of weeks ago to a man of my generation who complained bitterly and refused to separate his rubbish – everything went on the same bin – 'I’m not doing the council’s job' he said. Hmmm. Not sure about that!

My late mother always said that in her day people were so much more honest – 'you could leave your front door open and no-one would enter or steal anything' she would pronounce and perhaps she was right. I think that there perhaps was a more moral and honest atmosphere. But, I also think, that it had something to do with the fact that most people didn’t have much worth stealing! No DVD players, plasma screens, flash cars on the drive, mobile phones, computers etc. The house I grew up in was furnished with second hand furniture and what money we had was in mother’s purse – not a lot to want to steal! Today ordinary people have wealth and possessions that our grandparents could not imagine.

No, whichever way I look at it, the vast majority of us are better off today – but perhaps we don’t always appreciate it. At  a personal level, I was reading through the old documents that I inherited from my mother. I found my grandfather’s death certificate. He died at 61  (in 1953) of 'congestive heart failure'. My mother died in 2002 aged 82  of 'congestive cardiac failure'. And a year or so ago I was diagnosed with heart failure. Bit of a family tradition! The difference is that such is  medical and social progress that I am supported by a battery of pills, regular check ups and blood tests, my own heart failure nurse at the end of a telephone or e-mail 24 hours a day and if I am hospitalised, go into a cardiac unit resembling a 5 star hotel. I am told that if I take my pills, keep a reasonably healthy life style and the like, the heart failure should not be a problem and may well slowly improve. And this all for 'free'! What is there to complain about. And yet I do moan - if go to my GP for my regular blood tests and have to wait I moan, if I can't get an appointment for a few days or a week or so, I moan.  But deep down I know that I am lucky.  If I go to A & E, as I did some months ago when I  cut my finger, I had to wait a couple of hours – my injured finger was rightly not judged to be life threatening. But if I go suffering breathing difficulties or symptoms that might be 'heart related' I am whisked into the emergency rooms and seen immediately. What is there to moan about? A far cry this from just over half a century ago when the doctor’s bill had to be paid and the weekly wage had run out.

When I visit Nottingham city centre I see youngsters
 in expensive  trainers - I can't remember the last time I
saw teenagers with bare feet.

As I walk around my kitchen and switch on the dish washer, check that the washing machine is nearing the end of its cycle, stand by the radiator to warm my hands, peer into the freezer to select what I will have for my tea, visit my downstairs loo, I am minded that it is a million miles away from the house I grew up in during the post war years. One sink in the kitchen with a cold water tap. No bathroom, a lavatory at the top of the back yard which my mother stocked with torn up pieces of the Daily Mirror to use as toilet paper, no dishwasher or washing machine. A fireplace in the front room but no other form of heating in the two up two down house. The larder largely empty, partly because with no fridge food could not be kept, but mostly because mother shopped as required – when she had the money. It was not uncommon that by Thursday lunch we had run out of money and my mother would borrow from her  sister who worked in the mill – this to see us through till my dad got his wages later on Thursday or Friday or even Saturday. As a long distance lorry driver Dad was sometimes 'away' until Saturday and in that event couldn’t pick his wages up till he got back on Saturday morning – then we had real money problems! One of my abiding memories is of the day my mother got her first Hoover - for which she had saved up. She really did think herself blessed - no more sweeping with a brush - and when she at last managed a fridge -well, a her worries were over! But we weren’t unusual – that was how it was for so many people and in fact compared to many we were 'well off'.  Today people would pop out to Comet and buy a Hoover or fridge and not even think about it. No, for most, today is paradise indeed.

Of course, the reality is that for many 'paradise', the good life, isn’t really happening – disadvantage, employment, education whatever means that many cannot access the 'luxury' that most of us experience. This, however, does not mean that for the majority things are not better – despite austerity, despite cut backs, despite banker’s bonuses we have 'never had it so good.' And in a strange way I believe that when those of who are in paradise moan about the situation and how it affects us we are somehow taking the spotlight off those who  really are in difficulties. Perhaps this is the increasing challenge for politicians of all parties and for our society to ensure that all can access what the majority already has. But that might be the subject of another blog – be warned!

A weekly bath or the paddling pool -
but I can remember a tin bath filled with
 boiled up water  on a Friday night.

At the height of the tuition fees protest a few months ago BBC News interviewed a number of students who were rightly protesting and understandably anxious about their future in the light of the government’s proposals to introduce a significant rise in fees. A young man was interviewed and he complained bitterly about the government’s proposals. He had just completed his 'A' levels and done very badly – the result being that the university place he thought he had was no longer available. He was therefore going on a gap year. He complained that this was going to cost his parents some thousands and that it would delay his eventual entry into university and he might therefore be subject to the proposed increase in fees – costing both his parent’s and eventually himself money. I could see his logic and had a certain sympathy. 'Where are you going for your gap year?' asked the interviewer – the response was 'Thailand – I’m going to get a job in a beach bar'. He continued 'I think that it will be good – it will help my CV and give me the skills to  get a better job'.

At that point I lost the will to live – this seemed to me like the personification of Wells’ lotus eaters – totally out of touch with reality. Here is a young man complaining (not unreasonably) about a government policy that may well affect him. He is complaining that the fees increase will cause him and his parents financial hardship but in the same breath saying his parents and he will shell out significant money to spend a year on the beach in Thailand! Hmmmm. He furthers his argument by telling us that this year on a beach will enhance his CV and give him skills he was unable to access or develop in his previous twelve plus years in one of the finest educational systems in the world. I wonder on what basis he believes this? Having spent all that time in full time education he had still 'blown' his 'A levels but somehow thinks that a year working in a bar on a beach will make up for this and do what twelve plus years in school and the benefit of his parents’ support have not done. No matter how I try I cannot work out the logic of this. There seems no thought that 'I’ll use the year to improve my  academic qualifications  , or put the money I would spend in going to Thailand towards my increased potential university fees, or get some other work in the UK to boost my earning and my CV at the same time' – no a year on the beach in Thailand is going to solve all his problems. My feeling is that the young man needed a reality check.

No labour saving devices!

And this is the problem.  Although there are many things wrong in our society and many who are seriously disadvantaged, the majority are in relative paradise but don’t see it that way. The young man in question felt that the way to deal with a particular set of problems was to go off to a beach on the far side of the world. It is the same as the rest of us complaining that the government’s cuts will cause us great suffering – for many they will, but for most they will not.  I might be a little worse off, I might have to wait a bit longer in A & E, I might not get quite the expected interest on my savings, I might have to pay a bit more for my petrol, I might have to consider whether I can afford to go to the pub a couple of times a week or dine out with the same regularity – but for the majority few of these are life threatening decisions. They are choices – and the young student also was making choices – although there was a serious situation in relation to his qualifications and his future education or job prospects the opportunities were still there – if he did the right thing - if he made the right choice. His relative wealth and the safety net provided by society meant that he had, like the rest of us,  options and choices  and a beach in Thailand was his choice, his preferred option! In years gone by he may well have not had that choice - the failed qualifications may have meant an end to his aspirations, his parents may simply have been unable to have considered funding his gap year - whatever. I wish him well – except if I ever interviewed him for a place at university or a job I might be unimpressed by his life style choices and his logic! 


But in our way we are all like him - increased wealth, changes in society  and the like have meant that for the vast majority of us it is all about choices and not hard life and death decisions. The safety net of the welfare state, the benefits of our health and education system, the quality of our housing and the rest mean that the vast majority do not have to make the same tough decisions about life and death  that our grandfathers and grandmothers had to make. Compared with our grandparents we are in paradise. The vast majority of the decisions that we make are about  how we can make life a bit more comfortable rather than whether we have anything to eat  - when that is the decision one has to make it focuses the mind somewhat and thoughts of a beach in Thailand become of less significance or do not even come into the equation!   

'Oh think twice, it's just another day for you, 
You and me in paradise'.