CONFESSIONS
They say confession is good for the soul. I'm not too sure about that but as I haven't made any New Year resolutions I thought I might as well take stock of the situation before I plunge into my 77th year, after all Socrates is reputed to have said that “The unexamined life isn't worth living”. The first thing I have to realise is that as you get older you have to accept changes in your life. I'm sure many of you know all about this. Certain things that you took for granted become difficult if not impossible. I can't trust my knees these days and long walks are a thing of the past. I should say that in the past I have been very free with my advice to people suffering similar ailments that it might be a good thing if they lost a bit of weight and took some of the stress off their knees. I promise I am applying this to myself and quietly losing a bit of weight, it's working, there is an improvement.
I don't know about you, perhaps I am peculiar, but I find I am developing funny little habits, I think I'm turning into my Uncle Tom! He was notable for his habit of humming snatches of Handel's Messiah under his breath and I realise that I am doing the same thing but a low whistle and hymn tunes! So, if you see me walking about with partially pursed lips don't worry, I'm probably in the middle of 'Oh God our help in ages past...' which seems to be a favourite. These habits started to appear a while ago. About 15 years ago I was staying with my daughter Janet in Australia and I said to her one day “Have you noticed that when Holly (my grand-daughter) sits down she gives a big sigh? Do you think she might have a pain?” Janet started hooting with laughter and told me that there was nothing wrong with her, she was imitating me! I hadn't realised that I did it, a big sigh when I sat down.
It isn't just habits that are changing. I find that as I get older I have to be careful not to be a grumpy old man. It's very easy to look at modern ways and say to yourself “We never did that!” It can be anything from littering to vandalism or even using swear words. The fact is that the world is changing and perhaps leaving us behind and we just have to accept it. I think the trick is to look at the new things which are good and be glad because one thing is certain, if we simply regard all change as bad we will end up being bitter and twisted and I don't want that to happen to me.
However, there is one aspect of change in my life that has quite surprised me. As long as I can remember I have listened to the news and formed opinions about what was happening in my world. Listening to the Nine O'clock News on the BBC during the war was essential. I can still remember thinking that the small town of Marshalling Yards in Germany must have been the most bombed place in the world. As I grew older politics interested me, I saw the great days when the 1945 Labour government completely changed our lives by introducing the NHS and lifting the burden of debt and inequality caused by illness off everybody's shoulders. We forget today that access to a doctor was a matter of charity or paying large sums of money. The NHS gave us proper health care free at the point of delivery as a right, not a concession. I think it was then that I realised how important politics was to our lives. I was impressed by the great statesmen we had and the power of their speeches in Parliament which on occasions changed the course of history. Later in life I started reading the history and learning even more about the mechanisms and the difficulties these men and women faced. They didn't all rise through the ranks, some were born to privilege but I admit I loved to hear people like Bessie Braddock who was a real battleaxe but her heart was in the right place. She started dirt poor and all her life fought for women, better maternity care and the young. She used to stand up and speak her mind and at times this made things very difficult for her.
For a while now I have been searching in vain for someone of similar calibre in politics and I don't mind which party they come from. Essentially I want to hear a politician who has principles and isn't driven solely by the pursuit of money and power. I haven't had any luck, they all seem to be career politicians who have taken a degree in Politics and Economics, got a job as a researcher for an established name and got a seat without ever having experienced life at the grass roots level. We forget now that even an old Establishment figure like Harold Macmillan got to know the working class during his service in the Great War and never forgot it. When he lost his seat at Stockton on Tees in 1929 the Conservative press crowed that 'The Socialist Captain Macmillan' had been defeated even though he was a Conservative MP.
So, my confession is that I have given up on politics. Whether it is my age or some insight gained from long experience I don't know but I have difficulty drawing any distinction between the leaders of the three major parties. They look to me as though they all came out of the same jelly-mould. They are all well-off, totally inexperienced in the real world of work and struggle to survive and are totally engrossed in ya-boo politics. I see no evidence of deep conviction that the role of Parliament, apart from running the country, is to defend the rights of those least able to do it themselves, the lower income groups, the disadvantaged and the disabled. I see a clear regression to the laisser faire attitudes of the 19th century where profits and the personal wealth of the top 10% of the country were safeguarded by extracting cheap labour from the most important section of the economy, the people who actually add value and produce real money as opposed to the phantom trillions washing through our banks and financial institutions. I grew up in a world where you gained status by personal conduct, hard work and honesty. Today the only measure of worth in society I can detect is the ability to consume. We live in a world driven by advertising and greed and we see obscene levels of pay among those with the power to command. I freely admit to being an disillusioned old social democrat but there are many from the Right of politics who would agree with me.
So, I shall note what is going on in the world but stop allowing it to affect me so much. There's no point in me being permanently angry. I shall cop out and tell the young it's up to you now. If you can't be bothered to participate and fight for improvement that's your problem, not mine. I have run my course and done my bit and I refuse to allow my life to be spoiled by corrosive feelings. Perhaps, at last, I've grown up!
Two steeplejacks, essential workers, both died young. The Bullingdon Boys have no idea of their lives.
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