This week in our Tuesday ‘town hall’ meeting where Hayley and Lauren and I chat to the team before work and it’s videoed and sent on Slack, we were discussing the current economic situation and how that might affect us as a business and as a team and as individuals.
Talking about these things out loud, I think, is really important because it chases away the ghosts and the demons that the darkness can bring.
During the chat I was talking about my vague memories of 1978 and the winter of discontent where the massive striking across multiple industries and terrible weather and horrible economic conditions made for a real rough time for so many people
In conversations with my Mum and Dad and vague pieces of memory, I can picture myself going to my Granny and Grandads house in a really poor part of Greenock (the town where I was born) to take them hot food on a Thursday night which was likely the only hot food they would get all week.
My Grandfather had been a manual labourer in the shipyards and my Granny had done various jobs, whatever she could get but was also quite skilled at pawning her bed sheets to get the family to pay day.
This was in the middle of a labour government and the country was completely broken following a series of events and strategies and difficulties that put us to our knees.
And so, I guess the question is are things better now?
As a 6-year-old at that time all I can remember is what it was like to be a 6-year-old and Archie Gemmill scoring goals for Scotland in world cups in Argentina, but my parents remember it.
I can remember what my Granny and Grandads house was like, heated only by a coal fire in the living room which also heated the water and how cold it was upstairs in the bedrooms and how frightened they seemed.
They had an old Anderson shelter at the bottom of their garden which had been actively used in the second world war to dodge the bombs that were dropped in the shipyards and was turned into a garden shed which was an amazing exploration ground for little boys like my Brother and I but also a little bit frightening (and particularly sharp on the edges I remember).
The life my children lead now is a billion, billion miles away from that and the life the adults lead is too.
There is no question things are more comfortable now.
There’s no question we have more luxury now.
There’s no question that society (overwhelmingly) is healthier now.
I’m not sure that we’re happier though.
Perhaps during this period, we might click Amazon a little bit less and reduce a little bit down what we eat and drink and maybe increase, a little bit, the amount of time we spend outside and we might realise that things are a lot better and they could also, almost certainly, be a lot happier.
Blog Post Number - 3119
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