More Pension Propaganda

Remember this head line; Lost in Iceland: £1 billion from councils, charities and police.

Seriously do they think we have no memory at all? Over the last few months the government have been using a strange language when it comes to public sector pensions. Apparently public sector pensions do not function in the same way as all other pensions. Workers pay their money in every month, the organisation pay’s its contribution thus far all is equal (and I don’t mean in monetary terms). When it comes to payment time however the language changes and it is now the tax payer that has to foot the bill for the pensions of these horrid public sector workers. The language used could leave us thinking that these workers were receiving a pension for free. Not that they were simply receiving a return on money they have invested over time.  I honestly think I need educating in this area! I thought that when public sector workers paid their pensions, that money was invested in the markets just as per any other pension.

The idea I thought was that their money along with the contribution from their employer would go to work for them, and their pension would be paid out of the profits made on their original investment. The truth is public sector pensions are invested in the markets and every Local Government Pension Scheme has to have a statement of investment principles.

Here is part of an example I found online.

The target asset allocation and scheme specific benchmark are:

                        s          30%     in UK equities

                        s          30%     in overseas equities

                                                  9%     in US

                                                  9%     in Europe

                                                  6%     in Japan

                                                  6%     in Pacific Basin and Emerging Markets

                        s          15%     in index linked securities

                        s          10%     in corporate bond securities

                        s          10%     in property

                        s           5%     in private equity investments

So basically the new plan is public sector workers pay more in and get less out as the public purse cannot afford to keep its workers so well.  

I do admit that there may be a debate to be had about public sector pensions; the whole pension based on your final salary may well be unfair and the truth is we are all living a lot longer and that means receiving our pensions for much longer. I have heard some pretty good debates about this all week. I am afraid that none of these including Cameron’s eloquently delivered speech today have completely convinced me that such drastic changes are entirely necessary.

As stated above I am thrown by the argument that public sector pensions are breaking the public sector piggy bank. This argument looses me because I have a tiny bit of understanding around how investment works. Enough to know that when we give our money to financial institutions to invest and they pay us a return of say 4%, that is not how much they have made with our money. They have probably made a minimum of 8%. What does this like in monetary terms? If I invest £10,000 for twelve years at 6% I will double my cash to £20,000. The financial institution that had my money for those ten years could have invested that money straight into the stock market. Let’s say for arguments sake that they have made a 12% return. By the end of those twelve years they will have also made £20,000 for themselves with money that was not even there’s. I agree, these figures do not sound too bad when you consider that they are taking all of the risks and if they lose my money they still have to pay me my agreed 6% right?

So how much money can they make on the markets? Just have a look at banker’s wages and bonuses and that will give you some idea! Way more than 12% I think. I have heard of people who made literally a 100% return over 12 months by investing in Gold Just before the “recession” began in 2008.  So 1 million pounds became 100 million pounds.

The truth is that the local government should be making way more than it is paying out and if it is not, well then, they need to sack their investors.  The real truth maybe that their profit margins are down!  Just imagine how high those profit margins were when most people died within 10 years of cashing in their retirement.

I have to ask? is it a coincidence that out public services lost significant amounts of money in 2008 that apparently did not matter much at the time but now they do not have enough money for pensions.  I acknowledge I could be way of track here but It seems to me that public sector workers may be being asked to do a fair bit more than just pay for their own pension. They might be being asked to refill the coffers of the public purse and foot the bill created by the financial organisations that lost the money in the first place. Oh does this sound familiar? I guess it’s a given now in the UK that poor Joe Bloggs will bail out our financial services whenever they mess up.

I guess I just feel that the political spin doctors are at work again, using phrases “like the tax payers purse” to justify their actions. In fact I think it would be helpful if our government woke up to the fact that the general public are not so easily fooled by their spin as we used to be. The people are a little more educated now; no matter how hard they push their agenda’s in the media. You only have to look at the response to the NHS reforms and their forestry commission plan to see that the people will not simply roll over and say ok; just because someone important tells them that their latest policy or plan is best for our country.

A country built on relationships: Lord Glasman

“The next election is ours, with a really patriotic celebration of the country built on relationships” Lord Glasman the Times May 14^th 2011.

OK then!

This was one of my most interesting reads of the weekend not least because I felt a little like I was sitting on a pew in my local church. Lord Glasman promoting a political ideology that would support and strengthen family and social relationships. I certainly agree with those values, I am not sure quite how his “blue labour” would deliver but I am happy to go along with the thought for now.

I found it quite cheery to find somebody writing if only a little about what I think is the most important thing in life, human interactions, warmth and though he did not say it directly love.  Even though I do like to know what is happening in the world in which we live and I am quite passionate about politics, gazing too frequently at these subjects can occasionally leave me feeling a little or a lot dejected. Power crazed dictators, Power crazed “democratic” politicians, Power crazed business people… Hearts filled with what appears to be unreasonable hatred resulting in the death of innocent people. Policies and co-operate greed that place’s families under unnecessary pressures and worries as they struggle to make ends meet. It can all become a little bit gloomy.

In the end though, despite all of this I love life, and I love life because of people. Because of the human interactions I encounter every single day.

The importance of human relationships has popped up rather frequently of late in arenas that one might not expect, so to hear a view that a focus on those relationships could be the key to who wins the next election absolutely caught my attention and I have to admit made me laugh a little.

Whilst in training recently the other delegate and I were told that human beings are the only mammal’s that are born with absolutely no ability to look after or provide for itself. We unlike most mammals cannot move ourselves from one place to another for months and do not have the ability to walk for around a year. We have no ability to protect ourselves from danger or to provide ourselves with food. Most Mammals can walk within minutes thus having some ability to move if they need too, granted many require their mother milk to survive but they can at least make their own way to the source of their nourishment.

We were told how fairly recent breakthroughs in the ability to study electrical patterns in the brain confirm that the brain requires relationships to develop normally. The brain of course is key to a person’s ability to develop in every area of their lives. In short they have found that when a baby is not nurtured, cared for, interacted with, given hugs and kisses that child’s brain does not develop adequately resulting in often debilitating impacts upon educational achievement and emotional/behavioural development.

I can hear the voices of many of my friends saying Lou, didn’t we now this already. I guess we did from a social science, psychological and religious perspective but now medical science has the technology to see the physical impact of neglect and abuse upon the brain.

It was not the first time I had seen these pictures but they are pretty graphic.

Above left is the picture of a child that has had their needs generally met by their parents during infancy. The red indicates the parts of the brain that have been developed; they are active and generally being used. On the right is the picture of the brain of a child from an orphanage in Romania as you can see there are massive gaps. (Very old picture)

I remember only too well reading some research about children from Romanian orphanages who were adopted in America. They found that a large proportion of these children experienced learning disabilities and behavioural/emotional difficulties as teenagers despite the fact that they had been adopted since their infancy. The authors argued that the lack of stimulation they had experienced as babies had affected their ability to develop “normally”.

I may not agree with everything that comes out of Lord Glasman’s mouth but I do agree that family and real community are important. I happen to think they are important no matter what age you are and without them all of the other stuff that we do does not really mean a thing.

With this in mind and with all the negative news we have been hearing of late I have to say thank you to the BBC for also cheering my spirits over the weekend with a story of human warmth and compassion in the midst of war.  They told a nice little story of a German soldier who was captured and then imprisoned in a prison camp in Scotland. The now very old man recounted a wonderful story of how the community treated him well during those years of war between Brittan and Germany. They treated him so well that when he passes away his estate will be donated to the elderly people of Comrie and his ashes will be spread upon the mountains that overlook that small village.

I comfort myself with what I believe is the fact that in all of these war torn lands there are many stories of human warmth and compassion, that are just not reported in our daily news. I am grateful for the relationships that help me to flourish be they personal or professional and even for the little community in which I live that feels safe, secure warm and friendly.

One of my many favorite  motto's “to love and be loved”

Politics; Money and the Lower Middle Classes

Class! quite a thought provoking subject. There are those who refuse to be defined by class, refusing to be labelled and possessing a strong value system that disagrees with placing people in different classes that in some way supposes that one group of people is better than another.

Though I can relate to such a concept from an ideological perspective and would love to align myself with such thinking, I feel that class is an increasingly imposing aspect of our society.  England never had a French revolution, our aristocracy have remained firmly in their social positions for decades, their children continue to enjoy the privileges that that their birth rights defer on them. A top class education paid in full by their parents, inherited property and land and as I have talked about recently clear routes into some of the most influential positions in Britain.

I believe it may have been Margaret Thatcher who tried to convince us that the American Dream should be part of our national value system. Sure it was never called that but the whole idea of a market led economy, the idea that everybody should be able to own their own property and that social mobility was possible for anyone who was willing to work hard to achieve their dreams became a message loud and clear. For a while, I believe we were caught up in the euphoria of our great achievements. We purchased our council properties and then sold them to buy nice houses on private estates. Yes social mobility in action!

Well excuse my scepticism please but there are a number of factors that make me feel social mobility is not on the increase in the UK, the main one being the ever increasing gap between the rich and the poor. I do try not to be a conspiracy theorist but I cannot help but feel there has been a systematic approach to undermine social mobility in the UK and ensure that leading this country is left to its natural leaders. A bit strong? Maybe yes, but to me class remains one of the single most defining factors in a person’s life. Whether you agree with me or not I guess depends on how you define class.

I am apparently now middle class. I am defined as such due to my education and my profession. Well to think that I might be in the same class as Kate Middleton to me is laughable. She again had a top class education culminating in her place at St Andrews which is where she met her husband to be. She could well be a case for social mobility achieved through marriage; the Middletons may be one of the first middle class families in Britain to have their own coat of arms. My point is my life and hers were poles apart long before she met her Prince.

I believe money has a large part to play, it dictates the extent to which you can help your children on their way in life, it dictates the area’s in which you can live, the people with whom you can socialise and the extent to which art and culture can be a part of your life. Yes there are of course exceptions to this; there are exceptions to everything but in the main your financial circumstances play a large part in how exactly you live your life and with whom.

So what has been happening to the finances of the lower middle classes?  Well we are of course the squeezed middle and I feel we have been squeezed for some time now. Just a quick look at what we could get for our money in the 80’s and early 90’s compared to now and you understand why social mobility is in fact on the decrease.

So in 1980, the average teacher apparently earned around £20,000 does not sound like very much now. When you consider however the cost of living, things look much better. The average house in the West Midlands cost £22,000. So by purchasing a house three times their income a teacher in the West Midlands could purchase a nice semi-detached house in a nice part of town. Send their children to the best local schools etcetera, etcetera. That is why we are able to watch retired teachers on shows like escape to the country, selling up their city homes for up to five hundred thousand pounds and moving to nice expensive “middle class” rural areas, all made possible by the property boom they were lucky enough to experience. Things are looking very different for the next generation, the average teacher now earns around £34,000 a big increase, but the average house in the West Midlands is now around £178,000. As you can see the average teacher may have difficulty even making it onto the property ladder. My experience is that they may be able to purchase an apartment or small house built in the middle of an inner city deprived area, not offering their children the same privileges as their predecessors.

Bearing this in mind I find it absolutely ridiculous that the current government felt that it was wise to bring the higher tax rate threshold down to £35,000. Seriously people who are earning let’s say £40,000 cannot even purchase a decent property in much of the UK and yet are expected to pay 40% tax on earnings over £35,000. Is this really a morally sound policy? Under the current structure social mobility may be almost impossible for the next generation, when you add to all of this the fact that they will also be paying off their tuition fees for most of their working life there may well be very little disposable income left for the privileges outlined above.

I recognise that there are many different opinions on this subject, this is just mine. I also know that in the grand scheme of things none of this may actually matter but I believe from a social justice perspective it actually does.

Adoption; A More Balanced Debate Please

So between Michael Gove and Tim Loughton they are certainly keeping the subject of adoption in the public eye. Many accusations are being levied at adoption agencies up and down the country. Tim feels that there is a discrepancy between the numbers of adoption agencies that are achieving good and outstanding ratings from Ofsted and the national picture of adoption. Their main concern seems to be the drop in numbers of adopted children. “children; are languishing in the care system” apparently because agencies do not want to place ethnic minority children with white adopters. Hmmm

I have been asked if I have an opinion on the current debate and the answer of course is yes. I have an opinion about most things. It is true however that my opinions on this subject are influenced by two factors, 1) I work in adoption and 2) I am a dual heritage person. 

Tim Loughton and Michael Grove, seem to be of the opinion that cultural identity just does not matter, “love” apparently is all that a child needs. Well what a wonderful world we would live in if this were actually the case.

There is one set of figures that neither Tim or Michel is making any reference too. These are the figures that create an uneasy feeling for all committed Social Workers and bring devastation to children and their families. We all love to believe that adoption is the happy ever after for children and their new parents. Social Workers up and down this country comfort themselves when they achieve adoption for a child now feeling assured that this child who has experienced the trauma of abuse and/or neglect, the trauma of being removed from the only carers they had ever known are now going to live happily ever after with their new parents. However, as all Social Workers know far too well, this is not always the case. Large numbers of adopted children return to the care system later on in their lives as their adopters find they simply cannot manage their behaviours as their adopted children grow older. Adoption breakdown is the term we use to describe such events and they were at around 20% in 2008; seriously 2 in every 10 children who are adopted will end up back in the care system. Imagine the trauma for those children, they are removed from their birth parents, something they often internalise as rejection and then they have to leave the parents that chose them. Double Rejection!

For me, one of the most important factors to consider and one that appears to have been somewhat overlooked in recent debates, is that most of the children adopted out of care now do not share the same characteristics and experiences of the babies that were adopted in the sixties. The average age of a child being adopted in the UK was 4.4 years of age in 2005. This is much older than in the sixties, also a lot of children who were placed for adoption in the sixties were relinquished by their birth parents and not removed from parents for the reasons outlined above. This is a significant difference as we all know the early years of a child’s life are considered to be the most important. By the age of 4 many children already have an inner blue print that will to some extent determine their ability to develop both emotionally and educationally for the rest of their lives.

The truth is that there are in fact a number of factors outside of love that effect the chances of an adoption placement working and as the politicians have rightly communicated, research generally concurs that the age of the said child at the time of placement is one of the single most important factors. I for one completely agree that no child for whom adoption is in their best interest should be left in foster care whilst Social Workers hold out for a perfect match. Perfect matches are rarely found but good matches are a regular occurrence.

I do however completely refute the idea that all that is wrong with adoption is that Social Workers refuse to place ethnic minority children with the millions of waiting available and willing white adopters. As usual within mainstream media this debate lacks any real balance.  As somebody who works in adoption I can report that in my small authority we have made at least 5 trans-racial placements in the last twelve months. Sadly I can also reports that despite this we still have too many Black and dual heritage children waiting to be adopted. We also have a small number of adopters waiting to adopt. So why don’t we just give them the waiting children.  Simply put, they do not want them!

Most of the White British adopters that approach our agency have done so because they have been unable to conceive naturally and they now want to adopt a White British child who ideally looks something like them no older than 3. Hence it is not only black and dual heritage children we find difficult to place but any child aged 4 and above.

Should we just take away their choice and tell people that if they want to adopt then they will just have to take what they are offered???  Anyone who works in the field knows exactly what this approach would lead to. Yes we are back to the subject of adoption breakdowns. As we are back on that subject let me also point out that research also indicates that one of the many small things that help an adoptive placement work is the adopter’s ability to empathise with their child and promote their identity needs.

There are many White British people who are more than able to do this for a child of a different ethnicity. People who are open to other cultures, people who have friends and family members from different nationalities, people who like to experiment with different foods and have an inclination to travel where possible. I hear you saying aren’t most people like this? My experience say’s actually NO.  Some people cannot comprehend the issues that a black or Asian child growing up in a white family would face; have zero understanding with regards to structural inequalities, they have no idea how they would support them through racism and how they would help such a child build a positive self-image. They are so convinced that we are all the same that no amount of training seems to convince them that they might have to make some changes to accommodate a child of a different ethnicity to their own. Their expectation is that the child will just assimilate into the culture of their family; they will lose their own distinctiveness and take on the distinctiveness of the said White British family.

Bearing this in mind I have failed to hear in the debate any discussion about the importance of maintaining a child’s cultural identity. The people who have printed their stories of trans-racial adoption have talked about being loved, being given opportunities but no mention of their personal cultural identity or how they identify with their birth community. In fact in this debate I fear the politicians do not hold any regard to the importance of maintaining ones cultural identity. I on the other hand have read and heard many other stories about trans-racial placements where in the main people have spoken about being loved but have also spoken about feeling different, inadequate and some who have searched out their cultural identity on their own as adults.

As a dual heritage person I have made it my business to use the research that is available when undertaking assessments of adopters in relation to trans-racial placements. I do this because I am aware that my own experiences and values could impact upon my work in this area.   I see myself as being extremely secure in my identity. I have never experienced the identity crisis that many of my dual heritage friends have conversed about. I always knew that I was both black and white and I always felt completely happy with that fact. In fact I have felt privileged to be a part of two communities simultaneously. Two communities I hear some of you say. We surely should be just one community fashioned out of the “melting pot” of a cosmopolitan society.

As somebody who flows freely between two differing cultures I would argue that the knowledge and experience of one’s cultural heritage is life enriching but I fear that discussion is for another day.

To conclude. Yes to trans-racial placements but it would be nice if Minister Gove and Minister Loughton showed a little more balance in their outcry’s about the failing adoption policies they seem to think we have. It would also be nice if they showed a little more insight into the complex issues faced when placing a six year old child from a minority ethnic group with white adopters. And please, please lets us not lose sight of the fact that White British adopters adopting from another ethnic group must have the skills and the lifestyle to be able to promote a positive sense of identity as well as the unconditional Love that every child needs.

EDUCATION AND STUDENT FEES

I have to admit when I first heard about the new plans for student fee’s I felt furious. Education should be free. When I went to university to undertake my undergraduate degree, my student fees were paid by my local authority and I had to take a loan to help support myself through the course. I always had a job and worked a minimum of 8 hours a week but usually it was more like 15. my debt when I finished my undergraduate was £10,500.

At the core of my value system I believe that everybody should have a right to a free education.  For me knowledge is not purely a means to a decent income but an opportunity to widen one’s mind. An opportunity for personal growth and through education a person can come to understand the wider context of our being. The study of civilisations and wars can enrich our understanding of ourselves, our action, our beliefs and where they come from. I believe that a good education can bring meaning to life. For example when I consider my ancestry and the many people who have given their lives for the freedom that I enjoy, I am inspired to use that freedom positively, to experience as much of this life as I can, to use the freedoms that were won for me to good affect and to progressively move forward in my own life time.

Since the beginning of this debate I have noticed that the media have been keen to communicate with working and lower middle class young people. There has been an emphasis on studying vocational courses. The message is loud and clear, do not study a subject that will not guarantee you a job at the end of it.  The kinds of courses they are pointing these young people to, doctors, nurses, social workers, engineers, teachers and the like. Do not study history or politics, do not try and enter journalism it is to competitive and it is unlikely that you will succeed. This on the surface sounds like good and practical advice.

I can’t help but notice that the working and lower middle class are being directed towards the kind of jobs that were once termed as “trade” by the upper class in the UK.  Though all of these professions are good and indeed I occupy one of them, they are but jobs that carry with them very little influence.

If however you have the opportunity to study politics, history, even the sciences to higher levels, well you could end up being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds just to think. To think and advise the government about the way things should be done. For example just this week the specialists who advice the government with regards to our policy in the Arab world have been in the hot spot. These are people who have studied Arabian cultures, who have lived in their societies just to further their knowledge and understanding and are now paid substantial sums of money to share their knowledge with our policy makers.  More to my point they are highly influential individuals who have the opportunity to influence how Britain relates to Arab world.  The same is true for so many other areas such as economics and the like.

We personally have an acquaintance that has a son who is paid ridiculous money just to sit at his home in Scotland and think.

In my view the recent discourses about education are geared at keeping the large majority of people in their place. The ruling class of old can continue to enrol on the kind of courses that set them up to become political leaders whilst the working and middle classes continue to work in the fields that were assigned to them decades ago. This surely is the natural order of things!

So back to student fees I would just like to point out that a free education was abolished under the Labour government and students have for some time now had to take a loan not only for living costs but also for their student fees. Below are some figures outlining how much students have to pay for their education now and how much they will have to pay under the proposed system. The figures below are based on annual student fees of £6,500 as this seems to be the general consensus amongst most universities at the moment.

Proposed System                                                  Current system

3 years at university = £34,350 @9%              3 years at University = £24,720

Average earning of £25,000                             Average earning of £25,000

=10,800 @ £30 per month 30yrs                     =22,500 @ £75 per month 25yrs

                                                                        £11,700 more

..........................................................

Average earning of £30,000                             Average earning of £30,000

Repayment 30 years                                        Repayment 25 years

= 24,300 @ 67.50 per month.                         = 33,750 @ 112.50

                                                                       £9450 more

……………………………………………………………

Average earnings of £40,000                           Average earning £40,000

Repayment 30 years = 51,300                         Repayment 15 years = 33,750

= £51300 @ £142.50 per month                     = 24,720 @ 187.50 per month

£17,750 more

...............................................................

Average earnings of £50,000                           Average earnings of £50,000

=44,370 @ £217.15 per month 17 year      34,650 @ £262.50 per month 11 yrs

£9,720 more

……………………………………………………………………

Sorry for the lay out I could have done a better job.  As you can see for yourself though I am loathed to admit the con/dem’s proposed system could indeed be cheaper for some students although those students will be paying something back for 30 years.  All I can say is that if the calculator I have used is accurate try not to earn an average of £40,000 because if you do, you will pay back the most and will be well and truly ripped off in comparison with your fellow students. The cynic in me feels that £40,000 might be just about the average graduate income by the time the 2012 students have made their way into the market place. Who knows?

All I ask is that you give your career some thought before buying into the media led value system that if you do go to university you must do a vocational course with a guaranteed job at the end of it.  If that is what you want, then that it is all well and good, I love my profession and hope that I get to remain in it for some time yet.  But if you desire something else then you will have to learn how to take risks and that may begin with your undergraduate course. I do know of a few working class people who have made it into professions of influence, who have become journalists and gained positions in politics. If you really believe you are made for something then I believe you just have to go for it.

http://www.savethestudent.org/student-debt-calculator

Cosmopolitan/integrated society

On a bus travelling though North London as a local school turned out.  It was a cold snowy day and I had been sat in a corner of that bus for some time. The children were lively and excitable not at all deterred by the weather.  It was the last day of term before the Christmas break and I think the snow made it all the more exciting. Snowballs where flying and there was lots of laughter and smiles.

It was not long however before I noticed something that was for me quite disturbing.  First my attention had been drawn to three white girls. The reason my eye followed them for a while was due to the fact that one of them was wearing only a knee length skirt and a pair of ankle socks, her school top and a waist length jacket. I wondered how cold she must have been with the temperature at the time being -2.  They quickly passed out of my thoughts.  As I continued to people watch three girls got on the bus and stood right in front of me, only a glass patrician separated us and being on a bus there was nowhere else to look other than forward and straight at them. There were two black girls and one dual-heritage girl.  They were quite well mannered and chatty, quite loud and flamboyant; they made me smile as their behaviour reminded of watching younger family members. Opposite them in the other direction were three Muslim girls who were from the same school, much quieter in their conversation but smiling and laughing as they talked among themselves.

It was not until most of the school children had exited the bus and things again became much quieter that I began to reflect on what I had seen.  It was then that I realised that as I had watched hundreds of children leave their school in a diverse area of North East London I had seen no mixed groups of children.  Black children were with Black children, White children were with White children and Asian children were with Asian children.

Before long I was considering a recent new story.

“Oldham, Burnley and Bradford were scenes of vicious race riots in 2001. Simmering tensions overspilt in the former mill towns, causing millions of pounds’ worth of damage and injuring hundreds of police officers. Reports later blamed the “shocking” segregation of white and Asian communities, who were leading completely polarised lives just streets apart.

Now, nearly a decade on, a unique social experiment involving schools is taking aim at the deep-rooted racial divisions that still exist. Oldham has decided to merge and reopen some of its most starkly segregated secondary schools, or move them to different areas to ensure a mixed intake, while using the fresh start to raise academic standards. It wants the next generation to grow up accustomed to other cultures, rather than being educated in homogeneous enclaves.

Breeze Hill, where 94 per cent of children are Asian or black, and Counthill, where about 93 per cent of pupils are white, will merge and reopen as Waterhead Academy, in a mostly white area that borders the Asian areas of Clarksfield and Glodwick. If all parents choose their nearest school, it will become racially blended”. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article7100438.ece

I remember the story being reported on the radio, they played the children from both school saying comments about each other that were in my opinion racist and ignorant and even worse filled with hate. Yes England is a diverse country, some parts being more diverse than others but diversity does not necessarily equal integrated. My father arrived here in the 60’s at a time when White British citizens were just becoming accustomed to sharing their streets, facilities and services with their new Black and then Asian neighbours. Racism in some places and people was horrific.  It was at this time that my parents met and got together. It was not an easy time for a black man and a white woman to be a couple but despite this there were also many people who chose to see beyond colour differences some of them became friends others fell in love. My parents met and lived in a town called Wolverhampton.  As I sat on the bus that day I felt quite proud of the town in which I grew up.

My little home town of Bilston in Wolverhampton has quite a history and for decades if not centaury’s was well known for its market. Until recent times people were willing to travel a fair few miles on a market day to see what treasures and bargains they could find. It is thought that Bilston Market has been around since medieval times and later became successful due to its location on the road to London. Bilston market would have sold items such as wool, flax and food, pretty much the same as it sells now, clothes, materials, and food. What many people do not know is that Bilston Market was one of the last places in the UK where a slave was actually sold (so one of our teachers at school told us).

However Wolverhampton for reasons I cannot quantify seems to have developed into not only a diverse but also quite an integrated community. At Some point between those years when my father arrived in the sixties and when I was born in the seventies the look of Wolverhampton changed significantly.  The town that I grew up in was one in which it was not rare to see communities mixing with one another. Yes there was some segregation. The black community had its culture centre and the Asian communities still grouped together and had its clear identity’s BUT and for me this was a big BUT. My parents always had friends who were White Black and Asian. The men in particular from all of the local communities mixed, talked and laughed together in their local pub.  I always had friends of every and any colour and visited their homes, ate their foods and danced their dances.

That day in north London brought about a smile in my heart as I remembered one of my closest groups of friends at school. Made up of two Asian girls, a white girl and myself, we were all from very different homes, with very different experiences but we shared our secrets and supported one another through some difficult times. Though we did not live particularly close to one another we would leave school together and part along the road to go our separate ways.

I feel privileged to have grown up in the town that I did and to have known the people that I knew. Yes I did experience some racism along the way but my secondary school experience was positive in almost every way. I shared my life with many different people and I think that helped to prevent the inset of cultural and religious ignorance.

Bilston is not the town it once was and my secondary school is a very different place. Racial tension seems to be on the increase.  The boom years are over for now and people perhaps are feeling a little less confident about their futures and a little less willing to be open to others.

Maybe there are a number of factors that influence how our communities interact with one another. I fear their may not be a simple answer for what appears to be the growing voluntary segregation of differing cultures within out communities. In the film Amazing Grace there is a scene in which William Wilberforce is exhorted to take up the fight against slavery again. His exhorter argued that England was now winning the war against France, that the people were less afraid, she pointed out that when the people stop being afraid they rediscover their compassion? I am not sure that it is compassion we need but maybe there is an emotion that we do need to rediscover as the cloud of fear passes over.

30 or 40 something?

I have been thinking lately about that word fight! By fight I do not mean to create a picture of two boxers in a ring or two gangs in a field, I’m not thinking of any of the many wars that plague our world. No I am speaking of that quality that enables individuals to face the most traumatic and difficult of circumstances and find the resolve and determination to keep going, to not give up.  I was talking to an older woman recently, this woman we shall call her Rose was a woman that lost her mother before she reached the age of two. Despite this loss, her primary years were idyllic. The rest of her childhood however could only be described as abusive and in my opinion the rest of her life hard.

Her story however, was not that different from many other working class people of her generation, they scrimped and scrapped in less than perfect marriages to feed and clothe their children. Without much of a thought Rose sold the precious gifts from around the world that had been given to her by her sailor father. Sold in order to buy much needed items or even just to take her children to the fair so that they would not realise their poverty and would feel equal to their peers but mostly just so that they could enjoy and experience the fun of the fair.

My point is, she never complained or felt that life was too hard, she just kept going. Apparently one of the biggest challenges we now face in the UK is that we all believe we have the right to self-actualise (we all want to see our dreams come to pass and feel fulfilled in the work and things we do). The researchers who always love to bring us good news have stated that we are experiencing midlife crisis’s earlier and this they say is due to the fact that people are making it to the top of their professions at a younger age.  The average age of a chief executive has apparently gone down from 58 to 49 in one generation. Some argue that these young successes may have peaked too early. With such early success they argue comes that feeling of what next, there has to be more to life and the hard realisation that money and success has not culminated in real fulfilment or happiness. The crisis also begins and for those who are still struggling in the rat race and have not yet achieved their ambitions, there is an earlier sense of failure and running out of time as they compare themselves to university friends who fit into the first category.

It was Relate who conducted this research and proceeded to tell us how it is the 30 and 40 something’s who are the most unhappy in today’s society. The pressures that come with over achievement, under achievement, sagging bodies, hard relationships and screaming children appear to be taking their toll.  

I am a dreamer, quite ambitious, I believed the world was my oyster from a very young age and saw no reason why I could not achieve all of my dreams. I set my expectations high. Interestingly at the times when things have not gone to plan and failure has become my experience the feeling I found most difficult to handle was the disappointment.

Is it better to have loved and lost than not loved at all? This saying applies to so many aspects of life. Is it better to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all? 

Oh there have been times when I have truly questioned this but YES, YES, YES! I have always believed in opening my heart to people, to opportunities, to life. This has inevitably resulted in failure, disappointment and even what feels like debilitating pain at times but it has also set me up for some of my most invigorating experiences and wonderful memories.

I guess I was so interested in this gloomy news because I am in the age category of which they are talking and though I do have my bad days, occasionally weeks in the main I would say that life is good and I am very blessed. Yes a little more of that paper stuff that buys things could lessen the strain and add to a greater sense of enjoyment but all in all things are good.

I suspect that the notion that my generation of 30 and 40 something’s are more unhappy than their predecessors might be a bit of a myth. I think when we look back it will be much like looking back on our teenage years. Most of us would not want to live them again but they were an adventure. Rose the woman form the beginning of this piece, when she looks back on her life, yes she has faced some difficult circumstances but what I love is that she also has so many fun and good stories to tell too. She has had her own adventures and tears of laughter often start to flow as she re-tells a story from the catalogue of her past. Whether it is about her experiences as a 60’s young woman, or parenthood or growing older, Rose has lived, she has shared life with others along the way and made memories that make others smile too.  So what gave Rose the resilience to keep going? was it those good time that ensured she never gave up.  I have learnt that a little time spent reflecting often reveals that there are more good times than bad, that we have achieved more than we realised and that there is more going for us than against us.

If more people in this generation believe we have the right to self-actualise, then I say good, this to me is progress. It means we are opening ourselves up to more opportunities and living life to the full.