Things in our world, our country and our region have changed so much and so much good has been done. The fight for equality for woman, races, religions, same sex couples. The advancement in technology with the internet, mobile phones, TV's, DAB Radio, household appliances. The way the world has shrunk and now most can travel abroad for education or holidays. DNA, with all its concerns has brought so many to justice who would have escaped it. I'm sure you can add many more things that are better or have improved peoples lives, but, are we any better off? We no longer have a Berlin wall or cold war but we have people dying in many parts of the world in uprisings, wars and and the aftermath of them. We have people regularly killing themselves and others in the name of some cause or other. We have human rights that seem to protect the inhuman and in many countries people still have no rights. We are afraid to let our children go out and play, dread them getting into gangs, drugs what used to be called a bad crowd. We have never been so materially rich or cash poor. We no longer have slaves but still have slavery. Thousands upon thousands of people die each year of starvation in a world of plenty. You may or may not believe in global warming but something is happening. I often have the thought that I'm not ready to die but I am pleased I'm at this end of life, have 60 year old's always felt that way and yes, I am aware that not long ago a 60 year old would be a rare thing because we died earlier. Don't you dare say bring back the old days....
Funny how our perception of our youth etc,, changes. Like many young women of her era, my mother was in service as a young lass, working for the gentry of the Wearside shipyards and whenever she heard folks talk about the '..good old days...' she would remind us that they were nothing of the kind, in fact she often referred to that period between the first and second world war as the bad old old days. So she was eternally grateful for the lifestyle developments that greatly improved her lifestyle, things that we now take for granted such as electricity replacing gas lighting in the home and inside toilets instead of the outside 'netty'. Yet once again the pendulum has swung the other way, because I now look at my grandchildren and feel so sad that they will never experience the freedom and innocence that I enjoyed as a kid. It's unbelievable to think that at the age of ten or so, our 'gang' would regularly walk to Penshaw Monument - a distance of about 3 miles each way across fields and spend all day playing around the monument with only a bottle of water and a jam sandwich to keep us going until teatime. Unlike my mother, I genuinely I think they WERE the good old days!
Ah the monifit spent many a happy afternoon around there and if we were really lucky find a SWING somewhere near the viaduct. We lived in the village but used to merrily hop on our bikes down there..... supervised of course me big brother was there and he was 8. I'm only mid thirties but do kids really not do this any more???? I know there are deviants but they are very rare, what the hell do they do all summer????
It is what you make it............ Some are happy plodding along each day where-as some want more... Sod the good old days, these are good times....
Comm, You are dead right, life is what you make of it and you can be assured I make sure I get my share and so far I've no complaints. However, you can't deny that we have all become 'imprisoned' by modern living and everything that goes with it - with constant pressure from the so-called PC brigade who seem to want to control how we should live our lives. Glad they weren't around to influence my life, otherwise I may have turned out to be just another miserable old git!!
Totally mate, it's a nanny state...and apart from the odd thing i miss i.e the footy and some old mates, i don't miss living there...
I willl never be PC and always let my kids play outside when they were growing up. Can anybody tell what people did before mobile phones pleas?
Can I take us down a new road, a very personal one to me. Today, like every Wednesday, I visited my 86 year old mother in her care home and sat with around 20 woman and 10 men. All have dementia, all in their 80's and above, all with lost dignity, in adult nappies, need taking to the toilette, many need feeding, none have a clue were they are or who they are. The advance in health care means they are all living but in time gone by would have probably have passed away. Every week I leave, often with tears in my eyes, knowing my mother would never have wanted to end like this. Is she better off?
I think Syd with out a major shift in evolution we have reached and breached the working span for the human body. Yes there are Bruce Forsythes etc who you can point to and more power to them but I think they are the exception rather than the rule. The right to determine the (happy) span on your own life is an issue which should have been in the forefront of public thinking for sometime now but alas has been avoided in the main as it is deemed too toxic I think by most politicos. With the ever growing crisis in pensions, the duration people in the current market will be expected to work and the all too often shocking conditions that we leave our elderly in (when as you say most are too weak or far gone and have no one to fight for them), no unfortunately I think in a lot of cases the elderly aren't better off being alive. I know my grandmother (who was virtually housebound for years) often spoke of her desire not to go on. A full, frank and realistic discussion on this issue is the only rational course. However, how the hell as a son you even begin to contemplate these sort of issues............
Now that's deep, and i really don't have an answer........ But as long as the elderly want to carry on, it's everyone's duty to make the best for them...
Exactly as long as they want to and you are right but we fall way short of the best in a lot of cases
Unfortunately we can't and perhaps it's best that way. My mother had a goood and full life but the years after my father passed on (they were together for 65 years) were absolute hell for her and I know she wouldn't have objected if she had gone soon after. But she stuck it out, probably '..for the family...' but I know for a fact that she didn't enjoy those later years. Despite my experience, I am no closer to an answer to this awful dilemma.
Same with my nana, although she had her marbles until a year or so till the end her body/lifestyle had let her down long before that. She was 20 years without me grandad and although there were high points (She put in her posh teeth and was up till 3 in the morning at me wedding, not bad for 90!!!!) a big part of her life and her really died that day. I guess if you are lucky enough to have spent 50+ years with someone, how can life be the same or even good again without them..... A awfully beautiful thing a life eh?
My nana is going through the same at the moment.. I get reports of her being ok one day, and the next she is found wandering the streets..Slips out of her housing... She was the family figurehead when she had her house in Ford Estate, but times dictate the a single person can't or should not have a large house, that is suitable for a family.....fair one i guess...but still hard to take... She served as a nurse during her teens in the latter part of the war, when her husband was killed serving with Monty..... If it wasn't for these people we and the country would be nothing............if they need help, they should get it.
Good article and there are plenty of arguments for and against. personally I think that the good old days were a myth in some ways. I am 63 tomorrow and I think that our generation was definitely spoilt in the 60's with our music which is still as popular today as it was then, we had different bands coming out every week, Jethro Tull, Stones, Pink Floyd etc..., and we lived for the music, I definitely think that today's youth has lost out on somewhat, but they have their smart phones to play with and they seem happy enough with that so who am I to judge them. I also think the today's children have lost the art of play, we used to spend hours playing on the bombed out houses in Hendon, it was like an adventure play ground to us, I suppose but we knew nothing else, and we were happy as larks.. I also believe that the best thing ever to happen to the North East, and Sunderland in particular was the closing down of the shipyards and pits, they were horrible places, I have worked for years in shipyards all over the world and I have mates who were down the pits and they were even worse than the yards, don't ever let anyone tell you that it was good job because it wasn't, it was slave labour, it improved towards the end but in the early days and before my time it was absolutely horrendous.
Loads of points there and all good ones. This leaves me full of guilt because I was and am very close to my mother and for as long as I can remember she would order, whatever happens, never ever put me in a home. When the day arrived I had no choice, either my sister and I picked the home or social services would. She needed 24/7 care and we could not provide it, time yes, ability no. Most days I hope for that phone call, is it selfish or cruel or is it love and a fact that I know she would not like or want the life she has. Next Shipyards I know little about but the pits I do, better without them yes but the brutality of how they were closed and the lack of any real replacement has left generations of despair.
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