The World Goes On

Wednesday 26th April

No matter what madness we see, or perceive, around us – the World goes on.  When one considers what our parents, born during the War, went through, or even more alarming our grandparents – two World Wars, mass unemployment, Jarrow marches and many of them lived in what we would now consider slums – maybe we have had it easy.

I was a baby-boomer, born in 1951.  Rationing would soon end, and by the age of 9 the Sixties would start, though what we term ‘the Sixties’ didn’t really happen for a couple more years.  I, to everyone’s surprise passed my 11-plus and went to grammar School.  It was almost a brand new school, with brilliant facilities and in retrospect I had an excellent education.  But this is one of the big problems with our generation, we had no idea that we were so lucky.  And then there was all the fabulous music of the Sixties and Seventies, a cornucopia of talent constantly outpouring – and again we thought it would simply carry on.  Well it did, but not quite to our taste.  And all of us baby-boomers agree that it was the best of times.

But coupled with this was an ever-improving standard of living.  We started off renting, and it wasn’t too expensive.  A man’s wages could support a wife and children, and women were beginning to earn more too.  But again we never really appreciated it at the time.  And all through the Eighties and Nineties life for most of us improved.  And now we are retired, most of us with decent pensions – something our Grandparents would never have dreamed of.

And we read the news – Brexit, Trump and now the imminent return of Thatcherism, and we are worried.  But the World goes on, oblivious to our concerns – as it will for many more millennia.  And whatever the failures of our Politicians or the result of our collective greed which may come in the future the World will still go on.  And one day we will be History and students will be amazed, just as we are when looking back to 1914 or 1938, at how stupid we could have been.  It may be of little comfort but even when humans are as extinct as the dinosaurs the World will go on without us.