March 1921!

The planets must have been aligned for longevity in March 1921 because this year, in my small circle of friends and family there were three celebrating their 90th birthdays. We thought it was to be four but one of my neighbours had miscalculated Mr P.’s age and he was a youngster of 89 years!

The first birthday was Uncle P.’s.  He has lived in the same mining village in the South Wales valley all his life, except for the time he spent in the forces during WW2.  He was the youngest of a large family and although he has never married he has always been very much involved with the lives of his nieces, nephews, great nieces and nephews and now his great-great nieces and nephews.

He is a well known figure in his community and very convivial. In recent years he has helped to set up a small museum to commemorate the miners who lost their lives in a mining disaster nearly a century ago. He loves to be taken to concerts in the St. David’s Hall, or out for family celebrations and is a keen supporter of Wales and Cardiff rugby teams.

The second bithday was my cousin Mabel. She was the second daughter in a family of six. We lived a bus ride away from them and spent many of our wartime Christmases with them and I have many happy memories of those times.

She joined the WAAFs at the beginning of the war and there met,  Bill, a Cockney who stole her heart and I was their bridesmaid when I was about three years old. They were happily married for many years until Bill’s death in the 1990s. Since her widowhood she has lived alone, but she has many friends and a close relationship with her three children and their families. A few years ago she and her brother went off on a Caribbean cruise and since then she has taken several short holidays every year. This year she already has four holidays booked.

The third was N., a neighbour just a few doors away. She was born and bred in Cardiff and moved into this house soon after it was built 25 years ago. She loves a good gossip and is a fount of knowledge on local matters and the history of who lived in these houses. Sadly her only daughter died a few years ago, but her son-in-law and granddaughter helped her celebrate her birthday.

All three of these remarkable people were born just after a decade when so many people died, mining disaster,  WW1, Spanish ‘Flu. Their childhoods were lived through a National Strike, the Wall St crash and the following depression and unemployment, when there was very little help from the State and then, just as they were coming to adulthood the world was once more plunged into war for 6 years, followed by the austerity of the 1940s.

Despite all this they are all reasonably fit and mentally alert. They lead independent lives with little outside help and seem to enjoy each day as it comes.

I remember during the last depression in the early 1990s talking to Bill and he shrugged it off and said, “Don’t worry about it. It will all come right, it always does!”

Maybe the hardships they suffered, especially in their formative years, has given them a sturdy constitution. Whatever it is I just hope that if I survive to 90, I will be as fit physically and mentally as they are.

Happiness Index.

Today on  “The Daily Politics” programme Lord Layard (a Labour peer and economist) was talking about the movement towards happiness. I found this very interesting as it reinforced some of the ideas I held and giving me food for thought on other ideas.

A rough  graph showing relative incomes showed that the very poor (in an undeveloped country) were low on the graph of happiness, as can be expected, but once a country has reached a certain level of wealth, increase in the rate of happiness does not correlate with the increase in money.

A feeling of happiness is a personal measure, of course, but society can create an ambience conducive to happiness. People are happier when they feel in control of their lives, as demonstrated by the stress induced by losing ones job, family problems etc.

Apparently we claim to be less happy now than we did 50 years ago even though we are a wealthier society. I think this is because we were more optimistic then, and were not being assailed on every side by the wealth flaunted by “celebs”,  bankers, footballers etc. One thing which makes me depressed is hearing youngsters, when asked what they want to be when they grow up, reply, “Famous and rich.”  No mention of how they will achieve this or what career they intend to follow in their pursuit of these aims.

Our parents had aspirations for us to have a better  standard of life, because they did not want us to know the hardship many of them had known in the pre-war years, but I don’t think they expected us to get our lives so out of control that the pursuit of money was the guiding force in our lives. I know that my parents just wanted me to have a career in which I was happy and gave me a decent standard of life. They never expected me to make a great fortune.

The problem seems to be now that we aspire not to any specific amount but just that it is relatively higher than that of our peers. This leads to the greed we have seen with the bankers bonuses, MPs expenses, perks for executives in private industry. It is not the amount they get just as long as it is  more than their peers. They are judged by their position in the pay scale rather than by any personal attributes.

In the drive to get ahead many of them are too blinkered to keep control of their work/ life balance and their relationships suffer. If both partners in a relationship are both rushing towards career goals this can be disastrous, which is possibly why so many marriages and partnerships fail now.

The route to happiness seems to be making people comfortable in their own skins. We need good human relationships, security in our jobs and in our homes, a balance between work and free time and support for those who do not have these.

For those who need it there should be help with chronic anxiety problems and depression. Mental health care has long been the Cinderella of the Health Service, maybe because often there are no visible signs and those with chronic depression are very good at hiding it because they feel it is somehow shameful to admit to it.

Politicians seem to be vying with each other to paint the blackest picture of the future and keep talking about the austerity to come, but, even with the huge debt we are left with after the banking crisis, the country is in much better state than it was in after the war. After the war the country was bankrupt, the housing stock severely depleted by the bombing and most ordinary people had no reserves to fall back on, having had no chance to build up reserves after the depression and unemployment in the 20s andd 30s. Despite all this housing was replaced, the NHS was started and Europe was rebuilt and industries started. Wouldn’t it be more productive to give people an optimistic view and get the country behind them to face the challenge of repaying the debt and giving us a feeling that we can do it if we all pull together? 

Perhaps we would be a happier nation if we counted our blessings and looked at those in the world who are so much worse off, instead of envying those who flaunt their wealth.