Back to the Good Old Days!
The young wouldn’t recognise an honest day’s work if it came up and bit them! That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it. Of course, I’m not one to hold a distorted view of how things were in the past……
We’re into September. Summer is drawing to a close and soon we’ll be back on the relentless run-down to the cold, bleak weather of the British winter.
It’s not all bad! We can look forward to crisp, clear mornings, the approaching Season of Festive Cheer and more immediately, the return of our cherished young-ones to that 30-week glee club they euphemistically call: ‘University’.
My son Joshua reportedly attends one of these institutions although now of course he’s still on his summer vacation. I think it started in January; at least, that’s what it feels like.
Joshua’s university is called UCL. I’m not sure what that stands for; indeed, all the educated guesses I’ve made have been met with either vehement denials or silent, brooding distain. As a Kings man myself I wasn’t actually aware that other centres of further education existed in our Capital but Joshua assures me he has not made this up.
His vacation, of course started with a couple of weeks off followed by three weeks touring various Southern European music events with a number of like-minded reprobates. After an appropriate rest period to get over this ordeal he generously agreed to undertake a few week’s paid employment to fund his projected debauchery over the coming year.
The Isle of Wight as we know (thankfully) isn’t London and there are strangely few openings for scholars of Russian History and Politics among the tourism-based opportunities usually available in the summer. Joshua’s mother and I were acutely aware of this dilemma and our son’s reluctance to compromise his academic integrity by undertaking duties outside his intellectual sphere of activity. We were uniformly sympathetic but did our best to motivate him and give him focus:
‘Get a job, you lazy little so-and-so or starve!’
This seemed to do the trick.
Joshua is a young adult. What do young adult males do? They eat! Then they eat some more. When they’ve finished eating they start eating again. Joshua is no different. Six foot two, muscular and enviably slim his life revolves around that next meal.
It was a no-brainer really.
What luck! A part-time job was up for grabs at our local golf club. Bar work, restaurant work, assisting the grounds men; in fact, whatever was necessary. ‘Multi-tasking’ is the term, I believe.
Joshua applied and happily was accepted.
Now let’s sit back and consider this situation. Here we have an accomplished, erudite individual with impressive ‘A’ level results and hopefully on his way to a First.
‘How are you getting on at the golf-club Josh?
‘OK I think but I don’t understand why the members always start their comments with: ‘Yer a nice enough nipper, but…’ And Dad, I get so tired. It’s so hard.’
Bah! Three days a week if he’s lucky. Ten hours a day at most. Call this work?!! I reminded my son of how things were in my day:
After milking the cows at the local dairy I’d start my 5am paper round. Then it was ‘spade time’; digging foundations through the hard core at the building site. How I loved this time of year! I still fondly remember the blackberry bushes behind the cement shed burgeoning with luscious fruit. This was lucky as there was no money available for ‘bought’ food. Every penny I earned went on textbooks or travel to study clubs. My parents were sadly in no position to help me financially so I helped them as much as I could; often popping back in my few free moments to polish the Bentley or help Mother stack her crates of Moet; a task the servants flatly refused to do.
Because of my relative youth my site foreman would never work me more than 12 hours at a stretch. That happily made me available to join the night shift at the supermarket. What a kind manager we had. He never objected to me sleeping in the yard for the few hours before milking started again and although I was rather scared of the dark I freely admit the company of the teeming rats around the ‘past sell-by date’ bins was a great comfort to me.
Yep; that’s exactly how I remember it.
The young today have it so much easier but I see no reason why they should not support the family endeavours as I used to. I asked Joshua:
‘What do you do to promote the Practice at work?’
‘Nothing, of course!’ he replied in horror. ‘I keep myself to myself.’
I have to say I don’t fully understand this logic. Our businesses are hardly in competition. I often tell others what a splendid golf club Freshwater has. I’m not completely sure how Joshua could reciprocate in a way understood by members but I’m certain that like everybody else golfers are interested in the condition of their teeth and would love to know that Avenue Road Dental Practice is the place to come if they think they’ve got a Hole in One……….
