A Point of View

By Brian Walden

Never had it so good?

In his weekly opinion column, Brian Walden considers if the youth of today really have got it so good.

There's an old newspaper editor's maxim that if one has to choose between printing the legend or printing the truth, then for goodness sake print the legend.

Whatever you print it's the legend that will be believed. If the truth contradicts the legend and you publish it then everybody will dislike you.

That thought comes to mind whenever I'm asked about my childhood in the 1930s. There was a lot of unemployment in that decade, not much money about and no National Health Service. So a belief has arisen that it must have been a time of unrelieved misery.

Secure

To my deep embarrassment I was once introduced to a young audience as someone who'd endured hardships beyond their imagination. The truth is very different. I had a much happier childhood and youth than many young people do these days.

Of course Britain in the 1930s wasn't a consumer society, so there weren't many goods around the house. Shopping was a necessity, not a pleasure, a chore my grandfather believed should be left to women. Once he bribed me with a toffee apple saying: "Before you eat it, promise me that you'll never go into any shop except for sweets, newspapers or tobacco."

If there was little money for luxury shopping, at least there wasn't any debt to worry about. No institution would have lent my parents any money, but they could have borrowed from what were called tallymen, who could sell you things on short-term credit. But I never saw a tallyman in my house, so great was the fear of debt.

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And there in one go, I've explained the only bad feature of my otherwise happy life. Money was in short supply.

Practically everything else could hardly have been bettered. I felt secure and loved at home. I lived in a community where few people locked their doors and burglary was unheard of.

The streets were safe, because the police patrolled them on foot and there were plenty of bobbies. Once I came home from a school play carrying my costume in a small suitcase. I must have looked suspicious. I was stopped twice by different policemen, who asked me to open it.

I was very well taught in state schools that had no disciplinary problems and I was given every kind of help, both educational and social.

Conflict

Speaking of help, little is said these days about the extensive middle class charity that used to be given to poor families. I had a serious mastoid operation when I was five, which was paid for indirectly by a charity.

Not surprisingly I didn't feel neglected and at the bottom of the heap. I felt sheltered, with the routines of life, like playing football and cricket in the parks and fields, indulged and protected.

All of this went on even during the war. I had every reason to be a happy child and an even happier teenager - not that anybody used that American expression in those days.

As a result of the London bomb outrages I read a lot about the life young people lead as they struggle to and from work. Not to mention the sort of effort they have to put in when they're at work.

Since I've seen many improvements in the last 50 to 60 years, I've rather lazily assumed that alongside the ever-rising material standards, the nation's youth - with their free and easy lifestyle - must be having a thoroughly good time.

Young aren't supposed to object to being pestered out of hours, because the concept of the working day has been abandoned in the course of progress

But as a result of talking to people, I'm now quite sure my understanding of the subject was superficial. In the last week I've become uncertain about the truth, because I'm told contradictory things.

I put to one side children, because I want to concentrate on the 15 to 25 age group. This surely is the very core of what we mean when we talk of youth.

There's a sharp conflict of opinion about the facts. Some people, including some young people, are convinced that the world is dedicated to youth. I was told that everybody bows to youth's slightest whim. Especially the advertisers, who cringe at any sign of youthful disapproval.

This means that most shops and places of amusement are geared to satisfying the demands of the young. This dominant youth culture gives the young a status other groups envy. All of this I was told and I confess it sounded plausible.

But I hesitate to accept that it's the last word on the subject, because it doesn't answer some questions that bother me. For instance, if young people have got the whole world on toast, why do so many of them complain of being overworked, harassed and permanently tired?

Pride

When one gets a little deeper into the matter, several things emerge. For a start, the private life of the young is nothing like as sybaritic and self-indulgent as I'd imagined. My vision was on the lines of the Emperor Nero being fed grapes. But it's difficult to get into the mood for an evening of voluptuous pleasure if the office keeps ringing your mobile phone.

Modern communications - insistent and intrusive - have destroyed the sort of privacy my generation enjoyed. Apparently the young aren't supposed to object to being pestered out of hours, because the concept of the working day has been abandoned in the course of progress.

I believe that the younger section of the workforce works harder than I ever did. Their work is always being measured and appraised in ways that I would have found disconcerting.

Always on duty

It seems to go without saying that they must be loyal to the company they work for, however shabbily it treats them. Whatever the extent of their commitment they can't assume they'll get much back in return. There are many companies with a sense of loyalty towards their young employees, but the idea that they must be loyal is regarded as hopelessly old-fashioned.

It's the sort of story the public relations men are desperately anxious to keep out of the press. Any company too flagrantly professing a deep regard for its younger workers stands in danger of seeing its share price fall. The market might decide that the bunch of cissies running it wouldn't be capable of taking a tough decision.

So a job for life isn't an option for most young people. It hardly helps to be told you can expect to be retrained two or three times, or is it now four or five?

I feel guilty about the young, because I know the pressures of work on them aren't the fault of a handful of selfish individuals. They exist beyond doubt, but their impact is marginal.

The young suffer with the rest because Britain has changed fundamentally in my lifetime. The hard work, the long hours, the lack of security and the restricted private life are part of a national process. They are an indication of what Britain has had to become. There was no alternative.

Condemn

When I was young any national wealth came from manufacturing. Most of my family were metal-bashers of one kind or another. Now we don't make many things. We pay other countries to make them for us. Some people condemn this, but I believe Britain had no choice. I can't see how its traditional manufacturing industries could have withstood Asian competition.

These days Britain makes its global living from its services. And it's a pretty good living, as the services are very profitable. But this success has come at a price and one that the young, in particular, have to pay.

What Britain produces is less tangible than it used to be. It brings in more money, but it evokes less pride. Scottish football crowds used to sing: "It's Clyde-built. There's ne'er a ship afloat, that ever took the rise from a Clyde-built boat."

I know that romantic element can never return to most jobs. But there's more to work than the pay. Wise employers if they can't give their young workers less stress could at least give them some fun. Fun is good for you. I ought to know. My youth was full of it.

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Here is a selection of your comments.

I am one of the young people you refer to, and during the last financial year, I took just 12 of my 25 days of holiday. There was no financial recompense for not using up holiday allowance - I simply didn't have time to take the other days due to the sheer volume of work there was to do. I suppose technically I could have taken them, but when you are starting out in the world of work the last thing you want is a reference that says you had no commitment to the job and left work not done. Especially when the knowledge is hanging over your head that contracts are short-term things and you WILL need that reference. A lot of my friends seem to feel the same way. On the other side of the coin, I'll admit that working in "services" is, physically speaking, considerably easier than "metal bashing".
Mary, Lowestoft, UK

I couldn't agree more! I'm 28 and work for a highly successful businessman with very traditional beliefs and business strategies, but still I get calls late in the evening to come in and sort something out in the office.
Ian Mayman, United Kingdom

The young people I know have bags of fun, I assume the overworked mega stress comments are a London centric point of view. I'm sure the young workers can make their own fun if they really want to and many of my friends do.
patricia, japan

It's not just the young who have to work hard ! We all do - I'm 32 and my workload seems to get heavier by the month. I can't see any end to it until retirement (whenever that might be !) and, although the pay is good these days if you work hard, how can you ever afford a house and bring up a family ?? From my experience, the best option is to rent a small place, forget about having kids, work for 20 years and then move out to a country with a lower cost of living.
gav, UK

I'm 31 years old and feel besieged by the world; I work all the time but earn little; everywhere there are costs, just for being alive; my family and I have very little feeling of security. The environment Brian Walden describes exists not simply in Britain but in all the developed world. Things did use to be different. It will only change if we have the courage to demand working conditions and lifestyles that nurture our humanity and give us a chance to rest.
Stephen Bosch, Canada

Mr Walden touches upon an issue of companies today and how they treat their workers. When a company calls its employees "assets" nowadays that really must be taken literally, just as the photocopier, the shredder and your desk are assets to be used, valued, depreciated and ultimately disposed off when no longer needed. Anyone who thinks there is such a thing as a job for life or company loyalty anymore is naive or a fool.
Russell Fenwick, UK

Oh boy, another golden oldie looking back with rose tinted specs. I suspect Brian Walden was brought up in a one child family. Don't talk to me of unlocked doors and no burglars. Any burglar walking through our unlocked door would have been hard pushed to find enough food to bait a mousetrap. In a month's time I will be 68. My childhood was one long misery and it lasted until I was nine years old. From nine to age 15 I worked every evening Monday to Friday 4 pm to 6 pm. Saturday morning 8am to noon, All my ribs could be counted through my paper thin shirt. When I was 15 I went into the forces to get away from the grinding poverty. That first day I ate my very first cooked breakfast. More was yet to come, a cooked lunch and then a cooked evening meal. The good fathers of the local church had been promising me heaven since as far back as I could remember. I found it at Royal Air Force Cosford.
Terry, England

I lived in the 1960's in the USA. There was almost little opportunities and people had to pull their weight. I did that. Unfortunately, today's youth has it very easy.
Roberto, Florida

I'm sick of being told I get an easy life. Yes, my university gives me a quarter of a year off in the summer... but I fill those months with a soul destroying tele-sales job so I can afford to go back in September. I think many aspects of young people's life are probably much easier for us nowadays, but I also believe there's more material pressures... having more 'things' doesn't make people happier.
Adam, UK