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John Ramwell
HOW THE WORLD HAS CHANGED.

Yes, indeed, just how it has changed in our lifetime. I am not going to dwell on such as crowded roads, mind blowing advances in technology and global warming. Instead, I thought I would focus on the changes in demographics over our life time and the affects these changes have apparently had on all of us, young and old. 

First, I must come clean. I am no expert -not even that well read on the subject. My inspiration and information come from an article in my recent Sunday paper which I found most interesting as well as alarming and shall now use as the basis for this contribution to our Newsletter. Reading this article in my paper for the first time made me appreciate just what the changing demographics in this country means to us and the generations coming up behind us. 

Allow me to share a very much revamped version of the newspaper item with you. Demographics, as you will know, is the study of the characteristics of human population in terms of size, growth, density and distribution. What interested me in reading the original article is just what practical and social implications arise from the changes over the past few generations. I have often thought that the ‘gravy train’ left the station not long after World War Two and it went merrily on its’ way for twenty or thirty years before grinding to its’ final siding. 

I was born in 1941 and can vaguely remember food rationing but cannot remember any hardship associated with it. I guess what you never had you never missed. The world was picking itself up and dusting itself off; things were going to improve. They had to as there was only one way to go and that was upwards. And they did of course. Year on year, starting from a low base I have seen life get better socially and materially. 

Expectations were not that high so any improvement was, by and large, well received. Motorways were built, slums were cleared; there were plenty of jobs and most were secure, free health service, our own homes and our own car and foreign holidays; technology taking the drudgery out of housework, machinery taking the hard labour out of construction and agriculture. And there was spare cash in our pockets. 

OK, the basic pay for Prison Officers was not enormous but still it compared well with many other jobs. My first pay slip was £7.10.8p (I still have it) and I considered myself well paid but what really put the jam on the bread was the ‘over-time’. It was rarely in short supply and by putting in the long hours many of my colleagues could take more home than the Governor, and often did so. Of course there was a price to pay as many failed to really enjoy and appreciate family life. It was either work or the club. Home was for sleeping at and not much else. I digress. So we had plenty of money. And the Service was run with a similar attitude.

As a Hospital Officer at a singleton post (Gaynes Hall) responsible for my own medicines grant I made every effort to use the grant up by September and would go cap in hand for a supplementary to see me though ‘till April. This was expected. Accountability…forget it. As long as I had sufficient evidence to show that all money was correctly spent no-one ever questioned the overspending. This was universal. Prisons were run on a bottomless pit of money. I have not mentioned pensions. I never worried about one, secure in the knowledge one was waiting for me at the age of 55, together with a ‘lump sum’, all of it non-contributory. 

As quarters went up for sale and we were allowed to buy our own houses most of us found it easy enough to jump on the housing ladder and then use the lump sum to pay off the mortgage on retirement and so spend retirement debt free. We were among the very first able to invest in the best stock ever, bricks and mortar. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. It is worth remembering that we were really the lucky generation. 

Previously and for some time after I first joined the Service colleagues would retire with very little and have to give up their quarter. I recall a Chief Officer from Rochester who had no choice on his retirement but to take up an occupation with another tied house. Many staff, because of the war, had not the full qualifying years to make up their pension. Many really struggled. 

Then everything seemed to change over night. I recall a meeting I attended when someone stood up and warned us that the days of plenty were ending. We were about to enter an age of much greater accountability, he said, when every penny would be hard fought for and carefully spent and woe him or her who failed to stay within budget. Budgets,- what were these? I thought, “Such doom and such nonsense”. How wrong I was! Our recent history tells you just how wrong I was. The ‘gravy train’ had suddenly lurched to a halt. 

So our generation was adept at spending without too much accountability, later to change our habits as qualified accountants came in to show us the new way. The cry was for more and more to be done, monitored by target setting and league tables, and less and less to do it with. I left the Service ten years ago and remember there being a huge pressure to stay within budget. It has become no easier since I retired. What was happening in the Prison Service was being repeated nationwide in every sphere. 

I need to bring this article back to demographics. Our generation, the ‘baby boomers’ have managed to slip in-between the post war and the present generation. If I sound smug I don’t mean to be. Again, I say we were just lucky…… good timing. But what of those generations coming up behind us, our children and grand kids. For them times are a-changing. University fees to repay, jobs not that plentiful nor that well paid (look at the national average wage against our pension) and certainly not that secure and driven by pressures we can only imagine. No more jobs for life. And what chance do youngsters have of getting their foot, even toe, on the housing ladder. The boomer generation is suddenly waking up to the truth that their legacy to their children is a nastier, tougher and more anxious world than the one we knew. 

The young are realising that this is the case and that it is down to the unthinking greed of their parents. Battle lines are being drawn; an inter-generational war is brewing. We used to believe that we could use our voice and influence whether it was to ban the bomb, agitate the government or campaign to save the environment. Most young people no longer believe that what ever they do will have any impact on how the world is run. 

Take a closer look at just how the world is run. Massive poverty at home and abroad, global warming, terrorism, possible return to the cold war, crazy and unjustified wars, the failures of capitalism and the advent of an Orwellian and intrusive society, mass migration, India and China demanding and getting a much greater share of the global economic cake. The list goes on. Money offers little hope of salvation. Pensions can’t be trusted and property prices have put homes in the realms of dreams for many. 

So what does all this mean in practical terms? More children living at home long after they would normally have a place and perhaps even family of their own. Stress levels rising as work/home balance suffers and becomes even more demanding. Job security, promotional opportunities, pay levels (with the exception of the city boys) and very uncertain pensions and the possibility of having to work ‘till 70 before claiming one. 

OK, so what are we to do, me and you all out there reading this (given you’ve persevered this far!). Are we to feel guilty and responsible? Have we really been that greedy and selfish? Are our kids and grandkids picking up the tabs? We cannot become detached. We fret and fuss over our kids as if unaware we are simultaneously bleeding them dry. 

The problem with us boomers is that there are too many of us and we simply haven’t the good manners to die. The rise in birth rates that ran from the late 1940s to early 1960s was followed by an equally sharp fall as boomers either put off having children or had fewer. This means that our demographics have become an up-turned pyramid with aging boomers squatting on top of the much sparser population of their children. Life expectancy continues to rise which means the boomer bulge will continue on for some considerable time yet whilst we carry on exerting political power over the young.

My parents were probably like yours. They were savers. We boomers are spenders but steer clear of debt whilst our kids, thanks to a changing culture, are shopaholics convinced if they want it they can have it. Personal debt among this generation is almost the norm and we can expect some real misery as the recent hike in interest rates makes itself felt. 

Today we are on the opposite side to the situation prevailing many years ago. Then we had few expectations and were pleasantly surprised when any were realised. The fun we had with a wooden box to which my Dad had fixed some pram wheels. There was even time for childhood. I digress again! Now those coming up behind us have huge expectations but little chance of many of them ever being realised. It is easier to climb up than it is to climb down. 

So now is the time for the boomers to ask themselves a very awkward question: have they wrecked the joint with their freedom and fun and left their impoverished and anxious children to make what they can of the wasteland that remains? Economists, sociologists, philosophers, environmentalists and politicians are deep in debate about this. How we value the future, what we are prepared to sacrifice for our children, is one of the most intriguing and urgent debates of our time. But what are we prepared to do NOW? It is said that there is no quality in human nature which causes more fatal errors in our conduct than that which leads us to prefer whatever is present to the distant and remote future. We are historically bad at planning for and making sacrifices on behalf of the future. It has always been thus and so I, for one, am feeling a little less guilty and responsible. But then, am I?

John Ramwell

57 AUTUMN 2007