Watching the Christmas episode of 'Call the Midwife', I'm reminded of the extent to which our society has run away from anything difficult in recent years.
The programme was set in the winter of 1962-3, one of the coldest and hardest experienced in the UK in the last 100 years at least. Snow and freezing conditions set in on Boxing Day and lasted throughout January; as a schoolboy at the time, I remember seeing snow piled high at the sides of the roads as I made my way to school and, in a way, that is the point.
A couple of weeks ago, a couple of inches of snow led to mass closures of schools across the country; in my area, almost every school was closed for 2 or 3 days due to a smidgeon of snow and a bit of ice. Health and safety was, of course, the stated driving force but a desire to avoid difficulty was the real issue.
Back in 1962-3, there was no such 'shut down'. Of course, there was huge disruption but people got on with life as best they could. Schools didn't shut up shop and I have no memories of any time off; in fact, people carried on finding their way to work, school or wherever else they needed to go; there was no alternative. There may have been feet of snow outside and ice on the windows inside (central heating barely existed), but we soldiered on without complaint and simply dealt with the problems that arose.
What a pity that 50 years of 'progress' has produced a population, and a society, so soft that it does nothing of the sort, and that can't cope with a few inches of snow and a couple of days of cold weather without running for cover.
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