Coronavirus v Kindness

Thoughts and thoughts and thoughts,

fragments of intuition already spent,

feeling and feelings and feelings,

slivers of energy in cycle.

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Coronavirus, the ‘rona, Covid-19, SARS-CoV-2, all the same thing and has many more labels I’m sure. It is blighting our lives now, it has for the past year and will continue to in time to come. Many of us have had devastating losses. Not all directly linked but as a consequence of this disease.

I can’t and won’t dwell on negatives, but I don’t forget them either.

The cycle of tragedy and happiness and all the steps in between are the cycle we live in, never eternal happiness, never eternal sadness.

There is no quick-fix , no easy-fix, no potion to make the good times last or the hard times end.

BUT THINGS DO AND CAN CHANGE.

I have found that if we accept that change will happen, and accept that we can have some influence on how we experience those changes, we can get through the bad times and enjoy the good.

We can also influence how others experience changes, remember ‘be kind’?

Just because the shops and pubs are open and many have gone back to work, it doesn’t mean we can forget that people are still suffering.

People are experiencing change like they have never had to before.

Some of us though have seen times like this, not necessarily a pandemic, obviously, but times where people suffered real hardship, loss of jobs and homes.

It can happen to anyone,

none of us are immune to the effects of economic catastrophes.

This recession, that is hitting many of us like a baseball bat, or is at least about to. It has put me in mind of our dad.

Gilbert John Anson.

artist, writer,jolly chatty chappy-our dad

I was watching the news just before Christmas (channel 4 I think), a feature about people in industries hit by lockdown. An airline pilot was now piloting a drone, security I think, an actor and his theatrical wig making wife earning their living in the care sector.

Another guy, I missed what he had been doing but the impact on him was immense, he was broken.

He was about to lose everything, his sense of self, primarily and included.

That’s the thing, isn’t it?

It’s not just about the material things that we could face having to let go of, it’s the sense of who we are that is so wrapped up in what we do to earn a crust.

I felt like that when I stopped teaching, it wasn’t the job, I could apply for the hundreds of teaching jobs out there, it was the family of colleagues, the sounds, the smells, the children, the walls, that all formed part of who I was and had been part of my life for many years.

It was similar for Dad.

Back in good old sunny 1976 he had his first redundancy, the first year we didn’t get our family holiday in a cottage in Harlech, North Wales.

Always a week of no-TV bliss, walks to the beach, playing in the field at the back of the cottage that belonged to an amazingly warm couple who let out holiday cottages so we could have a week of clean air, peace and tranquillity.

4 Pen Y Graig Harlech, Gwynedd, North Wales.

Dad never really got back to ‘work’ from then, he plodded in and out of a few more engineering inspection jobs but, one by one, the factories closed—industry ground to a halt.

By the time I left school in 1981 there was virtually nothing left of the factories that had sustained several generations.

My comprehensive school had welcomed the ‘People’s March for Jobs’ for a well-earned break in our sports hall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_March_for_Jobs#

Dad was made redundant again some time before the march ended and I left school just after.

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-peoples-march-for-jobs-1981-online

Things never picked up financially for mom and dad after that.

Always the threat of losing their council house, scrappy jobs here and there for them and for me and then my younger sister the year after that, our big brother going off to chase his dream and seek his fortune acting in London.

My NNEB course went out of the window because I needed to bring money into the house.

So from working as a horse-riding therapist to selling paint and wallpaper to sticking fancy leather goods together at home, I had a varied start to adulting!

Dad was a talented artist and writer but adulting for him meant the career in engineering. His passion for the arts didn’t wain though. His side-line was ink and wash drawing that reflected his other passion—pubs!

He would catch a bus, or, more often, walk for miles with empty pockets. Tucked under his arm was a folder filled with samples of his work and in his pocket, actually not quite empty, was his Instamatic camera, he was off on ‘Safari’.

Sometimes he would come back tired and empty handed, others he would have a smile, a Tesco carrier with a few goodies and an order for one of his paintings in his little notebook.

Over the years he took hundreds of reference photos of Black Country pubs. He is now immortalised with his own Facebook page, an archive of all those photos and a few of his paintings.

If you want a trip down memory lane have a look here https://www.facebook.com/GJABlackCountrySafari

Walsall locks.

St Andrew’s church, Birchills, Walsall.

He was the archetypal gent, shirt and tie, sitting in the corner or at the bar with a pint, chatting away to anyone that would listen. He has so much to say and wasn’t shy to say it. He’d share his love of history, art, literature, jazz music!

His knowledge of anything and everything, he was the precursor to google, a walking encyclopaedia.

So, to the news article again. It made me think back to the TV series Benefit Street and Skint and how the media revelled in the shit-storm they kicked up by kicking the people featured on there.

That was the part that a lot of people were not seeing. It wasn’t Corrie or EastEnders or Shameless; they were real people living real lives, with feelings, hopes and dreams.

No different to you or me.

They were berated and hated by many, those who just couldn’t see themselves ever getting to be like the folks down the bottom of the hill.

 The film makers threw their victims down as bait for the blood thirsty, new money, ‘worked all my life’ mob.

Oh how ‘we’ laughed at and hated those people in that street, for their misfortune, their submissive acceptance of their lot, their shabby clothes, shabby houses, shabby lives.

Oh how ‘we’ forget that these are the families, the descendants of the factory workers the builders, the shop keepers and cleaners, the servants, and coal miners and farm hands that filled the cities with manual labour and the pockets of the few.

We marvel at the machines and robots and computers that entertain us, that build our cars and washing machines.

We put our hand over our eyes and ears and mouths to the men and women put to one side in the name of progress.

I hope ‘we’ don’t forget the people on the news in time to come, ‘cos hard times are a-coming for sure.

I hope ‘we’ don’t kick them when they are down.

Kindness seems to have flourished in many neighbourhoods during the pandemic. It would be a terrible shame if we shut it indoors when we can all go out and about again.

Unfortunately some people thought Dad and people like him were fair game for a holier than thou kicking.

Dad didn’t deserve to be kicked when he was down.

We were very proud of our dad, he had one of his short stories read by Peter Sallis on BBC radio 4, his paintings are adorning the walls of pubs, homes and businesses in the black country and beyond, I know at least one is hanging on the wall of a NASA scientists’ home in the USA.

 Dad was ever the optimist, always kept on trying even when the odds were against him.

That is something we all need to be at times.

Look inside ourselves and see what we are, who we are. We aren’t our jobs or cars, they are just a product of us and as we know products, change, improve or become defunct so we need to re-focus.

So, if you have a dream, an idea, work on it, think it over, keep it burning. Look for people that can help you, work with you, advise you.

You might be able to help others too,

keep the kindness alive;

that’s a rich reward..

 Write your ideas down, don’t let them just wash away in the stresses of life.

I’m not saying things will come easily, it’s taken me a VERY long time to become my own boss, but the benefit of that is I have a lifetime of experience to throw in the pot. A lifetime of knowing people and knowing what people need.

Just one last thing, I think, not to focus on wealth, monetary wealth.

Sound stupid I know.

We all have bills to pay and fires to burn to keep the wolf from the door.

you need to focus on you and your contentment.

I don’t want to say happiness because happiness is too transient, momentary.

Contentment is lasting, yes, its intensity can ebb, but it sits in you and flows around you and keeps you warm.

I’m not getting all preachy or spiritual here, it’s just a fact of life I’ve stumbled across in the most unlikely of circumstances.

Yes, at the moment, I can pay the bills and am successful in what I do

(I do so love my writing!)

I believed in myself and kept working hard at what I wanted to do and be

AND

I don’t stop working at ‘it’ and thinking my way around it.

Not everyone is as lucky as me, I’ve had kind, lovely people around me.

I won’t ever forget that and I hope I am able to pass some of that kindness on.

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I think my ‘it’ is like a balloon that I keep tapping into the air, like a bubble that won’t burst. It stays up for a bit, sometimes goes off in a direction I didn’t intend it to but if I concentrate, I can keep it bobbing! If you find YOUR ‘IT’ and you aren’t happy with it, find another one, we’ve all got more than one, you just have to look for them.

Find your IT.

It’s where your future is…