Relationships

 

Relationships

It was interesting to read comments on yesterday’s post. They pre-empted much of today’s post, but repetition and labouring a point have never stopped me in the past!

When I was growing up it was common for children to have less interaction with adults who were not part of the family. It was not a case of being seen but not heard, as in Victorian times, but children were not expected to participate in conversations unless invited to do so, and then it was a case of answering questions politely and not advancing ideas of one’s own.

If adults were addressed by children, it was as Mr or Mrs followed by the surname. Adult family friends might be called Auntie or Uncle. My parents were so busy trying to keep a small business afloat that they rarely had time to see old friends. Regular customers often became friends in a stratified sense, but given names were never used, even if visits were made to each other’s homes. I remember still Mrs Trimm, whose husband was in business, and Mrs Shearer, a rather lonely lady who had a lot of problems and depended on my parents for kindness and support. Miss Spriggs was an elegant lady, in whom I was in awe. Captain ? had been a Japanese prisoner of war and was accorded much respect.

I don’t remember honorary Aunties and Uncles and had no aunts and uncles to call my own. My only uncle lived in Canada. I met him once, and I never met my only cousin, his daughter.

As our parents grew older, it became apparent that the number of people addressing them by their first names was dwindling. In vain they tried to encourage us to change the habits of a lifetime and call them by their names, but it was difficult. I did manage to start calling my mother-in-law by her first name and continued that for the rest of her life.

My sister was fifteen years older than me, and I became an aunt when I was eleven years old. Of course, I was never going to be Auntie Janice, so my nieces and nephews called me Janice, or variations of that – Danice was a regular one.

Why do we persist with relationship titles? I have known children who call their parents by their given names and that makes sense, for that is what they hear their parents call each other. Auntie and Uncle sound strange to me on a child’s tongue because it was something with which I was unfamiliar. I had no living grandparents, either, so that was another relationship with which I had no experience.

If we insist on those titles, and some do, why do we not call our spouses Husband or Wife, and encourage children to call each other Cousin, or Sister, or Brother? What about Great-Aunt, Great-Grandfather, Second Cousin, Brother-in-law?

It is a matter of respect, it is claimed, but respect is something that must be earned, not given as of right. My youngest daughter attended a Quaker secondary school, where everyone was addressed by their first names – staff, students, governors, parents (though a few parents kicked hard against it!) There was no lack of respect for those who deserved it, and a healthy disregard for those who didn’t.

Long before I married, I decided that I never wanted to be called ‘Grandma.’ I didn’t ever want to reach a stage in life when no-one called me by my name. The battle is still fought in some quarters of my family. The grandchildren have reached a compromise with their mother. They address me by my name, and refer to me as ‘Grandma’ when  they speak to her.

Strangely enough, the one who is uncomfortable with my decision does not allow herself to be called Grandma, either. She has chosen Oma, the German form for Grandmother, but pronounces it differently. Her children, all now parents, encourage their children to use Auntie and Uncle, and I don’t know what adult friends are called. It’s confusing.

I like the Danish form of grandparental nomenclature. Mormor is the maternal grandmother – Mother’s mother - and Morfar is the mother’s father. Farmor is father’s mother and Farfar is the paternal grandfather. That’s straightforward. It doesn’t sound quite so easy in English, though - Mummum and Mumdad, Dadmum and Daddad, for example.

Perhaps we should adopt the Quaker custom and refer to everyone as ‘Friend.’

Perhaps I am out of step with everyone else, as usual.

Cadbury

So it has been decided. Kraft is to take over Cadbury. Does this make sense?

Cadbury was founded in 1824 in Birmingham by John Cadbury, a Quaker who sold tea, coffee and cocoa as alternatives to alcohol. Later he formed a partnership with his brother Benjamin. Chocolate was very expensive at that time but thirty years later import tax on cocoa was reduced, thus making it more affordable for more people.

By 1873 Cadbury chocolate products were so popular and profitable that the brothers decided to stop trading in tea and concentrate solely on chocolate.

John Cadbury retired in 1861 and the business was taken over by his sons Richard and George who bought the 14½ acres of the Bournbrook estate in 1878, renamed it Bournville and opened a factory there. In 1893, George Cadbury bought another 120 acres close to the factory and designed a model village to 'alleviate the evils of modern more cramped living conditions.' Eventually the estate covered 330 acres with 313 cottages to house the Cadbury employees. Further houses were built later on in the 20^th century. All the properties were notable for their modern interiors and large gardens which enabled residents to grow much of their own food. The philanthropic Cadburys believed that their workforce should be encouraged to be healthy and fit and incorporated free sporting facilities and later medical and dental care. No public houses (inns) have ever been built in Bournville.

My parents and I are 5th, 6th and 7th from the right  in the front row. It was my 20th birthday nine days later.
In 1964 my parents and I travelled by specially commissioned train to Bournville. My parents were successful small-business owners and had a large order book with Cadbury and had been invited to spend a day at Bournville with other business people from south-east England. We toured the factory and had a group photograph taken. My parents were directed to sit in the front row, as they were considered to be significant customers of the company.
My major recollection of the trip is of the smell. It was overwhelming and very sickly. The employees wore protective clothing, including gloves, but even so finger-marks could be discerned on some of the items. For a short while I didn't want to eat chocolate and although this phase didn't last (unfortunately) thereafter during many months that followed I inspected every piece of chocolate before it went into my mouth. I'm sure every process is completely automated now.

Astonishingly the sale of Cadbury to Kraft for £11.5 billion has been the second biggest news story this week in Great Britain. We have little left to sell. We are Little Britain – no longer Great because of the unique loss of our engineering, technology and other national assets to overseas interests. In effect we have become economic satellites to other countries. We were in the forefront of so many industries and technologies but they have been sold, asset-stripped. The only significant growth has been in banking and government employment, both with enormous liabilities now and in the long term.

Over the past few decades my husband has travelled the globe on business and learned that many nations could not understand why we in the UK seemed only too willing virtually to give away our national industrial and scientific treasures to the rest of the world. A sure sign of our failure to address this was today's televised Parliamentary Commons Business Select Committee at which Peter Mandelson completely failed to address the issue of longer term interests against near term hedge fund profits. Amid the unbelievable waffle of his answer was the statement that he had had 'a good meeting' the previous week about the subject which had brought about recognition of the need to promote the benefits of ethos. This must revive the 'Great' even if it is followed by BS.

So to return to Cadburys – near term benefits (cost cutting) will undoubtedly be necessary given the HUGE price paid. Investment will be difficult – the rest we know well given our 2020 vision of UK industrial decline over the past few decades.

Consider the following short list:-

Aircraft industry – owned by France, Italy, Germany

Defence industry – sold to France, Germany, Italy

Electronics companies – most of our companies, Decca, Ferranti, GEC, Plessey have gone to France, Germany, USA - in reality even British Aerospace is a US company

Motor industry - Aston Martin, Leyland, Bentley, Daimler, Jaguar, Rolls Royce - sold to China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Kuwait

Nuclear energy – sold to France

IT industry – France, Japan, Germany

Space technology – France, Italy

Even our basic need for water is provided by France

(I think France is taking revenge for her defeat at Trafalgar!)

Our leaders proudly proclaim that we have an open economy. Why is this considered such an important attribute? Other countries are not so open. Asian countries including China and Japan are closed. Are we right? Is everyone else wrong?

So what is left? We are one of the leading financial centres of the world. There has been a huge increase in the number of government employees during the last ten years with the attendant requirement for index-linked pensions to which all tax-payers contribute.

Oh yes, we 'do' ceremonial and tradition better than anyone else in the world.

Rockets and explosions

Barry has always had a lively inquiring mind and a need to test theories for himself. When he was around 15 years old, he became interested in creating rockets. Acquiring the components was simple enough and he entertained himself trying different ‘recipes’, concoctions he discovered in the Public Library. All fuses were ‘Jetex’.
A by-product of the rockets was explosions. On one occasion while testing the latest prototype in the back garden the rocket flew off at speed into the next-door neighbour’s cabbage patch, destroying it.
A far more serious event happened at school when the rocket propellant Barry was trialling badly scorched and blew a hole in the cricket pitch. The experiment had been conducted at night and he had selected a test site in the middle of the sports field as far as possible from habitation. Not being a cricketer he was unaware that the chosen location was destined to be the coming season’s cricket pitch. (Bear in mind that this was in Kent, one of the eighteen first class cricket counties in all of which cricketing is taken very seriously. Kent, together with Sussex, is the birthplace of the sport. It is believed that cricket was invented by children living in the Weald in Saxon or Norman times.) The grounds man was very unhappy the following morning, muttering that the last time this happened was during WW2 when a German aircraft bombed the place.
A search for explosive substances revealed that Barry’s locker was a veritable jet propulsion lab. Unaware of the fracas he had caused, Barry was ordered to report to the headmaster’s study where he was presented with the evidence of the locker and the cricket pitch. He feared uncomfortable retribution. The head, a former Colonel during the Second World War and a Quaker, took a most enlightened view and, though he left no doubt in Barry’s mind that his activities had been noted and disapproved of and were not to be repeated, informed Barry that his punishment would last for two terms; he was ordered to report to the chemistry master and attend compulsory after-school lessons on explosives. He concluded, 'If you are going to do this sort of thing then you will do it properly and under supervision and ONLY under supervision.' It transpired that the chemistry master had been in the SOE (Special Operations Executive) during WW2 and knew a thing or two about 'doing it properly' as far as explosives were concerned. Barry learnt much and effected his future 'experiments' under the guidance of his ex-SOE mentor.
Eventually other interests developed and rocket-making became a thing of the past. Many years later, Barry was sitting with a very senior member of the armed forces waiting for a meeting to start. They were of a similar age and started reminiscing about school days and it emerged that he also had carried out similar 'experiments' in his youth. The difference was that he wasn’t caught.

Postscript: Barry recalls these events with some horror - but it was not at all uncommon for schoolboys to engage in dangerous activities. Even schoolgirls in Chemistry laboratories could be observed mixing various chemicals 'to see what would happen.' Nothing ever did (in my school anyway) but we were poorly supervised in the days before 'Health and Safety' ruled.