UK national service endured post-war until the early sixties. Young men were snatched from their occupations and for two years became sort of compulsory civil servants. With the added possibility of getting their heads shot off in Korea, Malaya, Cyprus, Kenya, Aden or somewhere in South America which I always forget.My technical training in the RAF lasted eight months, spent with a hodge-podge of embryonic professionals - a police cadet and two solicitors come to mind. Mostly we sat alphabetically arranged, I next to P, a rather clever farmer much given to dismissive utterance. He kindly pointed out the difference - in value to society - between his job and mine. As a junior newspaper reporter I was forced to agree.
Parenthetically, things went terribly wrong for P in later life, forcing him into religious zealotry.
I didn’t question my work for I had intentionally scored a double bull: I was doing what I liked and that covered up my meagre achievements at school.
I was to discover that "doing what I liked" was a rarity in the job market. Many people, including degree holders, ended up behind unexpected and ill-defined desks. More responsibility and more cash helped them tolerate their days and then they retired. Often to a state of complete bewilderment. Many gardened and travelled a bit but only because these were boxes waiting to be ticked.
Given the uselessness of what I did for a living you may imagine - even hope - I retired into a moral void. Cowed that I hadn't benefited society. Instead I took heart from that materialistic biblical fable about coins buried vs. coins put to work. My latterday sentences are now better constructed and that's enough.
Yes, I’m smug. But oh, poor P.
Who says your job has little value to society ... put yourself in my shoes in this current climate here. I yearn for a well-written, well-researched piece.
ReplyDeleteRW (zS): You are, I take it, aware of Time's Wingèd Chariot. It's always "hurrying near". Come to think of it you've been well brought up and school-teachers may have decided that you would have been corrupted by knowing just exactly what Andrew Marvell was saying "To his coy mistress" and why. School-teachers are a bit iffy when faced with the proposition: sex is not only natural but it can be fun.
ReplyDeleteFor me that chariot becomes a more mundane vehicle, in fact a hearse. Metaphorically speaking of course, since I have written into my will that my funeral should be the "cheapest quote available" divided by two. That a supermarket trolley will suffice and that the hearse fee be spent on a truly superb bottle of wine. VR points out that I'll be in no position to argue about such details but she too favours cheapness. Coffins done in basketwork help reduce costs.
With that in mind I'm clearing the decks. Three of my works are with the publisher: Opening Bars (My singing autobiography), Two Homelands (A short-story collection; I'd have preferred Zwei Heimatländer but it would have inhibited sales) and Second Hand (A novel about a woman surgeon who must find other work).
There are two other works: Blest Redeemer (A novel about a woman punished harshly and unfairly for her principles. Yet to be submitted to agents) and Rictangular Lenses (A novel. Yet another woman, but one who triumphs. 28,000 words written. About 50,000 words to go)
It's probably unreasonable to expect I'll manage another novel. So, since there will be no tombstone (such a waste of money), these works must suffice. As I re-read and revise I am on the look-out for something that satisfies me. And since Rictangular Lenses is the latest work, and experience does play a part in writing, here's a possible contender. Lindsay, the heroine, describes herself:
“Long before any prospect of motherhood I developed into a woman. Capable of thinking and of making decisions. Of course, many women become mothers but it’s not mandatory, it’s just one option and mainly biological. As with animals. But I’m not honour-bound to make use of my womb any more than my biceps. I could concentrate on something else entirely: my competitive spirit, my resilience. They’ve helped before and chances are I’ll depend on them again in a man’s world.”
Not purple prose but explicable. And, I hope, true.
Interesting to year what your deck-clearing consists of... although I must say that I have gotten great pleasure out of wandering in graveyards with tombstones! I have the feeling lately that I have too much already written and need to tidy up, put things in order, send pieces out. And it has crossed my mind that if I dropped dead, everything left on my desk would be lost, aside from the changes it made in me.
ReplyDeleteIt is quite sad that we bring all children up with the idea that they "can do what they like" and "have a career."
Hmmm, I like Lindsay ... the lines have worked their magic. I would like to read more!
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I am glad my ancestors left behind a tombstone or two for my Ahnenforschung.
Marly, I agree with your thought above. It is sad.
Marly: Been in Dusseldorf and Montreuil.
ReplyDeleteTombstones. But think of the ridiculous cost. If it's paid for by the person who lies thereunder it's a pathetic attempt at buying favourable future mention. If it's the offspring it's a financial burden for guilt-ridden people in middle-age terrified they'll forget.
That's a good point. I wonder what percentage of school-children or, for that matter, graduates have the faintest idea of what they want to do before their education comes to an end. No young person grows up wanting to work in insurance or the Department of Pensions. When I was managing editor of two highly technical magazines I found myself interviewing graduates applying for jobs on these mags. Their innocence about the adult world was occasionally charming, more often irritating.
RW (zS): Been in Dusseldorf (will post) and Montreuil.
I fear there'll be no RR tombstone, nor even more than tuppence spent on the funeral. I will be either a memory quickly growing fainter, or a source of relief that I'm no longer around spreading my unwanted opinions. No amount of sculpturing will alter what I deserve.
Lindsay grows tougher by the page. Capable of enduring.
I suppose we can say that you have a digital stone here!
ReplyDeleteMany people in their twenties now appear to be taking many years to figure out how and why to bother getting a job with benefits. Drive and motivation appears low and living at home high. At least in rural central New York... But I've noticed similar things elsewhere. The reasons are complicated...