Thinking Aloud

Acrylic-bob · 08-12-2004, 14:15

In 1848, when the Railway arrived, Accrington was a small village split into two parts, Old Accrington and New Accrington. There wasn’t a lot to do then; a bit of textile printing, a bit of weaving, a lot of farming and a few support industries. But within fifty years of that date Accrington had grown into a town we can still recognise today; a sprawl of terrace housing and a hive of industry. Fifty years. The average lifespan of a person at that time. How did they manage to do so much in such a short space of time?

In 1928 The borough council was easily able to find the money to publish a lavish history of the borough which was given away free to schoolchildren. In it the borough celebrated the achievements of the fifty years of it’s incorporation and compared and contrasted those achievements with what had gone before, and there was quite a lot of it.
If the borough were to publish a similar history today, I wonder if there would be as much to celebrate. The mills are gone, the coal mines are gone, the foundries are gone, the railway is on it’s last legs and is slated for closure if it doesn’t pick up numbers within the next five years. The canal, once a vital line of supply is abandoned now. The market is a shadow of it’s former self. The housing stock is ageing and falling rapidly into disrepair. The hospital, having lost its surgical, emergency and maternity services, is a now little better than a glorified old folks home. The folk with all the money have voted with their feet and have left Accrington for pastures new. It seems certain that no matter how much the borough council might wish to fund a similar publication, they would not be able to find the money.
There seems little to look forward to in Accrington today save a seemingly endless succession of false dawns, false starts and half-baked and half-realised schemes to kick start the local economy. Fine words and fancy phrases, glossy brochures and photo opportunities, all of which seem to fall at the first hurdle or fail long before they even come within sight of the home stretch.

Where did it all go wrong?

Looking back on the achievements of some of our illustrious townsmen, I am struck by the way that they were able to seize the emerging technologies and forge for themselves, and the town, a bright and prosperous future. I’m sure that Messrs Steiner, Hargreaves and Bullough, et al, would have given their right arms to gain access to the technology that I now use to communicate these thoughts. And yet there seems no one in Accrington willing to emulate these men. The memory of their achievements has now passed into history and, like much else, is forgotten.
It makes me so sad to see the energy and potential of our young people going to waste for the lack of a little inventive leadership and encouragement. I could weep with anger and frustration to see them sitting back, waiting for one sort of handout or another. The council must provide jobs. The council must provide houses. The council must provide entertainment to fill the emptiness of our lives.

There is a better way. The civic minded townsmen and women of the 19th century could manage it. And moreover, they managed it with fewer technological resources at their disposal than we have today. If they could do it then, why can’t we do it now?

Acrylic-bob · 08-12-2004, 15:32

Part two.

In the era before the advent of the Welfare State took personal responsibility out of the hands of the people, the average man or woman had to provide for his or herself and family. The young and the elderly were compelled to remain close to the family unit for essential support in the event of need or misfortune. This combination of generations, often under one roof, enabled the dissemination, promotion and encouragement of acceptable standards of behaviour. We are happy now to hand over the responsibility for the care of our elderly to the state and so deprive our young of the lesson and example of lives filled with incident and experience. In asking “What went wrong?”, I think that it is here that we need to look first if we are to find answers.

Before the advent of the Welfare State, the poor and working class made much use of the Mutual Society, our present day Building Societies and Credit Unions are the only survivors of this once mass movement. Mutual Societies were, in essence, working class clubs, formed by the workers themselves, to provide an astonishing range of social services. It is from this movement that the Co-operative Societies developed, eventually becoming one of the largest wholesale and retail food distributors in the country. In the early part of the last century the London department store Harrod’s boasted the telegraphic address “Everything, London.” which was largely untrue. In the seventies however, the Co-Op could boast in advertising “It’s all at the Co-op” which was very nearly the case. About the only thing you could not get from the Co-op, in one way or another, were armaments.

Now, there is little need to worry about providing for tomorrow because the state will step in and do whatever needs to be done. We do not even have to manage our income to budget for contributions to this marvellous system since the contributions are deducted at source.

I am reminded of what happens to wild animals when they are captured and confined in Zoo’s for our amusement. The need to hunt to provide food, which once consumed a large part of their waking time, is now taken away and little or nothing is put in its place. Boredom claims them and many develop severe neuroses and anti-social and aggressive behaviour patterns. Now where have we seen that before? Indeed, many even indulge in recreational sex as a means of alleviating their condition, a thing almost unheard of in the wild.
For all our apparent sophistication, we are not so far removed from our origins that we are not still governed by animal instincts.

JohnW · 08-12-2004, 16:51

I think the main difference between the present day and the time you describe above, is that, the men you mention were not only utilising the new technology of the day, in the main, they were the innovators and inventors of the technology. Not so now. That distinction has not only departed Accrington, it seems to have departed much of the British Isles. In my humble opinion, that is probably the main reason for the decline. I suppose that the men in question were very much 'self employed' and that was the incentive not to rest on laurels but to look forward and be proactive. I doubt any of their businesses declined whilst they were at the helm. That came later, with public ownership, poor management and lack of necessity, which we all know, is the true mother of invention.

Margaret Pilkington · 08-12-2004, 17:53

It seems to me that today everyone knows their 'rights'.......but no-one wants responsibility......no-one seems to have pride in doing anything.....achievements are not celebrated.......enterprise is not encouraged......everyone wants to know 'what's in it for me?' I was always taught that to do a job to the best of your ability was the best way to have personal integrity.....if you asked young people of today the meaning of integrity, how many of them would be able to tell you?

Less · 08-12-2004, 18:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

if you asked young people of today the meaning of integrity, how many of them would be able to tell you?

Probably very few because it's one of those things they learn by example & our generation has given them very few good examples!

vorlon24 · 08-12-2004, 18:42

So, before the welfare state, people had to look after themselves and their families?

How about abolishing it then?

Margaret Pilkington · 08-12-2004, 18:45

That would be a fair start.....except that some folk need the help..... maybe we should do like they do in the US and give food stamps and such.....but, sorry that would not be very PC would it ?

Less · 08-12-2004, 18:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

That would be a fair start.....except that some folk need the help..... maybe we should do like they do in the US and give food stamps and such.....but, sorry that would not be very PC would it ?

It would be if you gave pink stamps for girls & blue stamps for boys.

vorlon24 · 08-12-2004, 19:20

rotflmao!!

WillowTheWhisp · 08-12-2004, 19:23

First thoughts on this subject - when people like Messrs Mercer, Bullough, Steiner etc were around they didn't come up against so much red tape and bureaucratic nonsense about why they couldn't do what it was they were attempting to do. In those days effort was rewarded. These days it seems that everywhere you turn there's some Powers That Be ready to stick a spanner in the works.

Acrylic-bob · 09-12-2004, 11:15

Did anyone watch the Richard Dimbleby Lecture on BBC1 late last night. Coincidentally James Dyson, He of the vacuum cleaners, was giving the lecture and addressed very similar concerns. He argues for a return to manufacturing and the abandonment of our insistence that service industries will help us stay ahead for years to come.

I have been trying to find a transcript of the lecture, but the Beeb do not seem to have one available.

JohnW · 09-12-2004, 12:02

Even the most junior economics student knows that every economy needs a manufacturing base.

Acrylic-bob · 09-12-2004, 12:26

Part three.

So here we are now, at the beginning of the 21st Century. The Silicon Revolution is well underway, changing all our lives for better or worse. China, the new kid on the block, has developed low cost manufacturing into something of a minor art form, making the prospect of maintaining this country’s manufacturing base a hopelessly expensive undertaking. India, the even newer kid on the block, is doing the same with service sector industries. This year they are taking all the call-centre jobs and software development is also going that way. What is there left for a high cost/low skill workforce to do? Increasingly, technological developments will demand that those who do not adopt a strategy of constant learning and updating skills will be left behind. And it seems clear that the pace of change will accelerate as the century progresses.

We are already seeing evidence of that change on the streets of Accrington as, one after another, businesses fail to compete, and the shops fill with comparatively inexpensive far eastern imports. We can also see that to provide any sort of development for the local economy, the council must now rely on handouts from Central Government and the European Union, simply because the borough is incapable of generating enough income to be able to afford the necessary investment, which is, and will become, increasingly, too little too late.

There is little will on the part of local government to take the radical steps necessary to equip the borough to survive into the next century. Just as there was little will to recognise and manage its industrial decline from the 1960’s onwards. Oh certainly they fiddle about a bit, here and there, and there is plenty of self congratulation when each new regeneration effort is announced, but there is little real understanding of the problems that face the borough, both now and in the future, and consequently there is no unified vision of a way forward.

And instead of whipping our children into frenzies of enthusiasm for arts and sciences, we encourage their facile ambitions to stardom. Instead of spending every damn penny we can afford on providing an education that is second to none, we lavish every electronic and stylish luxury on them. And instead of making absolutely certain that every child achieves all that he or she is capable of, we are content to sit back and watch them sink into a morass of moral and social misbehaviour, in which they consistently underachieve, congratulating ourselves that at least they are able to read and write sufficiently well enough to fill out the benefits claim forms. True not all children are like this, there will always be some children who shine, but, sadly, the ones that shine have a habit of going on to tertiary education – and then leave the borough, taking their skills and ambitions with them.

pendy · 09-12-2004, 12:40

We have a Catch 22 situation. Manufacturers are always going to go for the cheapest option by way of production. The standard of living in places like China and India is very low, hence wages are low, and thus production costs. If you produce a widget and charge 5p for it, and I can make the same widget and charge 3p for it, I will very soon put you out of business.

However willing the workforce in this country, we cannot work for the same wages as someone in a less-developed country - we would not survive.

Find the way out ... if there is one.

Acrylic-bob · 09-12-2004, 12:50

There is a way out! It is through making use of the fact that companies in the Far East have lower manufcturing costs. It requires massive investment in research and development. It requires us to educate our children in the arts and sciences so that by combining the two we can produce a steady stream of innovative products that can be manufactured, under licence, anywhere in the world. At present we produce more graduates in the Humanities than we do in Science. This has to change.