Opinion

Anita Robinson: Our planet could do with the sort of frugality familiar to the postwar generation

<span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif, Arial, Verdana, &quot;Trebuchet MS&quot;; ">Even the most reckless spendthrift is coming late to the notion of domestic economy</span>
Even the most reckless spendthrift is coming late to the notion of domestic economy Even the most reckless spendthrift is coming late to the notion of domestic economy

I’ve fallen into bad habits. You’re familiar with the ‘post-lunch slump’, when you sit down to read the paper with the television mumbling in the background? Just when you think, “Must get up and get on,” along comes a seductive succession of restoration and recycling programmes and you’re still sitting transfixed at 4.30pm with not a hand’s turn done, in awed respect for creativity, patience and skill of the crafters.

I’m particularly addicted to the ‘skip lady’ who haunts council dumps, rescues items that people are about to throw away, takes them to talented artisans who mend, refurbish or transform them into something highly desirable, then sells them for an arm and a leg. I’ve lost whole afternoons to her and her ilk and have more than once visited my Museum of Broken Things (aka, the garage) to cast a speculative eye over the thirty-year hoard of stuff that never made it to the recycling centre, nor likely to unless I hire a skip and a couple of burly young fellas to fill it.

In the uncertain economic climate the threat of Brexit has inflicted upon us, even the most reckless spendthrift is coming late to the notion of domestic economy. ‘Peak stuff’ has been achieved we’re told; conspicuous consumption is now a Bad Thing and we’re sternly reminded we ought to ‘make do and mend’.

Those of us born into postwar rationing never dreamt our lives would be bookended by austerity. Frugality was drummed into us – parcel paper smoothed and saved, leftover mash made into potato bread, twice-darned socks, hand-me-down coats and sweets only on Saturdays. We had it tough, but at least when young, we were taught by example the skills to cope.

We learned to cook, sew, mend and simple DIY tasks – proficiencies many of us signally failed to pass on to our own children. Prosperity grew, our world widened, technology took off, consumerism took over and spread like a virus. We enjoy sophisticated automation, instant connectivity, fast food and fast fashion. We’re greedy consumers of the earth’s finite and irreplaceable resources; we’re polluters of the air with fossil fuels, the rivers and seas with insoluble waste and chemicals, the land with the detritus of our non-biodegradable rubbish. Without doubt, we’re the most carelessly selfish inhabitants of the planet Earth in history. Only now, when it’s almost too late, is it dawning upon us that we’re sowing the seeds of our own destruction.

Conservationists, once thought of as amicable eccentrics are at last being taken seriously and, wisely, they’re recruiting the enthusiastic young in environmental projects, for it’s their world to inherit. I recall a father collecting his daughter from school on the day she won a prize for an anti-litter poster. Carrying her poster under his arm he stopped at the school door, tore the cellophane and silver paper from a packet of cigarettes, lit up, threw them both (and the match) on the ground and walked away.

Though well-schooled environmentally, many youngsters’ cooking skills are confined to toast, Pot Noodle and microwaved ready-meals – and there’s no counting the number of junior electronic geniuses who couldn’t sew on a button.

‘Shortage of time’ and ‘ease of convenience’ are the facile answers. We see no irony in watching ‘Masterchef’ with a bought pizza on our lap, nor enjoying ‘The Great British Sewing Bee’ with three buttons missing from a sad cardigan.

Straws in the wind indicate hope. Business reports a sharp rise in household goods repair-and-maintenance shops; mobile phone clinics are everywhere. Vintage and charity shops attract swarms of the young and fashion-conscious. Cheap fast fashion produced abroad, still exerts a fatal attraction, though more people are querying its ethics. Everybody knows a wee local man who fixes things, or a wee woman who does alterations – though where you’d find anybody to do an ‘invisible mend’ on a dress I put my heel though is another matter.

Fashion is cyclical. I’m going out tonight in a dress I bought in 1986. As I always say, “Keep a thing long enough……”