🦋 Butterflies: There have been three I let out, this last one does not look like it is going to make it, though I have given it some liquid honey.
Matilda said the other day it is only a butterfly, how many miles are between us in thinking and why it is right to save any creature. I look on my two grand daughters as butterflies, they preen in front of the mirror, discussing clothes and I am bored by narcissism. The female of the species must look, you choose the words you want - tidy, neat, beautiful, pretty. It is not to catch someone from the male side of life by the way but to do with pleasing yourself.
I think it is because there are too many people on the planet, we have to make statements when young, except the statements is exactly the same as many, you can't win.
Yesterday I watched a film, luckily in English, though Spanish translation. It was about the 'Rochdale Pioneers', it won a prize in 2012. A romanticised version somewhat, of one of the start-ups of the Co-operative movements. I have a feeling it was made in Heptonstall, which has the right cobbled streets and weavers cottage to invoke the feeling of misery and poverty, which of course existed through the nineteenth century.
There was a whole movement towards co-operatives around this time, and a group of 28 men decided to open a shop and sell goods along Toad Lane in Rochdale. Raising subscriptions from the locals, they found the 'middle men' would not sell them goods, so three of the men, took a sturdy wooden barrow and went over the moors, 18 miles to Manchester market. There they brought sacks of flour and sugar and other things. You can read their history on this Wiki.
The 'Divi', which we still get from the Co-op, which went to the members of the Co-op Society, was of course soon seen as a way of making an easy living on share dividends (just like they do today) but the Co-op movement was a very large movement all over the world.
It is a part of history I haven't studied, perhaps it wasn't taught because a) it was from Up North, and b) because it is socialist. The books on the subject, are on the whole fairly dull, there is the massed ranks of many people both women and men who participated in the movement for it went through violent times as well, machine wrecking, Chartists until there was a recognition that people were entitled to a decent standard of living.
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| Alfred Walter Bayes - A Chartist Meeting at Basin Rocks |
Out in the Fens there's a place called Colony Farm. It's the only reminder today of a co-operative farm set up in the nineteenth century under the guidance of a Methodist preacher called William Hodson. All those who farmed there thought the idea wonderful, so after a year or so Hodson turned the farm over to them, confident that it would continue running along the lines which he had devised. Unfortunately within another twelve months the colony collapsed. I think that was the fate of most of these schemes. But I now need to toddle off to my local Co-op. Thank goodness that's survived.
ReplyDeleteI have just looked it up, only managed 10 years. Hippy communities says she;) Glad you shop at the Co-op, this side of Yorkshire doesn't have many but we are always shopped in North Yorks at the shop.
DeleteHaving opinions and making statements when young is really just trying out things on other people to see if they stand up, I think. Well, it was for me anyway.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Tom, it is a cruel old world that makes us dance to its tune I think.
DeleteI hadn't really considered it but you are right to suggest that the ruling class and its agents would have tried to blank out the true history of the working class. I suspect that they are still doing it today. Here in Sheffield children never learn about local hero Samuel Holberry. He was a Chartist leader who was framed and wrongly imprisoned - dying in York Castle in 1842. It is said that 50,000 people attended his funeral in Sheffield General Cemetery. Butterflies still visit his grave.
ReplyDeleteE.P.Thompson - The Making of the Working Class, was the book to read in my youth. There was quite a lot of violence against the rather large movement of rebellion in the 19th century. But reform slowly took place. We are creating two definitive classes again, the poor who will never be secure and the rich who live off them.
DeleteAh the dear old Co op. I still remember 7025 my mum's number and 358 my sister's. It was the only shop in our village and we did all our shopping there apart from butter - there was in those far off days a Butter Market in Lincoln and mum went there on Fridays and always had something called Tub Butter which the lady got out of a barrel with two butter patters and shaped into a loaf shape. Thanks for stirring up the memories.
ReplyDeleteThe days before fridges, when we had cool larders for butter. I have never seen a butter market, glad you enjoyed the memory of the old Co-op Pat.
DeleteIn my childhood town it was always pronounced "Corp" (with a voiced P) rather than "Co-op" as today. "I'm off to t'corp" people would say.
ReplyDeleteLong may it be with us Tasker, though some would argue that they are a tad more expensive than other supermarkets, even though you get some money back.
DeleteAnd here, we are still dealing with the same disparity. No one can live on $7.25 an hour, and that is our minimum wage. A strange thing has happened. The baby boomers are all retiring now, and all those jobs that never had openings because you'd be crazy to leave them, are suddenly opening up. They are being snapped up by people who have never had the chance to snag a decent job before. As a result, those minimum wage job have all raised their starting wages. Most every job is offering $10 or more.
ReplyDeleteAnother tidbit. I was watching an British Antiques Roadshow filmed at Boughton Castle. One of the descendants of that line brought two life sized portraits of servants. The expert marveled at them (they were so gorgeous) and he asked if his anscestors had a history of being generous and kind to their servants and the man began to recount the story of one of his forebears who had actually been beheaded by the servants, which seems to have taught them all a good lesson.
I suppose raising the minimum wage is a good thing Debby, but the wages are still not keeping pace with the rise of the cost of living. People are forever chasing something which is always moving further away.
ReplyDeleteAs my daughter said today, around my time you only wanted one wage to pay the mortgage, now you definitely need two wages.
No person working a minimum wage job would qualify for a mortgage. The banks would not give it to them. That is the tragedy. I believe if somene is working their 40 hours a week, they should be making enough to live on. $290 is nothing when rent is $7-800 dollars per month. Not including utilities. (Spoiler: we do not charge that. We think it would be unethical.)
ReplyDeleteI remember my grandmother's divi number still! A plastic card or a smartphone has just not the same feeling!
ReplyDeleteThey are actually quite good numbers to remember for passwords, I add a word and then the number.
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