Exodus 01: Les choses ne sont pas contre nous …

Our Experiences in 'New' Normal. This blog sequence will be crafted weekly and seek to identify ways in which we and others have/ are making things happen, where things are not against us. We will range far and wide as during our Lockdown and Exeats Blogs 1-168/84. However, we begin this first week with '6 months-backword' from Prime Minister Boris Johnson on earlier easing of restrictions and with the Chancellor determined ending of National Furlough Support for all employees on October 31st. That these two government policies have emerged simultaneously is a paradox. Working together they can be expected to maximise creative destruction across the economy and almost destroy those enterprises that are prohibited by law from admitting customers e.g. theatres, sports venues, clubs. The advice to work from home [again] just as back-to-the-office was gaining momentum spells even greater anguish for retailers in city centres. The public sector and quangos continue their largely unreconstructed way amongst all these upheavals on full salary and index linked pensions.

What ladders back from looming redundancy are available? The medium to long term benefits of creative destruction are clear enough in the private sector. Leaders and entrepreneurs will be evaluating all manner of options as they let considerable numbers of staff go. Their initiatives will over time provide new opportunities and if retraining initiatives flourish/ apprenticeships and more, there will be ladders to climb for young and middle aged staffs. But 55 year olds will perhaps take advantage of their option to begin life as pensioners - thought from Dr Mathew BA MBA MSc PhD FCA, 15th Baron of Prestoungrange. He stands next to the new rear door to their home at Linndale in Ilkley, installed to fend off the wettest of future storms; cum fide vincemus! [The 14th Baron retired at 60!] But the short term to end 2021 and often longer will see social and family chaos in housing and living within massively reduced household incomes. How resilient will we be? I'm optimistic not because our lives as retirees are financially OK, simple and straightforward but because of the demonstrated vibrance and resourcefulness of our national economy pre-pandemic. If only the tv and media generally would mitigate its incessant reporting of victimhood and focus on those who are determined to find a way through and can be seen as exemplars it would help!
Public sector found manifestly wanting. The innumerable failures of the public services from PHE, Social Care and the NHS to the national Education Department and its School Examinations to deliver must bring fundamental change. The surefooted responses of supermarkets and pubs puts the public sector to shame.
Personally Exodus has thus far seen us travel to Weymouth and to Scotland to pick up important threads there. First of course the granddaughters and grandsons are back at school, Uni and work - with Eleanor a Fresher at Reading and Francesca continuing at Nottingham. Lorna continues in London and is joined there by Natasha joining Unilever. In Weymouth it was gardening and in Scotland of course the 275th Anniversary of the Battle in 1745 - passing through Ilkley as well just before its new lockdown provisions came into force.


The pictures above and below tell something of how we fared but cannot do justice to the efforts Arran and Sharon have made digitally in Prestonpans with live streaming, filming and politically lobbying. The lesson for us there is overwhelmingly that any future we develop must include digital outreach in its own right across the globe as well as working in partnership with face to face as in our APPs. And back in Milton the garden still brings great pleasure with its Guernsey Lilies and Sunflowers and the autumnal presence of last Christmas' poinsettia.