"Finding a moment of peace during a hectic day, can to most folk seem nigh impossible, especially amid the hustle and bustle of modern-day existence where attention spans tend to measured in matters of moments and time seem to go faster than it ever did in days gone by.
The British man and woman were once renown for their patience in waiting in all manner of queues: waiting to be served in shops, queuing orderly for buses and even queuing around the block to get into cinemas or picture houses as they were then called to see popular films of the day. They were prepared to delay their moment of gratification in all manner of things by developing the custom of 'waiting'.
I was brought up in an age when everyone at the 'family table' would discuss how their day had gone. For those of you younger ones who are unacquainted with the concept of 'the family table', this was the place where all the family sat down and ate the same meal together at the same time of day, every day! Mum always served the same food for everyone from the same pot and preparing different meals to suit individual taste buds was unheard of; one either ate what one was given or went without!
When one got a girlfriend/boyfriend and started to go 'steady' (note the distinct absence of rush in the process), at least six dates would go by before the young man was allowed to kiss the young woman. A year of regular dating between the couple would then be followed by a three year formal period of engagement, which if broken before 1971, Breach of Contract to marry would become actionable and the aggrieved party could sue for damages through the court. Usually, a period of two or three years might pass before the couple got formally engaged after their first kiss. Once a couple got engaged to marry, it was not unusual for another three years to pass before marriage between the couple occurred. As for sampling the wares before the marriage night, forget it! Were he lucky, the most that a young man might hope for would be a distant promise of things to come, but as for seeing his 'bride-to-be' in a state of undress before the wedding night, there was no chance. He'd have found it easier pushing jelly up a mountain or breaking into Barclay's Bank;those were the days when it was not uncommon to see two Barclay Banks on the same street!
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In my days of the 1950s and 60s, everything one wanted badly, one was prepared to wait for, and nobody who ever aspired to become anybody would ever contemplate buying anything other than what they could afford, and never before they had saved for the full cost of the item. Borrowing from other than one's family members was distinctly frowned on.
After the 'Second World War', the virtue of patience became lost to a whole nation during the post-war years of the late 60s. No longer was the country prepared to wait for what it wanted or delay its gratification in virtually anything. Hire purchase became a cheap and cheerful system that powered Britain's postwar boom. In came the 'never-never' consumer loan where the newlywed on tight budgets could buy now and pay later.
Between 1970 and the New Millennium, Britain was taken to Hell and back in a 'hired' handcart. The 'never-never' loan of the 1960s shifted to personal loans, credit cards and eventually ended in visits to loan sharks and the taking on of pay-day loans and their extortionate interest rates. Personal debt increased year-on-year until eventually, the Government of the day saw fit to withdraw university grants and make the students pay upwards of £50,000 for the right to a university education that had always come free for most of the country.
I was brought up in the years when every working-class family had the opportunity of their own council-house home. Today, the nation's council-housing stock has been sold off, and a large house owning society has been reduced to a rental one. Even the houses for rent today are so exorbitant in cost that no young person can afford to live in their own room unless of course, it happens to be the same bedroom they always inhabited in the family home. Indeed, it is not unheard of today to see 30-year-olds still living at mum and dads.
Employment has also suffered from the similar demise. Whereas jobs are there to be found, the wages attached to them are too often insufficient to make work worthwhile, especially for couples with young families. The increase in Zero Hours' contracts makes any certainty that is left in an ever-increasing uncertain world, less certain for those workers obliged to operate them.
As for the nation's prevailing customs, sitting around the family table and eating the same meal is virtually unheard of these days. The practice became extinct so long ago now that is no coincidence it mirrored the dramatic decrease in any meaningful conversation between parent and child. Manners of many young have flown out of the window, along with the automatic respect that was once shown towards adults and senior citizens by the young. Ironically, the age of both victim and offender in society is getting both younger as well as older, as morals appear to be more readily abandoned.
As for relationships between young men and young women, identities and roles are today, frequently blurred, and are no longer defined to any degree.Today, a choice is actually offered which enables any male or female of any age to elect the nature of sexual identity and preference they choose to adopt as a lifestyle. As to those who choose to remain heterosexual, no longer does the young man have to wait for six dates for his first kiss, as it is estimated that the couple has full sex after the third date and are regularly sleeping together within six months of first meeting. Those couples that choose to get married, stay married for only as long as they are instantly gratified by all their unrealistic expectations and unnatural needs.
Fewer people are going out and engaging in cultural activities today; often unable to afford or more often preferring to stay at home and drink indoors, while all they want to see in entertainment can be obtained from 'Netflix' or 'Amazon Prime'. As for any relaxing that doesn't involve crashing out on a soft sofa after consuming some fast food after arriving home, forget it. The common cry is the very same cry that I heard for thirty years as a Probation Officer/Relaxation Trainer whenever I came across any hyper-tense person: 'I haven't time to relax'.
My way around this entrenched viewpoint was to give them the type of relaxation training that did not involve their use of any additional time. In fact, if they did as instructed, they would actually make more time in their day through increased body efficiency! I simply informed them that as they were breathing, moving, standing and operating their thought processes and muscles anyway, albeit wrongly, I'd teach them a more relaxed and efficient way of breathing, moving, standing, operating their muscles and thinking etc.
The difference in attitude, behaviour, expectations and lifestyle that six months Relaxation Training was able to make to so many people was amazing. For the first time in their lives, many were able to find moments of perfect peace and a strength unknown to negativity and doubt that can only be found in 'goodness, trust and positivism'.
After these people had learnt to relax during their busy days and even find moments of perfect peace, a strange thing happened to the overwhelming majority of them. They found themselves being able to delay their gratification desires in all manner of their everyday lives and they started communicating more with more and more people daily. Their relationships with their families and spouses greatly improved, and not only did they make time to talk to each other more, they often did this over a meal together. It turned out to be just as my mother used to tell me as a child, 'Billy, don't be impatient, boy. Good things come to all those who are prepared to wait', and she was right.": William Forde: August 18th, 2018.