I was recently sitting at a table with about six people and the talk came round to the way children are brought up. Victorian values were obviously considered out-dated by all those present, except myself. The ruling of no elbows on the table was dismissed and I noticed many elbows on the table among those present who were mainly in their early forties with one in their thirties. I came away thinking how glad I was that I was brought up in the 1950s and early 60s with what it seems would be some what disparagingly called Victorian values. Our family all sat at a table; the one I am writing this on, and did not get up until everyone else had finished eating and definitely no elbows on the table.
Yes, I expect the discipline did have truly Victorian roots, as all my Grandparents were born in that reign; Frank Cheese being born in 1875. So I also had rules for life from that period lodged in my brain from an early age: ‘If you can’t pay, don’t go’; ‘a stitch in time saves nine’; ‘look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves’ and one direct from my Granny Woodyatt who latterly ran a sweet shop in Horsham, Sussex: ‘the first hundred pounds are the hardest to save, followed by the first thousand’. So many I feel would have helped to prevent many a crisis both in domestic circles and in business. Another saying is ‘waste not, want not’, so there should be no need for food waste bins. Oh yes and we were always told: ‘if you can’t eat it, don’t put it on your plate’.
As you can guess, I am a bit short of news this month, but grumpy old men can usually find some thing to moan about!