This story looks back to the recession in the 1980s. The story was first written in early 2019. In the Postscript I ask, what we can learn from the 80s and where to seek inspiration today.
Recently, I attended a storytelling workshop for business owners. One woman told the story of her young son’s death from cancer. Someone asked what emotion she wanted in her audience when she told her story. She replied: joy! The others said this didn’t sit right – joy overstated it, it was too much. I suggested: hope. They agreed this was a better word.
Is there hope? Tamino in The Magic Flute asks if there is the possibility of love and he’s told “Soon, soon or nevermore.” Keep looking …
The 80s Recession: Impasse?
Back in the 1980s, there was a massive recession. Sheffield lost much of its steel industry. I was living in Middlesbrough and it too saw the loss of steel and chemicals. County Cleveland’s industrial crisis developed over the decade, with two church-based responses.
The first was Impasse, developed by Canon Bill Hall, Chaplain to the Arts and Recreation in Durham Diocese. He asked unemployed people what they got from working, besides the money. They came up with friendships, a structure to their day, new skills, a sense of purpose and so on. Hall set up small centres all over the county called Impasse. The idea was you’d attend as if you were at work and get the benefits of work without being paid. Members set their own tasks and the more experienced helped thise with less. Middlesbrough Impasse offered woodwork, car mechanics, needlecrafts and cookery. For Hall the unemployed were the vanguard of a coming revolution.
But perhaps more was needed. The impact of the recession was massive. When a company such as ICI Billingham closes, the knock-on effects throughout the community are immense. Everything depends on the wages its staff spend in the area. It’s a cascading domino effect.
Michael Heseltine
I contributed to a church-based project called RESPOND! (Churches’ Response to Cleveland’s Industrial Crisis). In the early 80s, I met Kathy L on a training course. We got on really well and it was devastating to hear a year later that in her 30s, she’d died of pneumonia. Her husband, Keith, was appointed a year or so later as development worker for RESPOND! and there followed a period of inspired development work.
Keith talked with groups of unemployed people all over County Cleveland. This time the question was: what ideas would you put to the government? From this he compiled a document: Cleveland’s Experimental Area. This was endorsed by church leaders and they invited Michael Heseltine to visit the area, meet the authors and receive the document. This was an invitation no government could refuse. I don’t know whether it came to much but it gave people a voice and they used it.
Dark Holy Ground
Another example was a course called Dark Holy Ground, where long-term unemployed joined a few church people to share stories. This was the most powerful example of storytelling I’ve ever experienced. Peoples’ lives were utterly transformed by telling and hearing each other’s stories. They’d sat at home thinking unemployment was their fault. When they heard each other, they found they’d all blamed themselves. There must be another reason for their predicament.
Together they discovered the dark face of God. They studied the Psalms and found authors who experienced the same pain 4000 years ago, in an entirely different culture. And then Psalm 139, verse 11: “The darkness with you is no darkness at all, the night is as light as the day.” And someone said: “It’s still night!” Materially there was no change but now everything was different.
I met Robert G, then vicar of Coulby Newham twice. He was one of the leaders of Dark Holy Ground and we discussed the dark face of God in depth. I’m sure hope is the answer to the unanswerable question of longing for purpose, for happiness, for love – that our failure to support local economies brings in its wake.
Robert said a profoundly shocking thing. His gift was listening. He listened at a deep level. He asked: “when a parishioner tells me the story of their life and their experience of profound hurt and loss, do you know what emotion I feel?” This was a rhetorical question and so I replied: no. “Joy”, he said, “because it is in these darkest places I find we are closest to God.”
RECESSION POSTSCRIPT
I never thought I’d write this but we need a Michael Heseltine. I hated him in the 80s, his support for cruise missiles and photo opps in combat jacket, endeared him to his followers, perhaps. He’s now an elder statesman and like so many freed from the hurly-burly of politics, speaks sound sense.
He was responsible for regeneration of regional economies and I like to think he was influenced by the document from Cleveland’s Churches. He organised the Garden Festivals and if memory serves, developed regeneration initiatives, such as the Development Corporations. I don’t share his politics but as I get older, I recognise a political thinker of some calibre. Would there were more like him in Parliament today.
I could say the same of Keith who had an instinct for getting people together, listening to stories. We need more people like him too.
Recession Post-Lockdown
At the time of writing, the new recession seems unreal. We are far from returning to life pre-lockdown and I’m aware I’m not seeing the full picture, the real profound cost of the pandemic.
It’s always hard to see the implications of changes because those most affected are not heard. I hesitate to say there are reasons for joy but when we hear truth, stories told at great personal cost, there’s a sense of closeness to God, to reality. When we see clearly, we sense the presence of God. That’s what religion is in essence, seeing things unfiltered by ideology.
The power of stories, spoken from the heart, without artifice, effects change in the teller and their hearers. Those with an ideological approach know the answers, even though they’ve never heard the questions. Without the questions people really ask, they know nothing and so deliver nothing of importance.
Reasons for Hope in Recession
Hope is a painful word. You don’t need it when things go well. When we experience massive change, we need to comprehend it, to see its reality. We may want to avert our eyes because the truth we see undermines cherished assumptions about how the world works.
Here’s a few reasons for hope. Understand hope as strategic, when we’ve hope we’re open to change in the way we see things that might just reveal new approaches beyond the limitations of treasured beliefs.
Investment
One of the oddities of this crisis is the way in which we finance society has undergone a massive change. Doubtless there’s more than one reason but the point is massive amounts of money have been diverted into the economy. One criticism I’ve levelled at early 21st century capitalism is its tendency to take money out of the local economy and stow it away in offshore accounts.
I don’t doubt there are many who wish to reverse this trend. My question is, what has actually happened to this money? Where is it? There’ll be several answers. Some people lost money as jobs came to an end. Others found they’re better off because they’re not spending so much.
Is there actually more money in circulation? If not, we must ask where it is. Billions have been spent and we need to learn from where it’s gone.
Pandemics Bring Change in their Wake
Whatever our opinion about the Government in the UK, it’s unlikely to change over the next 4 years. Some actions it‘s taken are governed by a desire to retain the gains it made in 2019 General Election.
Throughout history, pandemics made massive changes to society. Go back to the Black Death or the Bubonic Plague and one implication of deaths of high percentages of the population is an increase in wages. With fewer people there’s more to go round.
I’m not suggesting deaths from Covid 19 are a good thing. Indeed, the numbers are relatively small compared to past pandemics (at least so far) and its implications may turn out to be primarily economic.
The UK Government has taken steps it would never have contemplated in ordinary times. For example, for a period homeless people have been accommodated in hotels. A temporary fix but it’s worth asking why this level of care cannot be found in ordinary times.
This suggests a change in perspective, yet to play out. We desperately need people of vision, small scale like Keith and RESPOND! and nationwide like Michael Heseltine. We need innovative international perspectives and so maybe the deadlock over Brexit will be broken.
Climate Change
In January, we’d no idea what was around the corner. If someone had said, we would be locked down by the end of March, they would have been ridiculed. Indeed, I never thought it would go so far until the announcement.
For decades, climate change sceptics have pointed out that so far there’s been little change (at least in the UK – bar the flooding). In truth, the evidence is there if you care to look.
Now we’ve seen how fast things can change. This should give us pause for thought. Maybe the rebuilding of the economy will focus upon preparation for the oncoming cataclysm. That nothing much is happening is a lie based on focusing on the status quo. The status quo no longer applies.
Why I do this
Stories rarely remain unchanged, the context in which they’re told matters just as much as the context referred to by the story. I wrote this sequence of 21 stories about 18 months ago. You may have read some or all of them in their earlier form. Reading them now, we perhaps see something different, especially as we consider the massive recession we face post-lockdown.
As I republish these stories, I revise and polish them. Some need little change, for others the changes are extensive. At the end of each story, I add reflections based on where my thinking has moved onto, especially in the context of Lockdown.
This is story 17/21. Last Story: Why Social Enterprise Mostly Doesn’t Work Next Story: Hospitality: Inner Healing at £3 a Pop!