You find great people in unexpected places. If you have the chance just talk to people you meet, ask them about their lives, and try to understand where they come from, and why they might think the way they do, you learn a lot about life.
As I sat at the bar and took my first wonderful mouthful of cold beer on a long hard work day, when the temperature reached 32 degrees, I looked across at the gentleman standing next to me. He was leafing through the newspaper in a way that clearly implied that he wasn't really taking any of it in. He was lost on his own thoughts.
It's worth noting that I knew this person from previous visits to the pub. His name was Gordon, an Irish man who did residential building work. He had told me that he was just waiting for a time when he could retire and start living life again. He is a grafter, one of the many people that do the jobs that most of us take for granted.
Sometimes, men in pubs want to talk, other times, they just want a bit of private space. To invade on that space is a faux pas of the highest order; you have to know when, and when not, to try and start a conversion.
As I sat at the bar and took my first wonderful mouthful of cold beer on a long hard work day, when the temperature reached 32 degrees, I looked across at the gentleman standing next to me. He was leafing through the newspaper in a way that clearly implied that he wasn't really taking any of it in. He was lost on his own thoughts.
It's worth noting that I knew this person from previous visits to the pub. His name was Gordon, an Irish man who did residential building work. He had told me that he was just waiting for a time when he could retire and start living life again. He is a grafter, one of the many people that do the jobs that most of us take for granted.
Sometimes, men in pubs want to talk, other times, they just want a bit of private space. To invade on that space is a faux pas of the highest order; you have to know when, and when not, to try and start a conversion.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, men are far more complicated than most women pretend to be. Maybe that comes from me having been in a predominantly female workforce for more than a quarter of a century. But I truly believe it holds true. Women wear their hearts on their sleeves, men don't. You have to know a man to have him open up to you. With women, you only have to ask what's on their mind, and soon they are revealing deep secrets about their lives.
"are you OK Gordon? You seem quiet tonight" I enquired. He looked up and said, in his thick southern Irish accent, "ah, its been a day. Too hot to do all the stuff I've been planning to do. Now I'm worried that this job is going to fall behind". He went on to explain that his carefully made plans would be thrown to the wind if we had another hot day like today. Apparently, really hot weather is very bad if you are doing anything with mortar. I nodded to him as if I knew why.
"are you OK Gordon? You seem quiet tonight" I enquired. He looked up and said, in his thick southern Irish accent, "ah, its been a day. Too hot to do all the stuff I've been planning to do. Now I'm worried that this job is going to fall behind". He went on to explain that his carefully made plans would be thrown to the wind if we had another hot day like today. Apparently, really hot weather is very bad if you are doing anything with mortar. I nodded to him as if I knew why.
Our subsequent conversation covered a range of topics: University education, mental health problems, dementia, euthanasia, and quality of life.
We shared our respective work-related stressors. Soon, it was apparent that we shared a lot of similar attitudes about the value that is placed of various jobs. The thing is, we, as a society, place arbitrary values on the importance of different work roles. Being a lawyer, sportsperson, doctor or businessman, appears to gain you a sense of importance, as opposed to someone who goes to your house and clears out your blocked drains. Whereas, the actual contribution to the lives of the affected people is pretty much the same.
The goodness of a person is not denoted by the size of their salary. We all know that there are many people who command huge salaries for doing, well pretty much nothing. It is the people who get up early in the morning to do tough demanding jobs, that no one else ever aspires to, that really keep the country running. They drive the buses, clean the offices, sweep the streets, and take away our rubbish.
Ok so that might sound like a load of communist/socialist nonsense, but stick with me here. I am not concerned with what people do for a living. This is all about what kind of people we are.
In my time, I have met some amazing people, I have also met some really quite terrible people too.
I have noted that there is no correlation between the earnings of an individual and the kind of person they actually are.
Lets put this in to context. There are far more poor people in this country than there are rich people. And yet, our attention is always focused on those who appear to have amassed the greatest amount of wealth, popularity, and material possessions. Moreover, those who have very little are often portrayed as undeserving, feckless, lazy or, even worse, a drain on society.
Our conversation about education uncovered that he was one of the top pupils in his class. He had passed his 11+ exam which earned him the right to go to a grammar school. However, life threw him a swerve ball. His mother became sick and needed a lot of help at home. Being the oldest of the children, and having a father that had to work away from home a lot of the time, it was left to him to be her primary carer.
Having missed his chance to go onto further education, he gained an apprenticeship so that he could learn a trade, and bring in some much needed money to the household.
When the family made the move from Ireland to Chiswick (at the time it was not the domain of the super rich that it is now), he quickly gained employment in the building trade. In which, he still works to this day.
We shared a lot of similar opinions about life. We talked at length about life being about quality, and not quantity. We soon recognised a lot of shared beliefs about the inequity of life, and the beauty of just being alive.
The pub was hot, too hot. I decided to walk outside to get some fresh air and cool off a bit.
Looking around me, I saw a glimpse of other lives. Across the road, a women stood at the window of a run down flat. A small child appeared at the window and waved at me. I waved back.
The mother ushered the child away, saying something that I could not hear but most likely something along the lines of "don't wave at strangers". Parental responsibility to keep a child safe is ubiquitous. A good parent in a bad place, I thought.
The sun had gone down and yet the heat was still radiating from the walls and pavements. It had been a hot day and the earth was not yet ready to surrender its heat to the night. I stayed outside for a while watching people walk by and wondering what life was like for them. What were their dreams, aspirations and fears?
We are taught to think that those who are successful in life shine brightly. But with light, comes shadow. The brightness of the wealthy and successful (by whatever arbitrary measure you want to use) cast long shadows across a city. In the darkness are people. People who live on the periphery of society. They go to work, pay their taxes, provide for their families as best they can, but do so without fanfare or recognition. they operate in the shadows, and yet they make up the larger part of the population.
In the darkness there are some amazing people. They won't ever make the Forbes top 100 rich list, but nevertheless, they will do their best to make their life be all about quality, not quantity.
