Author Archives: Hilary
Survival Of The Fittest In The Marketplace, But Not For Life On Earth?
‘Survival of the fittest’ is often used to justify harsh business and other practices; but those who adopt this socio-economic position may also subscribe to ‘Creationist’ or ‘Intelligent Design’ notions about how life on earth has come about and diversified. This strange amalgum of beliefs arises from a lack of intellectual rigour which shows very clearly why Creationism should not become part of any serious school science curriculum.
It seems that Creationism is to be a feature of a new GCSE Biology curriculum in England. Whilst we have assurances that Creationism is not to be taught ‘as a subject’ I must admit to serious concerns about either Creationism or its close cousin, ‘Intelligent’ Design’ becoming part of the mainstream science curriculum.
General Studies can be a good place to discuss the ‘nature of science’ issues that arise from looking at Creationism or Intelligent Design, and maybe Religious Studies can offer perspectives on (non-)belief systems, but Science as a subject should probably not include subjects which are, quite simply, not subject to serious scientific scrutiny.
A conundrum of conflicting beliefs
One of the strangest things about the proponents of Intelligent Design and / or Creationism is that, for the most part, they have socio-economic beliefs which fit well within the Evolutionary Theory which they so strongly reject as an explanation of biological difference.
How can ‘survival of the fittest’ be seen to explain, and be acceptable, in terms of socio-political and economic / business affairs, but not biological ones?
Underlying this conundrum is perhaps a sense of preordination, that things are ‘given’ and cannot be changed on the whim of mere human beings; and this sense fits very helpfully into much of right-wing politics. But for those of us who respect the idea of science as a discipline and mode of knowledge, this is if anything completely the wrong way around.
Millennia to ‘change’ biology, but maybe minutes to change our own behaviour?
Living things change naturally over the millennia, ‘responding’ (i.e. surviving or not) to their contexts and inherent make up. This is a very long term and complex business.
On the other hand, human beings’ behaviour can, because we can perceive ourselves and reflect on what we do, change dramatically in the course of a single life time. ‘Intelligent Design’ is something we can all usefully engage in our own behaviour and outlook – not something which we need to dream up to ‘explain’ the amazing way in which the world as we know it has evolved over millions of years.
If survival of the fittest can be called upon by right wing thinkers to account for economic behaviour, they surely don’t have to devise other, quite undemonstrable, ‘explanations’ for the diversity of life on earth…. which leads me to wonder what less obvious reasons there may be for this strange conjunction of beliefs.
Solar Lighting Could Solve The Parks Problem
The debate about lighting in Liverpool’s parks continues, with strong views on both sides. One idea which resolves most of the issues raised would be solar lighting. It can be put anywhere, it’s easily maintained, it’s relatively cheap – and it has all the right ecological credentials.
The nights are at last beginning to shorten, and we can finally think again of strolling around Sefton Park before supper.
There are big plans afoot for Sefton Park, as for several other of Liverpool’s parks, but one of the sticking points has been lighting – much of Sefton Park is unlit, and there seems little likelihood that this will change even if the ambitious renovations promised do actually come to pass.
Why no park lighting?
Several reasons have ben given for withholding lighting from large swathes of the park and its pathways (even some of the widest and most used). These include a fear that it will frighten away the bats, badgers, whatever, or that it makes unlit areas look ‘even darker and less safe’; and apparently these concerns are more compelling than the very understandable sense that a lot of people just don’t like walking in an unlit park, albeit they would like to get some exercise.
But at base I suspect that the most pressing reason for no more lighting is cost. The powers-that-be know it would be quite expensive to install and maintain, and they don’t want to ‘overburden’ the funding bids which are being developed to make our parks better and nicer places to visit.
An ecological solution
So why can’t we bring together concerns for cost and other issues, and reach a half-way position which, to me at least, looks rather sensible?
Let’s have solar lighting.
Solar lights don’t have to be joined together with bits of cable, they don’t require electricity from a generator, they can be put anywhere (and more can be added as desired) and they don’t need time switches. Solar lights come on as it gets dark and they turn themselves off after a few hours (short stretches of light when it’s cold and only the sturdiest souls are striding out, and longer during those balmy summer evenings when everyone wants to promenade). Plus, once installed they are inexpensive, and their maintenance is easy.
And, perhaps best of all, solar lights are eco-friendly. If there’s one place in the city which needs to set an example with green credentials, surely it’s our parks?
See also: Sefton Park’s Grebes And Swans
Liverpool’s Sefton Park, Swans, Herons And Grebes
Sefton Park, Liverpool: Winter Solstice 2006
Cherry Blossom For May Day In Sefton Park, Liverpool
What Now For Liverpool’s Sefton Park?
Cherry Picking Liverpool’s Sefton Park Agenda
Liverpool’s Sefton Park Trees Under Threat – Unnecessarily?
Friends Of Sefton Park
Regeneration Means Looking After What You’ve Got, As Well As What You Aim For
Plans for a future Mersey Tram are in tatters at the same time as the very real Mersey Ferry landing stage lies under water. More care for current assets and less dispute about proposals still on the drawing board might have served the Liverpool sub-region better. Regeneration is about looking after what we already have, even as we dream about the future.
Transport arrangements in Liverpool have been somewhat topsy turvey of late.
Am I the only person who wonders how we could be letting our main Passenger Ferry landing stage slip into the Mersey at the same time that we are making such a fuss about the ‘loss’ of the proposed Tram?
After five years of plans and plotting it seems the Trams are not to return to Liverpool, at least in the foreseeable future. This is obviously a blow to those who fought to see this mode of transport resurrected in the city, not least the Merseytravel team who had already invested heavily in track and the like for construction.
All was not as it seemed
But then we learnt that not everyone within the city council was enthusiastic about this idea. There are stories of counter-briefings and blame in high places.
And whilst this extraordinary tale was unfolding…. the Liverpool Pier Head landing stage fell into the Mersey River. And the Ferries had to be cancelled for the foreseeable future, all because of an ‘unexpected’ tide.
So not only will people from the starkly less advantaged east of Liverpool not get the rapid transport system which many insisted they had needed in order to develop work opportunities for the future, but also people who currently travel into Liverpool from Wirral to work (or vice versa) suddenly found their transport had, quite literally, been sunk.
Lessons worth learning?
There may be lessons here for everyone; and doubtless different people will conclude differently what these lessons are. But for me it’s this: Don’t let grand plans for the future ruin what’s OK about the present.
Too much of the regeneration agenda, in Liverpool and quite possibly elsewhere, is taken up with filling the front pages of the local papers with imaginative and very likely undeliverable ideas; but far too little of this agenda is concerned with nurturing what we have already, whether this be people or physical resources. The second, ‘nurturing’ option may be less dramatic than the ‘visionary’ first, but it’s equally important.
Visions for the future have produced a blinkered view of the present. Whilst Liverpool City Council, Merseytravel and others made plans and perhaps counterplans about the hugely expensive Tram, not much thought was, it seems, being giving to our already famous Ferries. And now we have neither. Perhaps, with a bit less posturing and a bit more thought, we could have had both.
Let’s Celebrate International Women’s Day, Today (8th March 2006)
International Women’s Day is not a huge occasion for most people; but maybe it could be if we all grasped this annual opportunity to examine and where possible to celebrate, on a year-on-year basis, what progress has been made in gender equality. A start could be made, Monday Women decided, by ensuring we learn Herstory alongside His.
How does one ‘celebrate’ International Women’s Day? And, indeed, should one? This was one of the topics discussed by Monday Women in Liverpool, today.
Given that women make up over 50% of the population of the UK, I suppose I shall be impressed when we are also invited to celebrate International Men’s Day… but I do know, really, that this misses the point at least for now.
Anyway, we all do what we can. One year we even managed to produce a chamber concert including previously unheard music by the composer, Dame Ethel Smyth (who probably wrote the music around the very time when first glimmers of the idea of IWD came into being, not that far from where she was studying in central Europe). And on many occasions there have been conferences, readings and much else to recognise the parts women play in contemporary society.
Not a big issue for women or men?
But generally people don’t get very excited about International Women’s Day, as far as I can see. I wish they would. It would be excellent if, on this day, we not only celebrated the contributions of many thousands of unseen, unheard women in our local communities, but also began to ask, really seriously, just why are they so unacknowledged?
There’s a lead story in The Independent today about how campaigners say that unless urgent action is taken on the status of women, the Millennium Development Goals on reducing poverty, infant deaths and standards of education will not be met… but The Indy also reports that only one in four British women counts herself a feminist.
For those of us who have worked over many years to seek empowerment of women alongside men this is in some respects a truly puzzling and disappointing figure; but against it we need to ask what proportion of women in previous generations would taken this label. My guess, overall, is fewer than we imagine, despite Rosie the Riveter and all she taught us.
Herstory…
So let’s make a start by being a bit more realistic. If young people don’t know much about how things were (and how many young people actually want to look backwards at that point in their lives?) they will also not know about how things have changed. We more experienced feminists need to work from what is – i.e. an ahistoric perspective in which all that is wrong now actually seems to younger people to be ‘worse’ than what was before – and to find ways of challenging that strategically, not personally.
Rather than feeling upset that what we have worked for is not understood – upsetting though in my heart I must admit this is – those of us who champion gender equality need to find ways of ensuring that HERstory is told, to everyone, alongside HIStory. Then we shall be able to demonstrate what has already been achieved and, critically, to see more clearly where the obstacles to further progress lie.
Whose responsibility?
In curriculum terms, responsibility for herstory obviously lies with the schools and the government. But in other ways it lies with us all. I would like to see a focus on International Women’s Day 2007 on what each aspect of our daily lives has offered over the past year in terms of opportunities and life experience for women and men. Could this be a challenge for the media, and for us all? An agenda we could start to set now, for next year and all the years which follow?
In the meantime, Monday Women have said it already today on our e-group – have a great day!
Carnival, Festival Or Fiesta?
Different meanings apply to the words ‘carnival’, ‘fiesta’ and ‘festival’, but these are not always apparent in their day-to-day usage. The cultural, religious and indeed sometimes class-related nuances of these words influence decisions about what is appropriate for whom. But this may not help us to see that ideas of ‘excellence’ are not necessarily at all the same as the notion of ‘elitism’. Nonetheless, this distinction is very important, and never more so than in cities such as Liverpool, as they strive to re-invent themselves.
When is a series of celebratory perfomances a ‘Carnival’, when is it a ‘Festival’ and when is it a ‘Fiesta’?
My curiosity about these words was first aroused in the early 1990s, when we began to talk about resurrecting the Hope Street Festival in Liverpool. There is a tradition stretching back many years of Festival events in Liverpool – not least the Hope Street events (in some of which I was involved as a student) in 1977 for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, and in the city as a whole through several decades before then.
Changing expectations
What rapidly became apparent when we began to talk with people in the 1990s however was that there were several very different undersandings about what a contemporary ‘Festival’ might be – and that most of them did not at all equate to my previous expectation that a Festival in Liverpool would be something along the lines of those in Edinburgh, Harrogate or, say, any of the Three Choirs cities.
Liverpool does indeed still have an annual ‘Festival‘, but that is a competitive event, mostly for children and amateur groups, and originally driven by a number of determined local citizens, such as the late Dennis Rattle, father of Sir Simon, and members of the Rushworth family (who had a music shop in the city). This performing arts competition, though in a fine British tradition, is neither a festival in the sense of a programme of formal professional events, nor a ‘fringe‘ in the sense that, say, Edinburgh has one.
Rather, it seemed that what people across the city expected from a modern festival around Hope Street was something in my mind more akin to a fiesta or carnival, perhaps along the lines of the event which has subsequently developed in Liverpool’s Mathew Street.
The formal definitions
These different understandings, which took a while to draw out from discussions, sent me off to look for the dictionary. What I found is interesting. The respective Oxford Concise Dictionary definitions are:
Carnival ~ festivities usual during period before Lent in R.C. countries; riotous revelry; travelling circus or fair; festivities esp. occurring at regular date
Festival ~ feast day, celebration, merry-making; periodic musical etc. performance(s)
Fiesta ~ religious festival in Spanish-speaking countries; festivity, holiday
All the terms I investigated arise from religious events, and usually Roman Catholic ones specifically – an interesting piece of background information in a city such as Liverpool, with in some parts its strongly Catholic, working class traditions.
Festivals are what you make of them
This has set me thinking. There is perhaps a tension here between what people in different places, with different previous experience, expect from a Festival. For the people of Liverpool, the large majority of whom have probably only a passing acquaintance with Edinburgh, Harrogate, Worcester, Salisbury, Cheltenham or other cities which host formal Festivals, the expectation is that celebratory performance will be community-based and, indeed, probably actually conducted on the street. A good example of this is the events offered by Hope Street Ltd, an arts training organisation in Liverpool.
Likewise, when the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra decided to start a summer concerts series some years ago, it chose to do so under canvas and on the waterfront, on a ‘Pops‘ basis. (Since then, the event has taken a course which means that the RLPO is scarcely involved at all.)
Expectations can be important
There are however potential dangers in this apparent democratisation of performance art. Firstly, if people in a city are not encouraged to expect Festival performances by visiting artists such as we might expect in Edinburgh, Cheltenham or wherever, they are unlikely to value them; and the message that ‘excellence’ (both indigenous to the city and offered by visitors) is not the same as ‘elitism’ may be lost.
And, secondly, Liverpool will in 2008 become the European Capital of Culture. We in Liverpool may well have much to show visitors from Europe and beyond about how to engage local (largely working class) communities in arts performance – and I am genuinely eager that we should. But it is unlikely that visitors from further afield will be impressed by this if it is not backed up by evidence that we can also provide what many of them, from their previous experience, may expect in addition – which is a fine array of first rate professional offerings very visibly supported by the local populace.
In other words, there is still a lot of audience capacity building to be done in Liverpool before 2008, if we are to impress our very welcome visitors as we would wish. And time is short. Carnivals and fiestas are great; but they need to be nurtured alongside festivals of the sort offered by other sophisticated and ambitious cities, if we in Liverpool are to take maximum advantage of the possibilities now on the horizon for our Year as European Capital of Culture.
World Book Day (2nd March 2006)
World Book Day is being celebrated today. It’s an occasion to appreciate bedtime stories and learned journals alike. Even in this technological era there is a place in our everyday experience for books which no other medium can fill…. just try organising your bookshelves to see how true this attachment is, and how early in our lives it begins.
It’s World Book Day today, and by a strange co-incidence in this house we spent quite a bit of it putting up new bookshelves in the hall – the only place left anywhere to park more books.
The decision to re-organise several boxes of books had nothing to do with today’s more organised focus elsewhere, but it brought home to me just in how many ways we all use books in our daily lives. Of course books tell us things, they help us to learn and to retain knowledge, and they offer entertainment and amusement; but they are also mementos of our lives.
Books as the biography of their owners
Re-arranging my books, I thought how they had been acquired, and what impact they have had on me. My C. P. Snow Strangers and Brothers series takes me back to when I was still a student, as they opened my eyes to a world of ‘corridors of power’ that I didn’t until then even know existed. Then there are the many books now back on view in our hall which attest to my academic and teaching years, ranging from the early writings on community, gender and health studies through to texts on the sociology and politics of science and knowledge. And side by side with these are those lovely books on European cities, each with their personal memories of summer days relaxing in the sun, and summer evenings listening to music and watching the stars.
Books as the biography of childhood
Then we can add to these adult memories, though still packed away in a cupboard but perhaps to claim their rightful place in a new home somewhere in the future, those children’s books we couldn’t bear to part with when ‘the family’ grew up and left. (I was delighted to discover recently that The Very Hungry Caterpillar is still a firm hit with the under-fives…. just as Winnie the Pooh and Toad of Toad Hall will never be forgotten.)
Legacies and futures
We rarely forget what we grew up with. There are moves afoot, both now via World Book Day, and through programme such as Sure Start’s ‘Book Start’, to ensure that every child in Britain has books of their own before they begin school.
We look back on our personal libraries, however particular, and remember and refer. Events such as World Book Day will help to ensure that, even in this technological age, the citizens of the future will also be able to hold memories and ideas in solid form.
Wasn’t there a saying somewhere (?the Jesuits) to the effect of, ‘Give me a child until (s)he’s seven, and I will show you the (wo)man…’? The earlier in childhood we start to know about books as the repositories of ideas and histories, the more we are able to share and extend these as we grow older.
Read more articles:
Communicating
No-Win Or Win-Win Gender And Babies Agenda?
Choosing if and when to have a baby has never been an easy decision, especially if both partners want to continue in employment. But the debate has shifted quite a lot in the past few years, and perhaps now a deeper understanding is emerging of what ‘work-life balance’ is really about.
Actually, of course, some folk would say it’s all-win for some, and never-win for others; but we do know, really, it’s not like that.
The question does however have to be asked, how can you get it right, if you’re a woman and a mum and a person who wants to make her way in the world?
History or Herstory?
Fact is, for the past fifty years it’s been even more complicated than for the years before then. Whatever is thought by those with shorter memories, the time from the end of World War II (1945) until the end of the sixties, and well into the seventies, was dreadful for women wanting to maintain their families and their careers.
The landmark equality legislation of the 1970’s certainly changed things for the better… but even I found myself in a situation, when ‘the family’ arrived, of having to resign my full-time post and then apply again for my job, as a part-timer. Maternity leave had never been taken by anyone at the college where I then taught, and anyway it was a mere four weeks or bust (which even after resigning was not much less than what I had, before I went back as a part-timer).
Strange then how, during WWII (I report here from the history books, not personal recollection), there was all sorts of support for ‘working women’, so it could be done when the will was there. But at that time of course, sadly, the men actually weren’t ‘there’ as well….
Improved, but still problematic
So I don’t go at all with the idea of some young women today that ‘it’s harder now than it was for our mums’ – who, it is I gather supposed, just had to work for ‘pin-money’, or else stayed at home supported by a bread-winning spouse who could earn for the family; for most of us I suspect that only happened on The Archers.
Nor of course do I believe that 1939-1945, with all its horrors, was a time when women always thrived. But classic films such as Rosie the Riveter (about a group of female engineering production workers in New York in the ’40s) demonstrate well the capability and willingness of women to take on ‘men’s jobs’ when they have to.
And nearer to home, I discovered in my own research in the 1970s that women who had entered academic science during the 1940s had a better chance of professional progression than younger ones, who had to compete with the men.
Complex judgements and issues
No, the issues now more complex than they were either when the need for skilled workers required women to take the job on, or indeed when the campaigns for basic rights (oh heady days!) were still to be won.
It’s rare for anyone today to announce their outright hostility to women – though there are many serious and shocking stories still to be told. The formal legal battles, if not the wage-related ones, have been quite largely secured. It’s beginning at last to cost those who don’t grasp equality a lot of money.
But that doesn’t resolve everything. We read daily of ‘reasons’ why women ‘should’ only have their children in a very narrow age-slot; and why they ‘must’ keep close physical contact with their babies for a considerable time. On a personal level these are harder things to deal with, than is straightforward sexist write-off. Psychological pressures can cause real personal pain; for fair-minded people sexism just causes anger.
Where’s the truth?
I don’t think there is a single truth in all this – except that no way is it ‘just’ a ‘women’s dilemma’. Whoever heard of a baby that didn’t have a dad somewhere along the line?
My recollection is that these psychological influences on decisions about having a family were always there, lurking in the scenes; but in previous decades we’ve had to concentrate on rights as such. Now young women (and their partners) have to make personal judgements, because genuine choice does at least to some extent exist.
It was never, ever, easy. But perhaps if real choices start to be made by women and men together, the climate might begin to change so that at least most folk understand and respect the dilemmas and decisions we all have to make, when we bring (or decide not to bring) babies into the world.
The expression ‘work-life balance‘ could be about to become genuinely meaningful at last.
A version of this article was first published in Diverse Liverpool: the gender issue, in March 2006, pp. 113-115.
Read more articles about Gender & Women, and see more of Hilary’s Publications, Lectures & Talks
Modern Civic Leadership Needs Gender Equity
Cities like Liverpool still seem to have a problem about ‘strong women’. On-going changes of civic leadership in the city offer an opportunity for the chaps to disprove suspicions that they continue to hold this antiquated attitude across all spheres of influence. Institutional sexism has no place in an adult and forward-looking city.
Recent turbulence in Liverpool’s civic leadership has set me thinking about what comes next. Do we want more of the same, or do we want something fresher and more responsive than the present arrangements?
This is a city with a tradition of behind-the-scenes chaps’ groups who met for luncheon and called themselves ‘The Big Four’ (or is it Super Six, or First Eleven, or Secret Seventeen?), and which has no, repeat no, really serious power-brokers outside Westminster who sometimes wear skirts. (There are some fine women out there doing excellent jobs, but they ain’t at the top of local government in Liverpool.)
Does Liverpool have a problem about women?
I’m certainly not of the view that women are necessarily ‘better’ than men in any respect, or that change necessarily means feminisation. But I do think, on the basis of many years’ experience, that this is a city which still has problems with welcoming the input of strong women. Maybe that’s not just a characteristic of Liverpool, but we are quite evidently trailing in the so-called Equal Opportunities stakes, as the Mersey Partnership Gender Agenda illustrates all too painfully.
Equality of opportunity is also best use of human resource
This isn’t just (though it is anyway) a matter of equity. This is a matter of the optimum use of resource, including talent, knowledge and understanding. In cities like Liverpool (I assume there are others too) problems seem to be ‘solved’ by top-down directives. Maybe that was necessary at one stage; but it won’t take us up to the next level – at least, not in my opinion a next level which in the long-run will do us any good.
Using human resources well means accommodating different styles and different perspectives. Even putting aside the compelling moral case, the fundamental reason that equal opportunities is critical is that any other way wastes potential to serve the best interests of everyone. (Has someone forgotten that over half the population is female?)
Sometimes men of influence are afraid of women who are strong
Men and women across the globe are in the end much the same; the variations within each gender are usually greater than the differences between the genders when it comes to work, decisions, personal choices and so forth. We (nearly) all want what’s best, we (nearly) all want decent, effective decision-making. So theoretically it doesn’t matter whether our leaders are men or women, as long as they’re able and of good faith.
But in one respect Liverpool at least hasn’t got there yet. The chaps who decide things – not all of them, but some – are not yet prepared to change their perceptions, to see individuals for what they can bring to the party, rather than what they wear (to be facetious, a skirt or a tie?). Whilst the city continues to be run by an unspoken convention about what sort of person is ‘appropriate’ for serious influence, leadership and decision-making – and challenge as you may, demonstrating this convention isn’t the case is very difficult – we are desperately missing a trick.
Influence and leadership across the board
Covert sexism in Liverpool applies whether we’re looking at the Town Hall, the local economy or community development and involvement. There is an inflexibility somewhere in ‘the system’ which results I suspect from insecurity and / or protectionism masquerading as traditional, definitive leadership. And this overall leadership, as we have seen, is hugely male-dominated.
Current civic changes offer a chance for those decision-makers who really do care about the best interests of us all now to deliver something more inclusive and thereby also more effective for the whole community.
We shall be a Grown Up City when, and only when, the Chaps are no longer afraid of Strong Women.
Whatever Is The ‘Health Economy’?
The ‘health economy’ is much discussed but little defined idea. Within local health-care provision it carries an assumed status which it is perhaps now time to challenge. We don’t in everyday parlance between managers talk of an ‘education economy’; so why a ‘health economy’? Many of us would defend very strongly the concept of essential health care free at the point of delivery, but the idea of a closed specialist health economy may not be the best strategic vehicle to ensure delivery of such modern, responsive and effective health care.
There’s a fair amount of excitement around the changes in the National Health Service these days. Big shifts are about to occur in the shape, goegraphical and structural, of Primary Care Trusts, Stratgeic Health Authorities and much else. And in amongst all the other deliberations there is much reference to the ‘health economy’.
What is the ‘health economy’?
Now is probably not the best time to go into the pluses and minuses of the strategic plans for the various strands of the NHS; feelings are running high and there’s a lot to sort out yet. But it may well be a good time to ask, just what is the ‘health economy’?
This is a very particular notion, and possibly not a very helpful one. In the U.K. at least it seems mostly to refer the range of business and economic activities which fall within the scope of government-led medical attention. Nonetheless, it is by no means as easy as one might imagine to find a definition of what the health economy actually is, as opposed to simply references to it in the contexts of other health-related activity. ‘Health professions’, ‘health care’ or ‘health economics’, yes, there are many formal references and links; but ‘health economy’…. if you know of a good weblink or text book, please tell us!
A constraining concept
Perhaps it’s time to stop using this term at all. With the newer ways of delivering health care (even though this is still more likely to be ‘illness and medical care’, rather than ‘well-being and health promotion care’) the interface between different types of providers is becoming more blurred. The intention of the NHS to provide essential care free at the point of delivery remains, whoever is giving it, but the economic links are of necessity becoming far more complex.
New opportunities
There are many ways in which a more fluid concept of health-related activity might widen the scope for responsive delivery. We don’t hear about the ‘education economy’, ‘arts economy’ or ‘science economy’ as every day notions; they’re all part of, for instance, a much bigger knowledge economy. Perhaps less talk of the ‘health economy’ will open up more visible opportunities for local social enterprise and business engagement in flexible and client-responsive health care provision; and that in turn may perhaps also help local investment and regeneration in a much broader way.
What’s In A Name? And Do We Mind?
Lots of us have names which seem to get mis-spelt. But does it really matter? In my books, for most of the time the meaning behind the name is more telling than how people may spell it. My parents chose names to give me a very well-blessed start in life, and to that has been added another positive label. Who could ask names with a nicer meanings than healing, happy and free? Spell these as you will, I’m a really lucky person.
I suppose none of us should worry about it. If it was good enough for Shakespeare, it must be good enough for us. They didn’t fuss too much about how names were spelt in Good Queen Bess’s days, I’m told….. But it’s still a bit off-putting when we get a letter which we know is intended for us, but is addressed with a mis-spelt name.
How can so many of us have so many identities? Hilliary, Hillary, Hillery and even, surprisingly often, Helen / Helene or Hazel, are first names which appear on envelopes for me, some of them to Ms, some to Miss or Mrs, and even some to Mr.
A mediaeval family name
And that’s before we get to the family name – not of course actually my own family name at all, but nonetheless a fine old English moniker if ever there was one: Burradge, Berridge, Borage, Burge, Burbage, Borrage, Barrage, Burnage, Burgage, Burbadge and more. (The best of all, from a five-year-old whispering conspiratorally to me that she already knew my name, by way of welcome during a visit I made to her school many years ago, was… Mrs Porridge.)
To be honest, in general I don’t mind. Our family name has a long history both in the U.K. and I believe as a Boston foundation of benefactors in the USA. I think the name probably derives from the excellent mediaeval herb, a tasty plant with an attractive blue flower, for which healing properties are claimed. I like blue flowers, I approve of nutritious plants, and I very much enjoy the idea of the connection with history and a tradition of healing over the centuries.
Happy and free
And as for my first names, my middle one is Frances (not Francis, which is the version for chaps), and it means free; and my chosen name means happy and cheerful. Blessings indeed. Spell these as you will, who could ask for anything more?
Dreaming Realist 