Hard News: Revival
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Thanks Sofie. About those sorts of war stories - they're never told by the people themselves, about themselves, it's always something you'll hear from one or more of their comrades, as if they have to tell while they're still able. And it's never a boast, more a kind of confession. People who've seen more than they can bear don't seem to have any appetite left for bravado.
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Ain't it so.
mwa mwa -
Jobs for the boys...
Fair enough. I was thinking of an interview I did with Tim Shadbolt once where he talked about what a joy going to university had been -- no pressure, few costs, you could walk onto a building site and get a job when you wanted one, etc.
I think Tim worked on projects like the Manapouri tunnel as well (if my memory of Bullshit and Jellybeans is to be trusted), ain't so many of those around any more - though Auckland may have some tunnelling and track laying jobs coming up, or do the machines do those now?
talking 'bout my D-D-Degeneration...
I think it all turned pear-shaped when the general populace was persuaded they could get stuff without any money in hand, my parents would never credit it, now we are a culture of on-ticking timebombs... -
Just in case anyone ignored that link I gave earlier because they thought it might be something about feminism, and not about Aotearoa New Zealand's rich cultural life, it actually marked 25 years ago yesterday that the bone people won the Booker prize. The author of the post and the author of the book reconnected recently here through the hobbit saga thread.
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May I correct one thing in your post, Russell?
Not wanting to go overboard as your post was excellent Russell, but I'm going to have to get a little Yorkshireman on you here Islander.
It actually cost quite a bit to attend university, mainly for books and sundry fees. I was a law student at Canterbury for 4 terms (1968/69) but left because I could no longer afford to pay my way (a large number of students worked their holidays earning money for each term,
Generation X's parents were means tested. If parents' incomes were above the threshold, we were forced to take out loans accruing interest of 12.5% per annum.
Unfortunately some of these parents were partial to the concept or at least the soundbite 'tough love' (made popular by Bill Milliken's 1968 book), and used some twisted version of this rhetoric to validate not paying for their offspring's tertiary study.
These loans, not simply for books but for rent, bills, food, drink, GST appeared like chasms beneath the middle class kids at the conclusion of high school. Many had jobs. In an urban setting one could make about $1500 per summer working fulltime (1 term's living expenses). During term time, part time work was much harder to find given that unemployment was by then lingering at about 9.5%.
Obviously blaming the baby boomers is fruitless, as it's far too big a generalization (And the fees/ loans could have been introduced in any epoch and there would have been casualties).
For those still affected (specifically those who chose to study and were charged interest to survive) This is more of a personal issue between the NZ Xs, their families and the differing interpretations of the intent of policy, personally I think the buck should have stopped with the Govt. The policy they facilitated left clear leeway for exploitation, which duly happened.
Simply stated, I think Russell is right. Yes Islander it actually cost you quite a bit to attend university, but it was money you had. And it certainly seldom cost you the relationship with your family or the privilege of hitting 21, free of debt.
Obviously the wise choice would have been to forgo or delay a university education, but most 18 y/o aren't that onto it.
It shouldn't have been allowed to happen like that, I hope it works as a partial explanation for the small degree of inter-generational animosity.
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Misery loves company...
No reviving this... (a shameless plug)
Auckland artist, Misery, is auctioning off items from her past on Nov 4 at Shed 2, in Auckland.Plugging on...
Bill Direen (& the Bilders) has his 'Mean Time' release gig scheduled for the Kings Arms on Sunday the 7th November at 3pm!! - with Sandra Bell, Surf Friends and other Powertool Records acts......meanwhile back in a certain alley in Chch:
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That's all true enough, Chris, but far fewer Boomers than Gen-Xers got to go to university at all.
However, most jobs didn't require that and houses and suchlike were far more affordable as a proportion of the average income. But choices in most other items like cars were limited. And so on..
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chris- it was money I earned (I had saved a bit of money from tobacco-picking, and added to it in holiday time.) And - far from having the "privilege of hitting 21, free of debt", I was in debt when I headed to the Coast in 1970; I have been majorly in debt most of my life (including now.) My widowed mother, with 5 kids younger than me, could not assist me at university.
But my family has always been supportive of what I do - as I have been supportive of them when I can be. The support then was not monetary - just familial.
And why were you *forced* to take out loans? Yeah, parents were means-tested: you (one presumes) took out loans because you wanted to continue studying. Such loans were not available for me in the 1960s.
I think I could develop inter-generational animosity with enough provocation.
But it'd be fairly silly to - there are 2 younger generations in the family with their own kind of tribulations ahead...
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I must say that - having started my BA in 1997, with yearly fees of perhaps a little less than $3,000, and at a time when jobs weren't plentiful, I didn't find it very difficult to support myself. The loan was an option that was there, and that wasn't available to me back home; and conversely whilst back home we had no fees, it was much harder to keep up with your exam schedule, and so the extra time you had to support yourself and forego income made studying actually more expensive. There are a lot of variables.
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That's all true enough, Chris, but far fewer Boomers than Gen-Xers got to go to university at all.
Yeah, it's an interesting quandary, with the highly educated being forced to take low skilled jobs. Sir Peter and Sir Richard (amongst others) have provided meaningful employment to partially fill that void, and their contributions should not never be taken for granted. Sorry, somebody's at the door...
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"There are a lot of variables."
Indeed. And there were a lot of variables way back then also. One being a dearth of jobs for women that paid anything like reasonable wages.
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But choices in most other items like cars were limited.
only if you bought new, but who does that ! When there were beauties like This or my favourite
Working on these was sooo easy, no EI. And a valve grind was an event. -
a dearth of jobs for women that paid anything like reasonable wages
Because the wage was oriented around the assumption that men were supporting a whole family including a woman to run the home, which is where she was meant to be. Except nuns and (until they got married and left their father's household) nurses, typists - and at a pinch, teachers, if they couldn't find a real man to do the job. Ah, the good old days.
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Sacha - exactly. Seems kinda quaint and unrealistic
(not to mention sexist as all get out) these days,
but that was the world I grew to adulthood in- -
Apologies for the double negative above
One being a dearth of jobs for women that paid anything like reasonable wages....but that was the world I grew to adulthood in-
True Islander, I'm duly chastened* by that, despite ongoing discrepancies, the increases in equality (gender/ racial/ physical/ political) are certainly something I have personally taken for granted throughout my life, even in childhood those pre revolution gulfs seemed antiquated, prehistoric, otherworldly even.
In many ways because these bigger cultural battles were fought, and for all intents and purposes won before our time, the would-be political (re)activists in subsequent generations (enamored with the struggles of our predecessors) seem hindered a little by a collective inferiority muteness and sense of powerlessness against the apparent lack of sufficiently flawed adversaries or relevant contestable doctrine (excluding of course the ongoing battle for a clean and sustainable environment....)
When the shit went down in the 60s, The activists seemed to have existed in a largely polarized social and cultural structure, where the equality movement was railing against a "this is the way it is, and it is right!" prerogative
Since that line was replaced with the new standard "we're working on it, we will sort this out...eventually", significant protestation on almost any worthy issue (such as the state of environment) seems to have been in effect disenfranchised to some extent, the establishment now seems to fly much lower under the radar in this more streamlined amorphous state.
This seems to have led to a rise of the moderates, whose reactions, while liberal are distinctly moderate, so much so that it's hard to disagree with their seasoned takes despite the fact that this prime issue humanity now faces is anything but moderate and playing havoc with our seasons.
Or am I just reading the wrong books?
*not to the point of monk hood -
Does this hit the spot, or what? Wisdom of a boomer.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10684625
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. . . far fewer Boomers than Gen-Xers got to go to university at all.
It was a time, though, when you could pretty much embark on a career simply by demonstrating a willingness to learn on the job. By the early 90s you needed a qualification to work in a day care centre, which of course wasn't necessarily a bad thing, except where it discriminated against some excellent carers who'd never achieve academically.
Could Phillip Adams, who never attended university, distinguish himself today without a degree in mass communications or media studies? How about Denis Welch or Russell Brown?
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Could Phillip Adams, who never attended university, distinguish himself today without a degree in mass communications or media studies? How about Denis Welch or Russell Brown?
Funny you should mention that. I went directly from secondary school to journalism in 1981. I must have been one of the last newspaper cadets.
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Russell, I'd like to know what it is that you think we might have lost.
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With regard our education system.Rebel yell!
(bit of topic but, what the hey.) -
@ Cecelia - yes, it did for me. Charmaine Pountney headed Auckland Girls' Grammar very successfully, I believe. Good on her for that column.
There's a comment underneath from someone with a European name based in China. My goodness, I hope they're not teaching English there.
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One being a dearth of jobs for women that paid anything like reasonable wages.
This is still true today, as I've found out this year. (Earlier this year, I had to place my elderly 'aunt' into a home, after she'd be living with me since 2007 due to Alzheimers).
The jobs available to me now are low paying and in the weekend. (I don't mind working occasional weekends, but I have a family I also need to give time to). And weekends nowadays pay the same rate as non-weekend work.
...Man, I'd love a 'proper' job, I'm sick of being poor and isolated. :(
Women hardest hit by recession: http://www.3news.co.nz/Women-hardest-hit-by-rising-unemployment/tabid/421/articleID/115601/Default.aspx
Prior to taking on Lyn, I was doing okay raising my daughter and enjoying contract/part time weekday jobs at reasonable hourly/contract rates. That's dried up.
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the establishment now seems to fly much lower under the radar in this more streamlined amorphous state.
No, "the establishment" just got better at lying ( the growth in forms of positivist linguistic expression were immensely helpful to the dumb fucks)
And making minor changes around the fringes (while making a big deal about it). -
It actually cost quite a bit to attend university, mainly for books and sundry fees. I was a law student at Canterbury for 4 terms (1968/69)
It now costs anywhere between five and twelve times as much, depending on your course, in real terms. The transfer of wealth from the generation born in the 70s, 80s and 90s, to the generation born in the 60s and 70s who got their education before 1990 is massive - something in the region of over 20 billion dollars, over 10 billion of which we still owe. Compounded by taking tax cuts for themselves and then complaining that they can't afford to put further funds into tertiary education.
That's all true enough, Chris, but far fewer Boomers than Gen-Xers got to go to university at all.
Boomers were just as able to go to university as the current generation. Less finished high school to the required level, and many less needed to go to university because their future jobs required it, but they weren't deprived of access to tertiary education. The 1960s and 1970s required much less tertiary educated people.
a dearth of jobs for women that paid anything like reasonable wages
Only one of many reasons why we should fund tertiary education more. Under the old full interest scheme women were paid significantly less than similarly qualified males, but paid more for their tertiary education because it took them longer to pay back their loans (less income, time off for raising children) and they therefore paid more interest.
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