Open Writing

I was the only passenger on the eight-mile bus ride into town. It was free because the Government in its wisdom has given bus passes to old age pensioners all over the country, bringing them in line with the benefit enjoyed by Londoners for many years.

At a time when the world faces increasing pollution and the depletion of natural resources it seemed somewhat profligate for one retired person, who no longer contributes to the economy, to inflict further damage on the planet for the sake of a shopping trip, but the bus was timetabled and would have run anyway, even if empty, so that did something to assuage my guilt.

The town centre was as busy as ever and the pedestrianized main shopping street could barely contain the seething mass of humanity. Where once narrow pavements on each side of the road could easily accommodate all comers, the entire width is now paved and jam-packed with people. The county town of Ipswich is growing fast and massive new developments are under construction to provide homes and work places to meet the demands of an unprecedented population explosion.

Why, I wondered, had national leaders met recently in Prague to discuss new incentives to increase population? More people inevitably means more mouths to feed, more buildings to house them, more medical and support services and more fuel to keep them warm. Isn't there a mis-match somewhere?

Advances in health care having increased our ability to survive longer into old age, now place increasing demands on the taxes paid by those still at work, so more younger workers are needed urgently. It is a vicious spiral which could have drastic consequences if not addressed, and as I sat with a cool drink at a pavement table in the small public square in the centre of town I couldn't help thinking of the solution posed in the horrific 1973 science-fiction film, Soylent Green, set in the year 2022 - mass euthanasia of those the planet could no longer support. Nor could I escape the fact that 2022 is getting closer and I am growing older.

By late afternoon the crowd is thinning as people finish their shopping and set off for home, but there is still plenty of human life to observe. Some young men and women of middle-eastern appearance have set up an amplifier in the centre of the square and a dozen or so people of various nationalities are dancing to exotic music with arms linked and inviting others to join in. I decline their invitation but enjoy watching them. It is a happy scene, and a reminder of the influx of foreign nationals who are becoming an increasingly important part of the workforce in this country. They have to live somewhere too, and require food and public services, many of which they themselves now work to provide. Hospitals, the catering industry, transport and other basic essentials of modern life would collapse without them.

A young man walks past, pushing a bicycle with his right hand and holding a cell-phone against his ear with the left. He is not alone: many of his generation have the things clamped to their ears, and it is they who most enthusiastically accept the night-club invitations being handed out by a young man with shabby jeans, expensive 'trainers' and a face heavily pierced and studded with gold. No financial problems for him, then.

A Royal Mail van stops opposite where I am sitting. The driver gets out and walks off, carrying an empty mail bag, and returns a few minutes later with the bag apparently half-full. The square is almost empty now, the music has stopped, the sound equipment has been driven away in an ancient Volvo and a white van inscribed with the name of a local building contractor has taken its place. Tools are unloaded and carried into one of the offices surrounding the square and one of the crew spends several minutes trying to undo the screw clamp securing an aluminium ladder to the roof rack before abandoning the task and sitting on a bench for a smoke. A second mail van arrives and its driver walks off in the direction opposite to the one taken by his colleague. He is gone for fifteen minutes before returning with a small bundle of envelopes in his hand and I wonder why it took two postmen two journeys to achieve so little, but at least it keeps them in employment, in spite of the Royal Mail's savage on-going reduction of its workforce and public boasts of increasing efficiency.

I have had an instructive afternoon, sitting in idleness in this public place, watching a little bit of the world go by and allowing my thoughts to roam, and as I make my way back to the bus stop I am wondering how anyone can complain of being bored, when there is so much going on around them. I also wonder whether the will exists to address the paradox of high unemployment and a shortage of workers.

On my journey home the bus is again nearly empty and I ask myself, 'Where are all the people, and who is paying my fare?'.

© 2006 Arthur Loosley