The Eighties Recession Revisited

The Eighties Recession Revisited

I have recently been reading a book that was recommended to me and found it worth a mention here.

The Eighties Recession Revisited

As the Recession starts to deepen, John O’Donoghue, author of Sectioned: A Life Interrupted (John Murray, 2009) recalls the Recession of the early Eighties

Three million unemployed; business shedding jobs on a daily basis; homelessness on the increase; an unpopular government facing a tricky election; a war overseas; terrorism at home. 2010? No – I’m referring to 1982, the year Britain changed forever.

   Behind the headlines from what now seems like a far-off date in history lie stories of hardship, devastation, and bewilderment. What is happening to Britain? Why is the country on its knees? How do we get it back on track?

 I didn’t do too badly myself – I managed to get a flat-share in Hampstead, right on the Heath; a job with Ryman’s, the stationers; I was putting my adolescent demons behind me. But within a year I’d fallen out with my flat-mate, moved out, taken a job as a hospital porter, and was in a homeless hostel in Kilburn.

From there I ended up going back into mental hospital, and began my odyssey through a changed Britain. More homeless hostels, more spells in hospital, unemployment, the streets, squats, prison – just about everything that could go wrong for me went wrong.

Nor was I alone. In my memoir, I try to tell not just my own story, but the story of my times. I saw just what the Recession was doing to people, saw the potential wasted, the lives blighted, the talent frustrated. Broken Britain seems to be a recent phenomenon – but I saw its foundations, which were laid in the Eighties.

I turned the corner in 1988, when I was lucky enough to get into university. I had three O Levels and an Elementary Swimming Certificate to my name but the University of East Anglia (motto: ‘Do Different’) took me in, and in 1992 I graduated, a married man with children, a decent job, and prospects.

I’m now a Lecturer in Creative Writing, have a fairly decent standard of living, and have been published by John Murray, Byron’s publisher, Jane Austen’s publisher, Darwin’s, Betjeman’s, Paddy Leigh Fermor’s. But I look at my eldest, and I worry.

He could lose his job tomorrow, drift into drugs, homelessness, mental illness, despair. Come to that, I could lose my job. It’s perhaps easier when you’re young and single to come through hard times than when you’re middle-aged with dependents. And I wouldn’t want to go through it all again, not now. No way.

But I think I’ve showed that at least I’m resilient. And I hope my son will be resilient too. Because I’d hate for him to have go through a Recession like I went through.

And I’m aware that somewhere out there tonight, in Middle England, or in some corner of this green and pleasant land, a young lad or lass is facing challenges like I had to face, maybe worse. Or perhaps it’s sa family, where the main breadwinner has lost their job, and repossession looms, with the devastation that comes in its wake. I hope that they come through. That the safety net holds for them. That someone realises that there is such a thing as society, and that it should be every politicians’ priority to fix our country, and not just line their pockets.

Because – as I saw myself – a Recession can be a killer. Especially when you’re young, vulnerable, and are in danger of falling through the net.

Like I was.

Sectioned: A Life Interrupted is available on Amazon.co.uk, priced £5.07 paperback; £11.04 hardback, and at all good bookshops.

www.johnodonoghue.co.uk

www.twitter.com/JOD45

Note: The webmaster wishes john every success for the future.