Hello Everybody.

I hope you have all had a truly wonderful Christmas. As we come to the end of the year it’s only natural to reflect on the events of the past twelve months. We will all have had some happy times and some sad times – such is the ebb and flow of life.

2022 seems to have been dominated by the cost of living crisis which has affected everyone financially and has been another demoralising blow coming as it does, so quickly after the emotional rollercoaster of the COVID years. Inflation is at its highest level for 40 years, food prices are up by 20% and the cost of heating a typical house has jumped by a staggering 150%. This has resulted in a drop in household income by 4.3% and that is the biggest fall since records began in 1956 and many now feel they have to try and fight back, hence the unrest and strikes across so many sectors.

Unsurprisingly, we are also seeing an unprecedented rise in people experiencing mental health problems and many of those are children. As ever, it is the most vulnerable in society who inevitably suffer the most.

I hear people discussing this depressing state of affairs everywhere I go. Most, like me, are concerned about the future – some people blame present or previous Governments, some blame COVID, some blame the war in Ukraine, some blame fat cat company bosses and commodity businesses and maybe a combination of all these factors has presented us with the perfect storm that we now find ourselves battling with.

I hope that it will pass and more settled times will return soon. Being a child of the 60’s and 70’s with a typical underprivileged upbringing for the time, I have no wish to see this generation suffer the hardships that were visited on my own childhood years and I cannot understand those older people who believe that because they had a tough, poverty stricken childhood, then that is what all children should expect. I’ve certainly heard the view many times that this generation are spoiled and soft and that it won’t do them any harm to suffer a few hardships in life. It will be “character building” to wake up with ice on the inside of your bedroom window and then to walk 5 miles to school.

Shouldn’t we all be looking to improve? Improve our attitude and understanding and also our circumstances. Surely we should be moving forwards, not slipping backwards?

It is my hope that you all do well and prosper in the coming New Year and that 2023 holds more happy times than sad for all of you.

Cate