Crisp bright days, sparkling frost, hats, coats and gloves to keep out the cold. Great for some but not for me. Ok, I’ll admit snow is lovely, when you don’t have to go out to work – which many of us aren’t doing right now. But what I really crave is warmth and sun – not rain, snow, dark nights, flooding and death and more death. It’s still grim for most of us but, at least, up through the snow comes the first sign of bulbs starting to sprout. Spring brings the hope of better days to come and we all need that right now.
What do I hope for in the ‘new normal’? I’d like to see the end of appearance over substance and a new respect for truth and honesty. No more politicians’ lies, cronyism and broken promises every day. No more trying to con people into thinking that this is the best you can expect.
I want to see a better understanding of value. People who do the most useful jobs in society – do you remember the early days of the first lockdown? The shopworkers, nurses, carers, cleaners, ambulance and hospital workers, the firefighters, bin collectors, utilities workers, lab technicians etc. These people all need pay rises so that they earn closer to the wages that their bosses earn. And their bosses need a pay cut. What they do is not, and never has been, 100 or 1000 times more valuable than the jobs their workers do. Think back to the start of the lockdowns when this became clear. Without these key workers, we would have been lost. They deserve more respect.
We have to become more angry about injustice and less tolerant of greed and grift. Are we really going to just put up with the same old lies and propaganda? I’m hoping that Spring will bring new growth and the flowers of a ‘new normal’. Julia Wright
BOLDtext Playwrights 