We were encouraged from an early age to adopt this approach under the maxim of never give up, try, try, try again or more worryingly if it doesn't kill you it will make you stronger.
There were merits in my youth, some 40 years ago, in attempting a sporting feat ,for example, even if you failed in big style. You would receive almost as many congratulations for crashing and burning than the person or persons who actually triumphed or found themselves on the winners podium.
Competition was a good and healthy culture and as long as you were seen to have tried your best it was acceptable to fail.
There were some dramatic and life threatening examples of this do or die attitude. One of my schoolmates, in attempting to swim two lengths of the outdoor pool ,underwater, failed to surface towards the end of the second leg and had to be resuscitated on the poolside by the attending staff. Another couple of contemporaries were run over and killed whilst partaking in the school cross country event because they were too engrossed in racing each other than looking both ways at the busy main road junction.
There were countless injuries and maimings, a few embarassing strains and ruptures, long term afflictions and post traumatic stress disorder in abundance and all before senior school.
It was just normal life for children and youngsters of that era.
I suppose and accept that something had to be done about what was quite an unnecessary loss or impairment of life, hence the emergence of the Health and Safety or Granny-State.
For those leaving school and seeking employment in the 1970's there was a tremendous choice and range of opportunities. The UK still had a bit of an industrial and manufacturing base and all those of my age, not staying on in education as I did, just turned up at the factory or plant gate and were taken on in an apprenticeship scheme.
I still remember with great clarity the dilemna posed to me and my classmates by a schoolmaster when we were thinking about our options from age 15 (1978).
He graphically explained that if we left the hallowed halls of the Grammar and went into employment we would be in a position after only two years of on the job training to buy a nice car, go to Torremolinos in the summer holidays, treat our girlfriend with meals out or even put down a deposit on a house. Conversely, if we remained as pupils in the Sixth Form we would be forever poverty stricken, continue to live at home with parents and younger siblings, struggle in relationships with the fairer sex and have to contend with going everywhere on our Raleigh Chopper bikes.
I felt very deflated about the inevitable consequences of two more years studying but our mentor assured us that for the more academically minded the financial and other rewards would still descend on us but not until we had got a degree at a respected University or new fangled Polytechnic.
In plain words it was a gamble, a sort of twist or stick situation.
If we invested in our future we could reap the whirlwind. Encouraging to hear but there would still be that gap of years where those who were earning serious money could blare at us with airhorns from their souped up Cortina or Viva on their way to the airport with a stunning bird just about visible in the passenger seat. We would still be trolling back from double English in our school uniforms and smart shoes and looking forward to our Mum's best chicken soup.
I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. The thought of having to go to a full time job in a man's world was terrifying but then having a pocket full of cash sounded nice faced with the tight budgetary constraints of a pocket money based economy that I had become accustomed to.
What of those who took the chance to enter the realm of the grown ups?
Where I lived in the 1970's the main employer was one of the largest British Steel works. Jobs were plentiful and well remunerated but it was also a pretty dangerous place and there were always nasty incidents involving human flesh coming into contact with molten iron, hair raising experiences with high voltage currents and limbs becoming entangled in heavy machinery and plant.
The new jobs were learnt not in the classroom or in theoretical simulators but by standing next to a qualified operative and by watching and then being let loose to have a go.
This was the way in which this Nation of ours developed an industrial economy that was the envy of the world.
Successive waves of skilled workers kept the mills, forges, shipyards and production lines open and churning out their wares. Generation followed generation and it was an act of treachery for a son to even dream about embarking on a different path than his father, grandfather and distant ancestors.
Learning on the job even had its own quaint and very British terminology and was referred to as "sitting next to Nellie". The phrase has been demonised by the training organisations of today as implying poor quality but then again such bodies have a vested interest in over complication and weaving a web of mystery and elitism in what they do for, let's face it, some very large sums of money from the pockets of employers or those seeking to better themselves as we are constantly encouraged to do.
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