The word ‘recession’ has been hanging around like a dark cloud for sometime now, everyone is talking about it, every one knows it’s there and we all wish it would go away and let the sun come out!
England was once a hub for manufacturing and exporting, it is now on the brink of becoming a country with lost talent, downtrodden hopes and endless pursuits. What is happening to our country? Household names and well-known businesses are struggling and closing down; we are all being forced into buying mass-produced and over-priced goods of poor quality, as apposed to products that would last a life-time in previous years.
Great Britain is not so ‘Great’ anymore and is plummeting downhill fast. Almost all of the goods we see in Britain nowadays are made with cheap labour and imported in from abroad, what used to be a country with a highly skilled workforce has turned into a country were over 2.6 million people are jobless.
Old factories and mills are left abandoned, beautiful buildings with so much history lay dormant, shops on the high street are closing down at an alarming rate, there is only a slight glint of what it used to be like to live in England, and now the future looks bleak.
People hear ‘recession’ and a mass panic breaks out, food prices rise, fuel prices rise, property prices rise and so-on, more people cannot afford high prices, so they spend less money and then other businesses go under as a result, more people lose their jobs and so the cycle continues.
So what on earth is going to happen?
I have begun to notice a trend catching on in little Britain, people are finally realising enough is enough. Why are we working endless hours for a mediocre wage? Why are we stressing ourselves out to make the big cheeses more money, so they can become richer and we can become poorer? So, slowly but surely, people are beginning to fight back and chase their dreams.
Quaint little tea-rooms and cupcakeries are opening up all over the place, new florists, independent clothing boutiques and home interior shops are popping up here and there, farmers are promoting home-grown food again, all of these offering something new and ‘different’ into the mix.
From working in the clothing industry I know that the English Heritage look is a key trend this season, everyone wants to get on there wax jackets, pull on there wellies and get stuck in, we know that we are loosing England as it was and people are pulling together to keep our country ‘Great’, and everyone wants a slice of what it used to be like to live in England when it was at it’s best.
Barbour the iconic British lifestyle brand favoured by the country bumpkin and known for it’s quilted and wax jackets, still manufactures there classic wax coat as ‘Made in England’ in their South Shields based factory today. It has received an incredible demand in the past few months as everyone wants a piece of English Heritage that will last for years to come, and I doubt that this will not be the only company who will soon realise that ‘Made in England’ is slowly on the rise again.
People are beginning to make their own clothes, making handmade furnishings for their home, cooking meals from scratch with local ingredients, it seems to me that this country has almost done a complete cycle and manufacturing will slowly return on a smaller scale, and soon there will be no need for these big companies offering us poor quality goods, because we can do a much better job ourselves thankyou!
So pull out your Singer, blow of the dust and lets make a difference, Great Britain isn’t called Great Britain for nothing you know!
Vicky’s Pretties xx
Image taken from: http://www.holoweb.net/~liam/pictures/2004-07-toronto/pages/cimg1620/
