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"Look Out!"

(THOUGHTS)

Written in January 1988
by my father, Andrew Desmond Sheppard (1922-1991)

(transcribed from personal family memorabilia)

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Unemployment, drug abuse, Severance payments - retrenchment, bankruptcy, receivership, ad infinitum. A whole new world of negative words which confront other words such as entrepreneurship, productivity, ambition, learning skills, honesty, dedication, sacrifice and effort.

 

As a boy growing up, job opportunities were scarce and yet no one was unemployed.  After school we all went out and played or cycled or walked or swam or socialized and visited the old relatives and the sick.  When we wanted to see a movie, we had to work for it.  Tend the chickens or goats, wash the dog, clean the yard, go on errands, clean the family plot in the cemetery. We really earned and appreciated our rewards. This work ethic grew with us. When we got jobs, we worked hard and well. Time did not matter. It was getting the job done which was important. We worked together and always helped each other.  That created friendship and goodwill.

 

Security and protection existed in our hearts and minds - not in padlocks, triple door-locks, wrought-iron grilles, security alarms, security guards, armed policemen, squad cars and all the paraphernalia to protect human life and property. We loved and cared for each other and crime as we know it was virtually non-existent.

 

Everyone was employed. There were the milk-men or women. Home-made bread deliveries - early morning. Knife and scissors sharpeners, shoe-makers, tailors, dress-makers, joiners, carpenters, painters, gardeners, motor-mechanics, car polishers.  Yard boys, domestic servants, cooks - all employed. Shop-keepers at every corner, each shop a community centre. Happiness, simplicity, Christianity - we had it all.

 

We have grown away from those “backward” days.

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We now have educators instead of school teachers, students instead of school boys and girls, sanitary engineers instead of garbage men, soil engineers instead of grave diggers. Sales assistants instead of clerks, administrative assistants instead of office clerks, domestic assistants in place of servants and yard boys.


Course after course is offered and given to the working public.  Seminars, working sessions et al, all geared to try and improve the output of the individual, may have a beneficial effect on the populace, but I doubt it. You may lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink it. Politicians and educators concentrate their efforts on passing blame and creating hatred in the minds of the people.

 

Youth leaders are strongly advised to try and remove all doubt of the future by offering ideas and plans for increased productivity.  We have more " learned counsels" than the law should allow.  So few vets, it’s a shame. Our hospital abounds with foreign doctors. Foreigners have taken over. Swan and Roebuck are working towards a complete take-over of Broad Street.  The South Coast hotels are owned by foreigners.  While you are licking your wounds and pitying your state, others from far away are swallowing up your birth-right. Now you are thinking of getting rid of Hilton and Heywoods. Madness!  Do not do it.

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​Suggestions for the salvation of our society and economy:

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  • Remove personal income tax. Receipts do not justify the huge expense of collection with all the attendant hardship of the tax payers. Non-productive.

  • Remove unemployment benefits as a policy and right of each individual. Let him prove that he can not get or make a job. This benefit only encourages laziness and is counter-productive.

  • Use the media, especially television and radio to instill in the minds of everyone, especially the youth, that this is their land. Air the national anthem more regularly. When it is being played on TV, have it sung by the best youth choir with the lyrics shown on the screen. NATIONAL PRIDE. All schools and public institutions should proudly display the National flag of Barbados. Remember, you look up to a flag.

  •  Insist on standards. Behaviour in schools, after school. Behaviour in public places of entertainment. Dress by visitors and locals alike must be monitored by the population and the errant individual corrected.  Churches, especially one, must be blamed for the deterioration of dress and conduct in and out of Church. Coincidentally, the standard of sermons has fallen also.Inspiration is lost.

  •  Rebuild loyalty in private enterprise by offering greater incentives to staff. Offer smaller salaries and large bonus at year-end, based on results.  Everyone works harder and better for the carrot at the end of the year. It used to work well and no one ever wanted to leave. Job security, I would say.

  • Expose all drug pushers and give them the maximum punishment according to the law. Recruit student drug-sniffers who will report the incidence of drugs in schools. Offenders must be exposed and expelled.

  • Abate fear. People who run scared cannot produce. Sample: “Pay your bill before the 20th or you will be disconnected - witness the huge rush at that company on the 20th. You have 20 days to correct this condition otherwise the full weight of the law will fall upon you. Try, through the media to improve the feeling that permeates the population that “big brother is watching you” See what it does to huge countries like Russia and America.  Fear has demolished the workers' unions in the USA. Workers are finding now, that they must take what they can get. The stuffing and fight of the individual is being destroyed.   Foreign take-over of industry threatens the individual citizen. Do not let it happen here. Over there it takes longer because of the size and huge population.   Here it can happen overnight. Stop CNN morning news. Irrelevant and its content is usually uninteresting - finance, weather reports, etc. It is also making people late for work.  The influence of reported grift, bribery, violent crimes and drug crimes will take its toll here.  Go back to local TV and make participation  more inviting to the talent of this wonderful land.

 

We are blessed and fortunate that natural catastrophies do not befall us.   Praise God and make the best of it - whatever is your lot.

 

Sincerely,

SENTINEL

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