Baby Boomers

 

By Derek Lord

As the first of the baby boomers, the generation conceived in the wake of the Second World War, make it over the finish line of their working lives, for some the outlook is rather bleak, especially if they worked in the private sector and never earned enough to be able to save for the rainy days ahead. And now there is an element of resentment creeping into the minds of those citizens less stricken in years. As far back as 2004 the then Tory shadow chancellor warned that the baby boomers posed as big a threat to the nation as terrorism or global warming. With their inadequate state pensions they will be forced to put themselves at the mercy of a cash-strapped government, looking for help with their council tax bills, their heating bills and all the other demands made on their meagre incomes. And as their ageing bodies continue to deteriorate they will be putting further pressure on an already buckling NHS. Things are no better across the Atlantic where economists are warning that American boomers are threatening the very fabric of society. It reminds me of a sci-fi story I read more than forty years ago that foresaw a time when governments would have to take drastic action to rid themselves of the burden of their senior citizens. One solution was to offer free bus rides for the oldies. The buses would travel along roads that passed through tunnels. The tunnels would have steel shutters at both ends. These shutters would slam shut at irregular intervals and then a gas would be released, killing the occupants of any vehicles trapped within the tunnel. Government employees would then come along and remove the corpses. So, if you are one of the first wave of baby boomers, think twice before you rush out and apply for your free bus pass. There may be some sci-fi fans among our lords and masters who have read that same story.

On a lighter note, it must be said that the baby boomers have had it pretty good. School wasn’t quite as easy as it is these days. Teachers were still allowed to knock them about a bit if they got out of hand, and since many of those teachers had faced the worst that the Wehrmacht could throw at them they weren’t about to be intimidated by a classroom of snotty kids. My history teacher was a tank commander who took on Rommel at El Alamein and the deputy head was a former Regimental Sergeant Major who had fought his way from Normandy to Berlin. When those guys told you to pay attention you didn’t give them any lip. But the boomers managed to avoid all that soldiering stuff.  They were the first generation in quite a while who were not conscripted into somebody’s army whether they wanted to fight or not. They were too young for the Korean War and National Service finished when the youngest of the boomers were 17, so things worked out pretty well for them. On the cultural side they were just coming out of puberty when somebody came up with the word ‘teenager’ and suddenly they had a special identity that had never existed before. Instead of going straight from their school uniforms into the same sort of clothes their parents wore they could deck themselves out in denim and mini-skirts. And the music scene exploded with Bill Haley and the Comets, followed by Elvis, the Beatles et al. Then when their hormones were exploding all over the place along came the contraceptive pill, and, for the first time in history, they could indulge their natural desires without the risk of being frog-marched up the aisle at the end of a shotgun. To make things even better some clever Scotsman invented penicillin so all those nasty bugs that had lain in wait for earlier generations who over-indulged themselves in the wild oats department could be vanquished with a single jab. But, when they got all that nonsense out of their system, most of the boomers picked a mate and got married just like their mum and dad had done. The word ‘partner’ still referred to someone you set up a business with – not a home. The only other time it was used was in cowboy films. Gabby Hayes was Roy Roger’s partner, but only in the sense that they took on the baddies together. Brokeback Mountain was still a long time in the future, although I must admit some of those sequined shirts that Roy Rogers wore were a bit on the gay side.

Invasion of the carpetbaggers?

By Bryan Cooney

　

THE newspaper game in which I’ve participated for half a century has been declared a bogey. I’ve decided to leave the Sunday Herald - and thus pre-empt its sacking me.

Now, don’t go thinking there’s been any impropriety on my part. Just absorb the narrative and judge for yourselves where the impropriety, if any, lies…

I had been writing for the paper on a regular freelance basis for twelve years. So, when there seemed little appetite for my contributions, I was immediately alerted. I therefore sought a degree of transparency from an old friend who works for Newsquest, or Gannett, or whatever it calls itself.

The curricula vitae duly was trotted out. I told him I’d served three sports editors, won two Sports Journalist of the Year awards, been twice short-listed in that same competition, experienced temporary insanity by turning down a substantial wage rise to benefit the company, and not once been found drunk in charge of a laptop computer. I emphasised, then, that a little respect might be in order.

His response encouraged me to instantly regret my eternal self-absorption! Seventeen editorial staff had been made redundant whilst I’d been on holiday; and a new operating system, together with a welter of alternative working practices, had employees working like frenetic sheepdogs at trials.

Then came another revelation which sponsored another sharp intake of breath. He claimed the sports budgets had been cut again, taking them to less than a quarter of what they had been in 2011. Thus, he felt it unlikely that I would continue to be used on a regular basis, given that my £450 fee alone accounted for more than 50% of an edition’s resources.

Hereabouts. I remembered my days as the Daily Mail head of sport when over £5million was at my annual disposal. In other words, close on £20,000 per day. So, Sunday Herald sport is expected to exist on an alleged weekly 800 or so sovs? Who are these skinflints, I wondered?

I outlined my fears in an email to the sports editor, Jonathan Jobson. Back came a scarcely encouraging response. He more or less suggested that I was too expensive to maintain, stressed that he’d be very sad to lose me but would always be happy to run occasional pieces. The mention of the word ‘occasional’ encouraged a cynical smile. My initial brief back in 2001 had been for two, sometimes three, interviews a month. By the turn of this year, it was running at approximately one every four or five weeks. Now we were exploring new territory. Were biannual interviews being contemplated, perhaps?

For once in an admittedly rather turbulent life, I played the responsible card and explained, again in an email, that I had a duty to consider my options. I told him my sympathies lay with those who had been culled, but added that every man must fight his own corner. I’d never signed a contract, but that didn’t mean Newsquest was entitled to nudge me off the cliff face without providing me with a financial lifeline, however flimsy. Significantly, there had been no mention of compensation. I began to contemplate possible litigation and even now it remains a consideration.

In reality, however, my troubles are miniscule compared to what’s going on in Renfield Street. Jobson? I felt sorry for a man who not only has to run Sunday Herald sport but apparently is also obliged to supervise its Evening Times sister paper. It’s no fault of his that he’s employed by a company which appears to have devised more ingenious methods of torture than Vlad the Impaler.

This, remember, is a Yankee organisation which consistently has been doling out grief to workers since it took over from the Scottish Media Group in 2003, and to quote a former Labour MSP ‘inclining them to have a long list of causes for dissatisfaction - redundancies, staffing shortages, poor working conditions and high stress levels.’ She was trading in euphemism.

This, remember, is an organisation run here in Britain by Scottish born chief executive Paul Davidson, who’s on an annual £600,000 - and that’s not factoring in his share options. It’s also an organisation that favours banging on about its profitability like carpetbaggers.

Back at my list of options, I quickly concluded that I’d never write another word for the Sunday Herald. Nay, not even if they suddenly discovered extravagance and gave me the kind of dosh that would enable Wayne Rooney to buy the missus another designer handbag.

So, as Duncan Bannatyne of the Dragons Den might say, “I’m out”. Before I’m kicked out, of course. I acknowledge the rules: no sympathy will be, or deserves to be, distributed my way. My only regret is not possessing the courage to walk away sooner when, quite disgracefully, the body bags began being thrown out of that capacious building in the city centre.

Being comfortably into my seniority, although not quite yet matching strides with Methuselah, you always find time for reflection. There have been moments when working for the Sunday Herald has been enjoyable.

Oh, I didn’t much fancy the early-morning calls from aggrieved sportsmen claiming their reputations had been traduced, etc. But there were compensatory factors: who, for instance, gets to have afternoon tea with Sir Jackie Stewart, lunch with Denis Law (if you call bacon, egg and chips a lunch) and spend an hour plus in Sir Michael Parkinson’s company in the Ivy Club?

Of course, a tiny element of sourness remains. Might someone not have called me and explained the reasons for my demise? There again, a lunch invitation from the editor might have ameliorated matters. Better still, a letter. Yeah, a letter - that erstwhile tribute to class and good breeding. Now that would have been appropriate.

Shame on me again. I’m guilty of being too judgemental. These are the working practices of a wholly different generation and they’re considered acceptable, sad though this might be.

These guys, by order of their draconian employers, are locked into a system whereby an idle moment is just a distant memory. Travel up to 200 Renfield Street and you’ll find a workforce that is disillusioned and demoralised; a workforce indeed which this week strengthened its resolve on taking industrial action. Where once they worked and played, they now just work and try to remember when times were better.

Now we arrive at the delicate question of retirement. At 68, maybe I should go home and vegetate, and perhaps that line of action would be widely endorsed. But that’s not in the DNA as they say. I have prostate cancer and a problematic heart condition, but I’m still here and have much to live for - a lovely wife, four sons and five beautiful grandchildren, all girls.

Retirement? No! This pensioner is willing to work and test-drive the theories of this abject Government. So, my business colleague Jim Black and I have opened this new interview and discussion website which you are now reading. We hope and pray that you like it.

But, at this moment, my thoughts and commiserations are lingering with a beleaguered Glasgow workforce. Yes, the newspaper game's a bogey and that’s a fact. 

A summer of sunshine and smiles slides inexorably towards a winter of discontent

By Jim Black

THINGS are bad in the media business, but perhaps they have not quite reached the stage of journalists bedding down at the local Salvation Army hostel when on assignment.

According to Phil Goodlad, that irrepressible BBC sports broadcaster whose boundless enthusiasm betrays an as yet unsullied view of life inevitably born of long developed cynicism in the case of those of us of a certain vintage, I found myself residing at such an establishment while reporting on the recent Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles.

While not wishing to in any way denigrate the fine work down by the Salvationists, I would like to make it clear that was most certainly not the case.

The misunderstanding arose from a conversation I had with the man from Stornoway, who gives the impression of being double-jointed the way he delightfully twists into camera shot from almost any angle.

“I’m staying at the Sally in Perth,” I informed the good Goodlad in response to his enquiry.

I should explain that the Sally is the commonly used abbreviation for the Salutation Hotel, apparently Scotland’s oldest such establishment. However, my friend the rubber man was clearly ignorant of the fact, which explained his rather sheepish approach the following day.

“Jim, I have a confession to make,” he announced, and as I am not a member of the priesthood I quickly realised that he had not approached me on religious grounds.

“I happened to be speaking to Euan McLean (another member of Scotland’s golf writing fraternity) and expressed my sympathy that due to a chronic shortage of accommodation in the area you had been forced to bed down with the Sally Army” he informed me.

While I found his confession highly amusing, I was left to ponder the esteem in which I am held by at least one of my colleagues.

Suffice to say, when Iain King, the Scottish Sun’s head of sport, informs me that it’s the Sally Army or second hand camper van, my days as a golf writer will be over.

Hopefully that is still some way off, for the thought of a summer without reporting on golf fills me with dread.

Having spent most of the past four months on the road covering tournaments from Wentworth to Dublin, Muirfield to Celtic Manor, I am becoming increasingly apprehensive about what lies ahead for me in the sporting fields.

While I am sustained by thoughts of the Dunhill Links Championship and Ricky Burns’ forthcoming world lightweight title defence, there is also the rapidly growing realisation that most weekends from now on will involve the coverage of Scottish Premiership football.

There was a time when I relished such a prospect. But with the passing of the years has also come growing irritation at the way I and others in the profession are treated by the football world as a whole.

We are regularly subjected to a mix of rudeness, dismissiveness, arrogant disregard and, in certain cases, utter contempt while helping publicise a game that would appear to be in terminal decline.

Rather than embrace the media and work with newspapers in an effort to breathe fresh life into the patient, employees of football clubs would apparently rather further the absurd notion that they are dealing with the “enemy.”

Not all are the same, just the majority. Never mind that work facilities are in many cases completely inadequate, the attitude of the average “football man” towards the media is often both aggressive and disrespectful in the event that any form of justifiable criticism is aimed in their direction.

Do I really care anymore? Deep down, probably not, given that my days of having to endure sub-zero temperatures in cramped press boxes and snarled responses to awkward questions are drawing ever closer to an end.

But a word of advice to the afflicted before I toddle off into the sunset. Take a look at the world of golf and how the European Tour, for example, treats the scribes.

State of the art press rooms, more often than not a plentiful supply of food, an almost instant transcription service, a wealth of information readily to hand and a team of press officers trained to cater for our almost every whim – and, most important of all, in my humble opinion, the game’s stars threatened with disciplinary action in the event that they decline to attend a press conference without first offering a plausible excuse for not doing so.

Oh, I almost forgot. Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player et all invariably willing and seemingly perfectly happy to grant interviews.

Of course I’m talking true legends of sport as opposed to often overpaid, sometimes overbearing and occasionally overhyped footballers who take a lead from the manager in regarding the media with suspicion.

There have been times when that deep-rooted mistrust has been fully justified as a consequence of underhand, unprofessional behaviour on the part of some members of the journalistic profession.

But, “the enemy?” I think not. At least not his gnarled old hack who remains as passionate about sport as he ever did, albeit not with the same blind acceptance of bad manners, shoddy treatment and attempts at intimidation that he once tolerated without comment or complaint.