For Some, Christmas Is Not All Joy

10 December 2013, 12:37 pm
Speciality Bites by Paul Hargreaves

A slightly more reflective piece this week, and perhaps good for us all occasionally to step back and think about priorities

I have had a very busy few weeks, and it’s not going to get any better between now and Christmas. After all we need to push as much stock out of the door as we can as we all know what January and February are like!  However, the two main items on the news this morning should make us all think about our priorities and what really is important in life.

First there was the news about the storms particularly hitting homes and businesses along the East Coast.  Some people have lost their lives, many have had homes flooded and some people have had their businesses ruined at what should be the busiest time of year.  Whatever stresses and strains the rest of us have to put up with, consider it nothing compared to those that have been battered by the storms.  Time to be thankful for what we have despite the inevitable frustrations and tiredness we all feel at this time of year.

The main item on the news today, and no doubt for the rest of this week, is the sad news that Nelson Mandela has died.  Of course, we were all expecting this to happen fairly soon, due to his ill health, but still sad when it eventually happens. It is actually phenomenal that he lived to 95 having been banged up in a damp cell for 27 years.  I spent an amazing few weeks in South Africa a few years ago, which included a night in Soweto, the scene of so much of the violence of apartheid.  I spent some time with a lovely man who was brought up by Walter Sisulu in Soweto and so had seen the pain of the struggle against apartheid first hand.  In fact it was his brother that was pictured in that iconic photograph carrying a dead child away from the violence.  Moving stuff.

Sadly injustice and poverty is still rampant in South Africa, despite the changes in the last decade or so, as it is in many parts of the world.  So when we are ringing our tills and generating our invoices, remember those less fortunate than ourselves at Christmas.  Please!

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