Recent environmental protests - the Extinction Rebellion's passive aggressive sticking and gluing and the messianic Greta Thurnberg's wrathful adult-bashing - employed approaches that triggered even more social polarisation in our divided society. One feature of these and other contemporary demonstrations of concern for the future of the planet has been the claims of young people (or older people on behalf of their children) that they are genuinely SCARED. And they present this FEAR with all the earnest emotion of someone expecting that level of PANICKED HORROR to cause an imminent soiling of the underpants.
I've seen enough episodes of Doctor Who over the decades to understand that 'end of the world' fear can affect people in just such a way, although THAT horror has been exacerbated by whichever robots or monsters were causing that threat. It would seem that the monsters in the minds of Generation Z's environmental child protesters are adults. Because of all the plastic we make for them to use.
Now, I'll hold back from being too scathing about their concerns, because I believe that they are genuine and no matter what your view is on evidence of this planet's environmental malaise and impending disintegration, it is better for us to do what we can to protect ourselves. But I do find it impossible to equate their level of fear to what was scaring the shit out of me when I was growing up.
I'm not JUST talking about the Cold War and its shadow of nuclear holocaust, which everyone agreed on and which could have happened at any moment. Yes that was scary, but the very real, daily, poo-inducing fears that I recall suffering from are probably laughably trivial in your minds; and for that reason, I will detail them here:
1. Having my hair washed.
Like most mum's, ours would wash our hair by holding us backwards over the bathroom sink and pouring water from a plastic cup onto our foreheads, almost like a baptism. Getting water in your eyes, which invariably happened, was unpleasant; but if Vosene was your mum's shampoo of choice, then this unpleasantness paled in comparison to the impact of getting some of that stuff in your eye. If she'd poured kerosene over your eyeballs and set fire to them, it wouldn't have been any worse. Vosene, in its distinctive dark green bottle, looking not unlike a container for toxic, radioactive substances, was absolutely terrifying. Why riot police, armed militias or terrorists did not employ this as a weapon in the 70s is baffling, but fortunate.
2. Gaps between the planks on Brighton Pier.
You Tube often brings us videos of hysterically frightened Japanese people as they willingly do the walk of death, standing on glass floors at the top of 100-storey skyscrapers or perilously edging their way on tightropes or climbing hooks on the sides of sheer cliff edges, thousands of feet above the ground. The best reactions are when these 'volunteers for fear' weep and crawl, clinging to whatever is to hand. Well that was ME whenever we went onto Brighton Pier on childhood days out or holidays. The fact that you can see the sea between the gaps in the planks led me to believe that they could not possibly be secure enough to take my weight. Where possible, I walked along the joists in order to minimise the chances of falling through to a certain death in 3 feet of sea water.
3. The Dark.
Being brought up Catholic afforded me the joy of superstitious belief in just about everything. If you can believe in the Devil, then the natural sequence of credibility will take you to accept the existence of ghosts, monsters, goblins, witches, demons, the anti-Christ and the whole panorama of malevolent beings that have existed for centuries in folklore and culture. And because you never saw them during the day and because they were evil, logic dictated that they would exist in THE DARK. And THE DARK was everywhere. It was at the bottom of the garden at night, in your bedroom cupboard and even under your bed. Therefore, thanks to family religion, being allowed to watch The Omen at a young age and my Dad's regular attempts to scare us shitless by turning off lights and shouting, 'DAMIEN!' when we were alone upstairs, meant that I lived in a semi-permanent state of dread. THAT would put the willies up you much more than a melting iceberg would.
4. Getting caught doing something wrong like skidding your pants
Ironically, given that I have described FEAR in scatological terms (ha, I describe EVERYTHING in those terms, you might have noticed), it was the worry of our mum discovering that I'd skidded my pants that also caused me fear in those days. My parents were never nasty or abusive (although you might have made up your own mind about that during point 3 above), but they were strict enough for us to worry about getting caught for doing something wrong. In the 1970s all pants were white Y-fronts, meaning that if you didn't adequately apply enough rigour to your post-lavatorial hygiene machinations, you'd end up with some very conspicuous skidmarks (or worse) that you wouldn't want your mum to discover. As good as Persil and Aerial purported to be in those days, that sort of laundry would require a blow-torch and chisel. So rather than land ourselves in it by casually flinging any offensively soiled pants into the dirty wash, we'd strategically hide them behind the toilet or sink, where they'd dry out and fester for weeks before discovery. By which point I'd use that very human of excuses for wrong-doing, which is that I'd done it 'ages ago', implicitly claiming that TIME has naturally caused me to become a better person since then.
I could go on, but I might try your patience further. There are also tube trains coming out of tunnels, wasps, spiders, God, the Devil, nuns, waste disposal units, our PE and Geography teacher, older girls from Minchenden school who sat upstairs on the 121 and talked to you and having to drink a warm bottle of milk at primary school. I suppose I should fear global warming, but fear rarely led me to do the right thing in those days. I carried on using Vosene when I was old enough to wash my own hair, I dared myself to go to the bottom of the garden, I've been back to Brighton pier countless times. And as for skidding my pants... well, let's just say I don't throw them behind the toilet anymore.
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