Possibilites and opportunities!

It's a funny sort of world to be growing up in at the moment. We have been very relieved about and immensely proud of the progress of our eldest granddaughter. She dropped out of college after AS levels, opting not to continue and, therefore, ruling out university studies, at least for the time being. Then serendipity kicked in and she was accepted for an apprenticeship, which has led on to a permanent job. She's been lucky. At 19 going on 20 she is earning more than some young graduates and doesn't have a stack of student loans to pay back.

When she was 17 she was really interested in photography, even fancying a career in that field. I think that studying photography for AS level dampened her enthusiasm somewhat. And yet, all the careers advice says that you need proper training and development if you want to become a professional photographer. And then I read that one of the young Beckhams, at 16 or 17, has been contracted by Burberry to shoot its latest perfume campaign. Some professional photographers have been a little annoyed at this, saying that it devalues the profession. In a way, it's rather clever of Burberry to do this; their product becomes linked to another successful brand - Brand Beckham, for the whole family seems to be a brand. But for those who have studied photography beyond high school level (like my granddaughter, Brooklyn Beckham studied photography at high school) and have worked hard at developing a career it must be rather galling. Also, there must be masses of talented young 16-17 year old photographers out there who won't get that opportunity.

This is apparently the way of the modern world - for some people anyway! Once again I find myself feeling grateful for having been born when I was, when opportunities were there for most of us and we felt we could go out and make the world a better place. I don't think we were quite as successful as we hoped to be.

Which brings me back to Brexit. A friend of mine posted this on Facebook this morning:

"Unless the final settlement proves to be acceptable, then the option of retaining EU membership should be retained. The final settlement should therefore be subject to approval, through Parliament and potentially through a general election or a referendum." It was accompnaied bybthe Labour Party logo.

 "Is this actually true?" asks my friend.

At first glance, it looks as if this a new statement. Closer examination shows it to be "Labour policy adopted unanimously by party conference' September 2016". Okay! Things have moved on a bit since then. What a difference a few months make. 

This was my response to my friend's post:

"Would that it were! There are so many "if onlys" in the whole business. If only a higher than 50% majority had been called for. If only the truth had been told. If only the government had had a plan for what to do if THE PEOPLE voted to leave. If only they had made that plan public before the vote so that THE PEOPLE knew what they were voting for. If only politicians were truly the servants of THE PEOPLE instead of professional charlatans!

That's all!"