Movement 98

ir
The Ghost of Christmas Past
R v the time vou read this, the fren-
I{ii"a spree of Christmas shopping
lJwill be over for another year.
However. I'm writing in mid-November,
not quite able to come to terms with
the fact that Christmas carols are
already being piped over high street
intercoms and I have to battle my way
through swathes of tinsel and huge
stacked displays of cards and decorations
in order to get to the cheese
counter of my local supermarket.
Don't worry, I'm not about to induce
a collective guilt-trip over the excesses
of the festive season; that would be
hypocritical as well as boring. However,
the emphasis on all things consumable
over the last few months has drawn my
attention to one Christmas story that
hardly hit the headlines, but which happened
right on my doorstep. Recently,
in good time for the Christmas rush, my
local supermarket started opening twenty-four
hours a day. Great, you might
think! I now no longer have to visit my
neighbours in the wee small hours to
scrounge a cup of sugar. or politically
correct Caf6 Direct. I can indulge my
insomniac cravings for peanut butter.
lrn-Bru, even new shoes at any convenient
hour-convenient for me, that is.
As a teenager I worked as a checkout
operator for a large supermarket
chain. lt was badly paid. I worked irreg-
6 emember this song? Io give and
la,i;z:x"1i,";!"i::y,l::,,:":"!u"
count the cost/To serve right gloriously...
These were the moral values of my
youth: inculcated in Sunday School and
reinforced at home, along with phrases
like: 'give expecting nothing in return'
and 'what you give you can't have
back' (trumpeted triumphantly by my
brother in the wake of some rash gesture.of
generosity on my part). lt all
came flooding back recently with Blair's
exhortation to meke this a 'giving age'.
Here are two visions of giving:
Firstly, l'm scouring a card shop in
lslington, searching desperately and at
the last minute for a card for a friend's
birthday. Nothing strikes me as particularly
appropriate, so I buy an expensive
one to make up for the fact that I can't
find the right one. I send it.
Secondly, during a Sunday afternoon
trip out, I come across a little card that
instantly calls to mind someone I like a
lot; who I don't get to see much, and
who I miss. I take it away and send it to
him. lt's free. The latter, to me, is the
ular shifts, I had to wear a ghastly pink
uniform-and, horror of horrors, brown
tights; but as Saturday jobs went, it
was OK. There was a bit of a stir locally
when the shop started opening on
cilidh ruhiteford
thinkpioce
Sundays, but most of the school-age
staff members were willing to work for
the time-and-a-half rates of pay we
were offered as compensation for working
unsocial hours. Eventually, the shop
realised that the public didn't actually
want to do full-scale grocery shopping
on Sundays, and things returned to a
more relaxed six-day week.
The trouble is that since then the
demand for Sunday shopping has
increased; now it seems that we want
to be able to shop around the clock too.
lncreasingly, what were once considered
anti-social hours are now considered
part of the normal working day. Little
perks, like a bit of extra money for staying
up all night, are out of the question.
When I worked on a checkout. manY of
my colleagues were women with children.
The part-time work suited them.
but they were rarely members of the
union and had little job security if a
manager took a dislike to them. They
The Giver and the Giving
better gift, because it's an expression of
affection - in the literal sense. lt says:
even in your absence you still have the
power to affect me-to change the
course of my day and of my life.
olison urebster
tell-tole signs
I'm not sure that ese s res
giving have yet entered the political
equation. As a society we're Pretty
unimaginative in the way we measure
giving. The only criteria we bring to
bear are financial ones. So those who
give and give and give again in terms of
time, eg. carers, lone parents and lowwaged
workers-are dePicted as net
recipients, whilst those who earn a pile
of money, but with little emotional and
personal investment. are depicted as net
givers. lt's these political considerations
that have caused me to rethink mY
Sunday School theology of giving. For
when it works itself out in situations of
structural inequality, it just seems to
bolster and undergird a system where
movcment 6
were reluctant to work at weekends,
prefering to leave such shifts to youngsters
like me. but found it hard to say
no if asked directly.
I doubt if the situation has improved
much for people in these jobs. Of
course, some shift jobs are necessarynurses,
police, even security guards may
be needed during the night. But is it
really necessary to go shopping at four
in the morning? ls it really worth the
social price extracted from families
already on low incomes whose members
have to accept such work or find their
welfare benefits cancelled? ls there any
'consumer choice' for these PeoPle?
Thankfully I've hung up my pink overalls,
but I still feel pangs of empathy for
those I meet when I unload my trolley.
Seeing all the turkey being unloaded,
I'm reminded of Scrooge's change of
heart in Dickens's A Christmas Carol;
instead of forcing poor Bob Cratchit to
work on Christmas Day, Scrooge sends
round a turkey dinner by special delivery
and raises Bob's salary. Oh, that a little
of that Christmas spirit might infuse the
wills of our retailers.
ln the meantime, I won't be going
shopping in the middle of the night, just
in case I run into Marley's ghost. El
Eilidh Whiteford is a post-graduate student
in Glasgow
the net givers are the poorest. and the
net receivers are the richest. There has
to be a limit to the extent that one
should give and give and give again
without counting the cost if you've an
eye to justice.
ln contemporary politics 'the giving
age' seems always to go hand in hand
with 'the opportunity to work'. In this
case work means, of course, paid
employment. But what seems to be
missing is a recognition that work is just
one expression of giving (or gaining the
wherewithal to give). 'Giving' and
'working' (in this narrow sense of the
word) are not synonymous. lt's a grave
theological mistake to make them so. lf
we're going to go buy into the 'giving
age' idea, it's got to be a more imaginative
and ambitious project than a resurrection
of a rotten and joyless protestant
work ethic-or of corporate self
denial (by the many if not by the few).
It's got to be about a rediscovery of
human connection and affection. El
Alison Webster is a freelance writer and
former editor of Movement