Credit Management issue April 2021

VIEW FROM THE SEAFRONT
AUTHOR – David Andrews
the country needs is
annihilation of the enemy,’
observed Lord Nelson in
the run up to the Battle of
‘WHAT
Trafalgar.
The great warrior
was of course referring principally to the French,
and I daresay many of us may have felt that some of
President Macron’s digs at our post-Brexit nation’s
fierce fightback against the pandemic were deserving
of a full canon broadside.
Pro tem, our outstanding vaccine rollout I would
imagine to be more than enough for senior politicians
on the European mainland to keep their less generous
views to themselves. When all is said and done, none
of us have had it easy. It is just that we have quietly
got on with rebuilding a devastated landscape and hey,
what a difference a few weeks can make.
When I cycled into the centre of Brighton in early
February, a harsh wintry westerly nipping at my
ankles, the effects of the past, horrendous 12 months
were clear. The doorway of travel firm Trailfinders had
become a temporary campsite for several homeless
people, who along with a couple of large dogs looked
to be – on balance at least – reasonably content with
their new pitch.
As the specialist shop is located on one of the city’s
busiest streets, and urban campsites are an unusual
site even in the depths of a pandemic, the brightly
coloured tent and scattered detritus seemed to me yet
another ironic metaphor for our ravaged economy. An
erstwhile thriving holiday company, grounded like all
of us for the best part of a year, now hosting a nomadic
troupe, also going nowhere, but calling it home for the
time being at least.
POST-APOCALYPTIC VIEW
Brighton, a city, looking ‘perennially as if it is helping
the police with their enquiries’ as the late Keith
Waterhouse memorably put it, had rarely looked
so bleak, even in the 40 or so years I have lived
here. Resembling more an out-take from the movie
adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the postapocalyptic
effect of rows of shuttered and long since
closed-down shops fronts has effectively nuked the
inner city.
We all know ‘the UK High Street’, as it were, was in
trouble long before the pandemic set about banging
the final nails into the coffin, and our erstwhile
homogeneous, frankly unattractive town and city
centres were long overdue a makeover.
Even without the negligence of major retail
conglomerates, which have collectively presided over
shocking periods of decay and under-investment,
the High Street was on a hiding to nothing. A serious
rethink was long overdue.
But this is not the makeover any of us anticipated.
Now, as we stumble gradually from the fading waves
of end-game lockdown pulses, the rebuilding will, we
hope, begin.
I think back to my arrival in the city, in the
autumn of 1979, when the UK was in the grip of an
appalling recession. Small businesses were closing
left, right and centre, new building had ground to a
halt, manufacturing production was in freefall, youth
unemployment was soaring. The chances of finding
a job – any job – were low. And the winter of ‘79/’80,
when we still seemed to have proper seasons, was
freezing. Bleak.
There were no huge handouts to be anticipated
from Government, it was exceedingly difficult to
claim unemployment benefit, and prospects for
any youngsters not training for one of the main
professions were extremely poor. But, as we always
do, we recovered. Bearing in mind that all recessions
are cyclical, the 1980s were powered initially by
what became known as the Lawson Boom, after the
Chancellor of the day, Nigel Lawson.
As anyone who had a mortgage in those days may
recall however, borrowing rates were driven up to
giddying heights – up to 15 percent at the peak in 1989.
Now that was fine if you owned your property outright
and had money in the bank. You were laughing. But
for most homebuyers, it was an economic disaster.
Many, facing impending bankruptcy, hoisted the white
flag and posted the keys to their homes back to their
lenders.
BOOM-AND-BUST
It is all a long, long time ago. But post-war capitalism
has always moved in boom-and-bust cycles. In other
words, as we emerge blinking into the watery Spring
sunshine, we will get back to what we once regarded
as ‘normal’.
As Mohammed Ali said following his brutal,
bruising encounter with Ken Norton, a far lower
ranked journeyman heavyweight: ‘Man that fella hit
me hard – but I will be back. I will be back stronger. I
will be back punching mean. And I will be back even
better looking than I am now.’
AND WE WILL BE BACK.
As our astonishing vaccine rollout has demonstrated,
we are a brilliantly capable nation, clever and
resourceful. We have shown that we can still lead the
world in our enterprise and industrial and intellectual
might, and while (whisper it) the French and Germans
have been scratching their heads, looking across the
Channel and wondering how they have been left so far
behind, our new dawn is now a reality.
I know that one day – and it will not be too long now
– we will be shuffling along on that interminable line,
waiting to board an airliner, to whisk us off to some
exotic beach or city. I know that the blokes who have
set up camp in the generously proportioned doorway
of Trailfinders will be obliged to take down their tent,
while one of the few viable businesses on our High
Streets once again fires up its systems and looks for
the best deals for a vacation-starved population.
And I know that my local pub will be back, busier
than ever. Those of us who have perhaps been more
fortunate than our peers in the uneven hand dealt by
the pandemic may well feel it incumbent upon them
to spread the love. Spend, and then maybe spend a bit
more. Because the gloom of the winter of 2020/21 is
now behind us.
It is time to get out there and into the sunshine once
again.
David Andrews is a freelance journalist.
Advancing the credit profession / www.cicm.com / April 2021 / PAGE 19