The Road To Happiness

The question of wealth has been in the news again recently - apropos of the pay in the public sector. We learn that over 6,500 people in the NHS are paid more than the Prime Minister. This ridiculous. Apart from over-paid bureaucrats there are many GPs - now working shorter hours - being paid buckets of money; one is even collecting £½ million per year. Staggering. Still, as long as the DG of the BBC thinks he is worth £835,000 per year we know that we are in cloud-cuckooland.
All of us always feel that we need more money but how much more? I see very unhappy footballers earning millions of pounds each year wondering what to do with their wealth. Wayne Rooney apparently handed over £200 to a boy doing room service who delivered him a packet of cigarettes. Sir Alec, why is Wayne Rooney smoking as well as being out and about in night clubs in the middle of the night? I see things in newspapers, magazines and on TV which show some of the vast mansions occupied by the rich and famous and am I jealous? No! I would like a few hundred thousand pounds extra so that I could buy the house of my dreams and enjoy my twilight years. But my house would have a maximum of four or five bedrooms, a double garage, two bathrooms and set in beautiful countryside in Lancashire not too far from a major town - Bolton. It would cost less than £500,000; it would have a well laid out garden with a small, sheltered outdoor area for relaxing, eating and entertaining. I don't need a swimming pool - indoors or out. I don't need a Bentley or a Rolls Royce. A good medium size luxury car Jaguar, Mercedes or some such. I don't need a games room; or a bar; or a wine cellar.
If I had a huge house I would use very little of it; I would need to employ staff to look after it and would I be happier sitting out alongside my swimming pool? No! I think that if I did have some such useless luxury item I would be wondering what next to spend my money on and what I needed next to become happy. In my house, I would have my own bedroom, a guest bedroom, a library, an office and, if I had a fifth bedroom, a hobbies room for my painting, drawing and making things - and, of course it could be overspill storage. I could, at a pinch combine the office with the library in a four bedroom house.
The house above is in Firs Road, Bolton, only about 2 miles from where I was born, in a nice area and it would suit me well. It's up for sale; a snip at £370,000. I have no interest in the celebrity life style. My life would be more one of the recluse; cut off from neighbours, other peoples kids, and noise.
I suppose that I should consider myself very lucky when I look at my family history and find just what earlier generations lived through. The horror of the Great Famine in Ireland and my great-great-grandmother making her way across the country on foot, with four starving children, through overcrowd squalor in Liverpool until finally she got a job as a domestic servant in Atherton - yet still she survived into her mid-eighties. Her life must be rated as very successful in what she achieved but much of it was surrounded by suffering. All of my Victorian ancestors suffered in some way during the Industrial Revolution when the working classes were all but invisible as individuals. I went to a grammar school - still the only one of my family to do so in 300 years - and then I enjoyed a university education, have always been employed, have managed to travel to many parts of the world and to meet some wonderful people. I did all of this without obscene wealth and I find it sad that so many young people now want nothing more than fame [or infamy], great wealth - in simple money terms - and have no appreciation of the value of a proper education. The children sent by ambitious parents to private schools do understand and that is one of many reasons why the rich will continue to run the country while a few footballers wonder how to spend their own suddenly acquired wealth. Five luxury cards will not be enough to find your way along the road to happiness.
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