Last Word

Waste not, want not Gloria Scott , glamourous grannie finds herself caught between two generations of thrifty greenies

Iwas trying to help when I cleared up the clutter of tins, milk cartons and wine bottles that had collected in my daughter’s kitchen. “All gone, dear!” I said when she got back home. “Though I don’t know why you let so much rubbish pile up in the first place.” “Gone where?” she said, rather frostily. “Off with the binmen of course! I just caught them. Wasn’t that lucky?” Well of course, it turned out that it wasn’t neglected junk – it was recycling junk. It was simply awaiting placement in the right sort of containers on the right sort of days and would I mind not interfering so that perfectly useful stuff ended up crammed into already overflowing landfill sites. And I thought, here we go again. My daughter has turned into my mother, and I’m the throwaway, livefor-today liability I’ve always been. My mother would have been the Queen of Green, by today’s standards. To me, in the 1950s and 1960s, she was simply the Queen of Mean. She had been brought up in an era when “waste not, want not” was the rule, and in a family where there was a great deal of self-sufficiency. There were always hens in their henhouse, a pig in its sty, a few ducks roaming free. But it was the war that really turned people like my mother into masters of material frugality. She was a teenager in 1939 and a married woman by 1945, and she had learned the hard way that what was wasted today was simply unobtainable tomorrow. So the habits were set, for a lifetime. Nothing that came into our house was thrown away unless it had been eaten, drunk or had (to my mind) at least six different uses made of it. Take wool, for instance. My mother, who was a handy knitter, would make a jumper for my dad. It would wear out at the elbows, and would be darned over and over. When the elbows were so lumpy that he couldn’t get his arms to his sides, the jumper would be unravelled and the curly, unwieldy wool remade into a jumper for my brother. There might also be mittens and scarf for me, in fetching grey. Then there was the brown paper and the string. Most parcels, including birthday presents, came

“She bought me some sort of hairy, scratchy bag for shopping: “No more plastic bags Mum! Terrible for the environment.”

wrapped in brown paper, and had to be opened agonisingly slowly in order to preserve every last element of the wrapping. The paper was then ironed, folded, and put in the paper drawer. The laboriously unknotted string went into the string drawer, next to the balls of rubber bands, the boxes of rescued paperclips, the stubs of still-useful pencils and the motley assortment of half-used candles, washed-and-dried loaf bags and folded, near-exhausted tinfoil. We weren’t a particularly poor family, but sheets that became threadbare were re-sewn sides-to-middle. Slivers of soap were saved to be mulched together; tomato ketchup and brown sauce dregs were eked out with vinegar; clothes were “let out” and “let down” until there was a concertina of former hems at the bottom of every dress. Use of energy and water was strictly

monitored. The free availability of both was still a wonder to the generation born in the early part of the 20th century, and it wasn’t because of thrift alone that they hated to see them wasted. To a child of the increasingly abundant Fifties, and a teenager of the freethinking, free-earning Sixties, this parsimony was, quite honestly, a pain. As I grew older, I became irritated by the wartime echo of “Turn that light out!” or being told I couldn’t have a bath every night or use the washing machine every day. Most of all, I became tired of hearing the phrase: “What a waste!” whenever I peeled potatoes too thickly, used more than a splash of washing-up liquid, threw away milk-bottle tops instead of saving them, discarded socks and stockings instead of mending them, bought cakes and pastries instead of making them. And now...and now... My daughter is on my case. She’s not mean, but by God, she’s green. She bought me some sort of hairy, scratchy bag for shopping: “No more plastic bags Mum! Terrible for the environment.” But it brought me out in a rash, which wouldn’t do at all. She insists on low-energy lightbulbs everywhere in her house. But I bring my own 100-watt to read my glossy magazines. It’s that or glasses. She wants to walk everywhere: “It’s only a mile to the shops!” But I don’t do walking. Well, not in these high heels. She brings her children up to nag me. “Granny, why don’t you have a compost bin in your garden?” “Why don’t you ever recycle all your wine bottles?” or “Granny, why is our house so hot when you babysit? It’s never boiling like this when you’re not here.” Oh dear. Am I the only member of this “sandwich” generation to feel caught between two sets of non-materialist idealists? Whether compelled by meanness or greenness, by ideological or ecological imperatives, they were, and are, trying to do their best for the future. I do, deep down, admire them. I just don’t want to make that too clear to my daughter, or I’ll be taking four inch shallow baths, saving vegetable peelings and begging the council for a bottle bin... before I turn my sheets sides-to-the-middle and start saving string. n

82 The Green Parent

ILLUSTRATION SANDRA HOWGATE
THE children’s safety swimwear specialists.

THE children’s safety swimwear specialists.

Our fabulous range of children’s swimwear products designed for their comfort and your peace of mind.

Our fabulous range of children’s swimwear products are designed for their comfort and your peace of mind.

Gorgeous and essential products to protect babies a children in and around water. Splash About helps ma your child’s life safer, easier and quite simply...more fu

Gorgeous and essential products to protect babies and children in and around water. Splash About helps make your child’s life safer, easier and quite simply...more fun!

Splash About products are available from all the leadi baby swim schools, the best children’s mail order cat and select retail outlets.

Splash About products are available from all the leading baby swim schools, the best children’s mail order catalogues and select retail outlets.

Full product information, stockists, baby swim school and online shop are available at www.splashabout.c

Full product information, stockists, baby swim schools and online shop are available at www.splashabout.com

Email info@splashabout.com for further details.

Email info@splashabout.com for further details .

Splash About are proud sponsors of this years’ Splashathon. To get involved see www.splashathon.org

Splash About International Ltd is a UK registered company number 5581094 Photography © daniellaboutin.com; waterbabies.co.uk; splashabout.com.au

S p l a s h A b o u t I n t e r n a t i o n a l L t d i s a U K r e g i s t e r e d c o m p a n y n u m b e r 5 5 8 1 0 9 4 P h o t o g r a p h y © d a n i e l l a b o u t i n . c o m ; w a t e r b a b i e s . c o . u k ; s p l a s h a b o u t . c o m . a u