Sense and sensibility - a story of our times

WAS there ever a stranger or more bleak run-up to Christmas?

For those brought up in the assumption that good times were here to stay, today's harsh '“ and fast-changing - economic realities send a chill wind through the shopping streets.

Where normally with less than a month to go it would be the shops that would be thronged we have had an unusually well-attended House of Commons packed to hear the Chancellor's recession-busting emergency measures.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

A time when, customarily, shop tills would be ringing this has been replaced with the clash of political swords as the parties argue over who is to blame for the "credit crunch" and the economic recession.

Working on the basis that prevention is better than cure, the Citizens' Advice Bureau is issuing guidance leaflets packed with handy tips for avoiding a Christmas spending "hangover."

Only a few weeks ago the great concern was inflation, with costs soaring because crude oil was topping 140 dollars a barrel.

Now it is less than half that and an economic term not heard since the great Depression has crept out of the woodwork.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

We are solemnly warned that deflation is an even greater evil than economic inflation; carrying the danger that consumers will put off till tomorrow what they would have bought today on the basis that it will be cheaper tomorrow...

To put a brighter face on a worrying time, it is a buyer's market with Christmas presents being offered in November at January sales prices.

Surely a time on a use-them-or-lose-them basis to shop locally and support hard-pressed Bexhill traders.

With national headlines telling us that household names like Woolworths are struggling for survival there is a risk that as a nation we shall frighten ourselves into even deeper waters.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

In reality, there is little the individual can do to influence matters which have a truly global dimension.

Out of the welter of warning and counter-warning, out of the political and international squabbling, the words of the Citizen's Advice Bureau come over as both a sage and a calming influence and are as true of any normal pre-Christmas period as of this entirely abnormal one.

In effect: Don't go mad. Don't spend above your means. Spend wisely.

Or, in the words of Dad's Army's memorable Corporal Jones: "Don't panic Mr Mainwaring...!"

Only, of course, Jonesy always did.