'What will history books say about my time on this earth?'

If my answers are 'I don’t know' or 'no' to everything then some of my life encounters may surprise people, while others may make people smile, as my life's fears and joys are varied.

I never guessed as a child that I would have a career supporting the elderly with a passion the way I did for the majority of my working life.

I was brought up in a Britain which had just won the Second World War.

Whether my parents saw Britain as a ‘green and pleasant land’, I do not know, but what I do know and have seen during my lifetime so far is how people see, and learn to see, life.

I believe that this is rooted in a long process of human history of cultural revolutions.

Prime Minister Edward Heath said in the 70s that we can all get a fair share of a new world and everyone has surely heard the expression 'they will go down in history as...’ So I asked myself a simple question – what will history books say about my time on this earth?

Most church academics tend to describe the current 21st century conditions in terms of the 11th hour and look to the Bible for answers.

As a committed Christian I must say that I’m personally not sure about this prophesy because I think today’s academics have collected themselves together with politicians and the media in a way that always seems to be giving out a gloomy predation of life in Britain today.

I think that they have ignored basic Christian values which dictate the foundations of authority, cultural and political correctness and good family values and manners.

The Human Rights Act has made it easy for radical ill-informed people in Britain to demand through free speech that their way of life must be followed, without any challenges from society.

It’s also obvious that standards of living have risen throughout the past centuries, and even more noticeably during my lifetime compared with a hundred years ago.

The average person also lives 30 years longer and has far more educational opportunities, which seem to be flaunted and ignored by so many in our society as one of the ways of bettering themselves financially.

Society has made it very easy for people to demand financial equality as part of their human rights, and as Arthur Scargill, the leader of the miners’ union, said in the 1970s: “You get what you’re prepared to go out and take.”

In reality the country was, and still is, unable to sustain wages and state benefit claims while providing national health services to the levels demanded for all.

It has always been said that our society is built on the fact that those who are working must keep those who are not working. Why? Because there are people who are unable to find suitable employment.

But it seems in Britain today we have reached a point where there are now more people enjoying a good way of life and standard of living off state benefits and not working than there are people working.

It is also my personal view that we now live in a world where the standards of life skills is continuing to fall dramatically, but society thinks it’s still living in utopia and encouraging a trend of ‘don’t think of the future to the detriment of good manners and respect for all others'.

Looking back I can see how my parents influenced me and how my life experiences have helped me to influence and touch the lives of so many families with a caring knowing attitude.

I also realise that today’s 'me first' society is also a product of my generation and cannot be blamed on my parents’ generation.

So where did my generation go wrong? And how can it be put it right? I feel sure that there are lots of people with lots of life changing history memories out there like me who will buck this trend.

And when the time is right will pass their thoughts on to future generations in a way that will make people think and influence social trends for a better world.

Bob Welch, Hooten Lane, Leigh