Blog
It's Good To Talk
As a child in the eighties, something similar to this magnificent beast sat in the hall at home, shattering the peace every so often with its shrill bell-ring, a call to answer as swiftly as possible (because - of course - there was no answerphone).
There couldn't be a much more stark contrast between that and the sleek technological marvel that, these days, I carry around in my pocket, and which is so small that I frequently misplace it.
My younger years weren’t, of course, completely communication-less – anyone remember these…?
The pre-teenage and teenage me (my very first mobile phone came out of its box the night before I went off to university) would never have quite believed that, in an unspecified number of years' time, future children – some them younger than I was then - would be exchanging messages, sharing videos and photos instantly.
Googling (what would the young me have thought about that term?) and talking to friends whenever they liked, on their own device… No more taking turns with the rest of the household (who would probably listen in when it was your turn, too!).
In later years, I 'surfed the internet' on the hall floor, near to the updated and now less-green (but still rather large and ugly) artefact, time-limited because I'd had to unplug the phone in order to do go online... However, I digress…
What has provoked this hefty dose of reminiscence? Well, it's actually been the activities we ran last week for #childrensmentalhealthweek2021, and my review of some incredible highlights that I can't wait to share with our wider school community.
Students in all years have produced some truly compelling work, across a variety of media, often reflecting - inevitably - on the effects of the pandemic.
But what a positive for us to take from the current period of adversity, if our long-term take-away is to have learned to take greater care of ourselves and our minds. I say "our" because I feel that, even as adults, we are still very much learning in this respect; in particular, we can learn important lessons from the younger generations.
We were fortunate enough to be able to offer a virtual Performing Arts and Music workshop to our scholars last week, and this was a fantastic model - using the Arts to reflect on, and acknowledge, how we feel about our presently-restricted lives. Here is a sneak preview from Sofia in Year 7, and there's plenty more to come!
What has all this got to do with my experience of the limited telecommunications of the 1980s and 1990s?
Well, back in the day, we often lacked the facility to skip the adverts on TV, so I remember a whole series of ads delivered by the late actor Bob Hoskins for British Telecom; a strange link you may think but, at the time, BT was promoting reduced-cost calling to friends and family, under the strapline "it's good to talk."
Thank goodness for YouTube, as I was able to re-watch a selection of the ads – dated haircuts, interior design disasters, dodgy fashion and all - and I was actually very surprised to see that the repeated messages were almost ahead of their time.
Here's a case in point:
Throughout the clips, amid some cringing at the parts that haven't aged well (not everything was good about the old-days), I found a common thread of:
- keeping in touch,
- making time to chat,
- recognising when we are finding things tough,
- looking out for one another,
- not devaluing small-talk,
- not leaving it "too long" between calls,
- overcoming the notion of the Great (I use the term ironically here) British 'stiff upper lip,' a potentially damaging stereotype when it comes to mental health.
Like the advances in mobile technology, there are many aspects of life that have progressed for the better since the days I describe. I think we are moving in the right direction in being able to talk about mental health, but those old adverts imply that our progress is so much slower than it should be; we knew the key messages back then, but can we honestly say we practice them well? Consistently?
We all have mental health and, in the same manner as our physical health, its quality fluctuates over time. Today's world presents a wealth of opportunity to talk, whether one's words are spoken or expressed another way.
We can communicate without any words at all.
We can choose to use our words and other forms of expression well. Kindly. With compassion and empathy.
I'm proud that we can do our bit on the journey to reduce stigma in our own small way. I hope we will inspire some improvements for members of our extended community as a result. I hope we can better look out for one another.
So, in the 2020s, it's good to talk, text, email, iMessage, WhatsApp, Zoom, Facetime, Telegram... pick your method, but look after yourself and those around you.
Stay safe!
