Deeper questions that emerge from the Census

I HAVE just been watching a programme on BBC2 presented by Andrew Marr on the recent history and the current situation regarding the Census.

Watching the programme and listening to the reasons for producing it, I couldn’t help but ask myself what on Earth the politicians are going to do with all the information when they have collected it?”

I couldn’t help being a tad sceptical and feeling that all it would achieve would be “shelf fodder”. Will the information gleaned actually be used positively? How will my life’s experience at 81 years of age be actually assessed and considered in the present scheme of things?

What did I do at school? What industry did I join and where is it now? Is the Government really interested?

I certainly would like to feel that some national benefit can accrue from these questions, but I can’t help but regret that nobody will analyse it with me and understand why I did various things in my life and what personal benefit came my way, what personal satisfaction I achieved.

What did my life enable me to do and did I feel justified in a lifetime’s work? These are the questions I would like examined. My working life ran from 16 years of age to retirement at 65. Who would like to examine all that period?

There could be hidden truths there if anybody was prepared to spend the time to examine it in relation to where we are now going as a country.

Probably we should stop and think more, and discuss more openly.