The long nights are coming in fast now. It’s even dark as I head out for work in the morning. Dave, one of my work mates, bemoans the lack of light saying how hard it is to get up in the morning. I suppose that it is just the internal clock telling us we should still be sleeping as it isn’t yet day time. Then again I don’t seem to suffer as much as Dave from the morning struggle to get going. The hardest part for me is reaching out to switch off the alarm and put on the light.
It makes me wonder though how hard it must have been in the past before the wonder of the electric light. To add to the problem of the dark morning was the longer working hours. Sixteen with few breaks. Over the winter months you wouldn’t have seen much of any daylight with that long a working day. But getting up to scramble around for a match so you could get the candle to offer some visibility to your surroundings must have been a nightmare. No wonder men left the women to get up first more often than not. If it hadn’t been for those ladies’ the world may have come grinding to a halt.
Of course times were different then. Women had few rights other than what the got from their men folk. On top of looking after the house and kids they often had to work themselves. We often take our modern wonders for granted. As we also take our fewer working hours. Having worked twelve hour shifts in the past I am grateful not to be doing so now. It does drain you in more than a physical way. Your whole life becomes one of work and little else. Even the joy of the family seems to slip because your too tired. Yet some people thrive the more work they have, don’t they?