Living in Peace and Wisdom on our Planet

On a war footing, cut off from an occupied continent and with long supply lines harassed by Nazi submarines, British people were urged not to buy new things. In the early 1940s, making do with what one has, mending it if ever it breaks, was the order of the day. Certain foods were in short supply (soldiers were given priority for what little there was of high-protein meat and eggs) or could scarcely be found anywhere (bananas and oranges). Could the past also be our future?

Today as the auto industry collapses worldwide with big-name car companies and their suppliers shedding jobs, the experience in Mexico is certainly one of 'mend'. Small workshops where skilled mechanics can repair broken parts – ones that would otherwise need to be bought new from Germany, Japan or the USA – are booming as customers tighten their belts. If this trend continues and spreads we may see the return of electrical repair shops, which have all but disappeared from first world malls over the past decades. For those with the right skills, crisis does indeed equate to opportunity.

In wartime Britain all manner of ingenious recipes were concocted to make rationed food more interesting and studies have shown that the diet of that generation was in many ways healthier than today's. In the future, with long supply lines for Chinese white goods, Argentinian beef and Caribbean fruit hampered by a shortage of fuel for the boats and planes bringing them, Britons and others may once again be asked to make do and mend. Foreseeing the problem, some are already doing it. If it ends up making us more healthy, will that be such a bad thing? And, who knows, it may even stimulate a revival in the legendary community spirit that some claim existed in the 1940s. Sharing a cup of sugar, lawnmower or automobile with neighbours may bring all of us closer together.