A Guest Blog by Ron Hardie, The Dog & Duck Head of Security.

In the mid 80’s, the popular children’s TV show ‘Grange Hill’ began a storyline where one of the fans favourites, Samuel ‘Zammo’ McGuire, became addicted to Heroin. This was a big moment for children’s TV and led to a massive media campaign imaginatively titled ‘Just Say No.’ The cast of the show released a top 20 single and got to visit America’s first lady at the time, Nancy Reagan, at The Whitehouse as part of her anti drugs campaign.

I loved Grange Hill but I believe that this story line, at the time, is what made me think the show had ‘Jumped the Shark.’ It’s not that the story and campaign were not important, nor that it had a significant impact at the time, its just that it wasn’t relevant to me. I didn’t know any addicts and never exposed myself to that scene. Thinking back though, It is quite possibly the start of the dilution of the word and sentiment ‘No.’

Growing up, being told ‘no’ was quite a common occurrence, whether it was a request for a new game, money for a trip to town or getting out to play on the Sunday night before school – despite it being okay other pre school nights Mon – Thu. With this came the frequent chastisement ‘Would you just take No for an answer!’ This usually meant that any argument was shut down and that ‘No’ had indeed been the outcome. Nowaday’s as a parent, I can’t remember the last time I said ‘just take no for an answer.’ I’ve said no plenty of times, but somehow it often becomes a maybe and eventually a yes. Even to the point of picking children up from school to save them the 5 minute walk or 30 minute bus journey I had to always endure. With freely available internet, smart phones and social media, today’s kids seem to be growing up quicker than ever before. Now I’m not saying some children have never had it so good, but…

Over the last two decades I’ve seen this happen at home, at work and politically. At home, with the family, I try not to say no, but when I do there is a tirade of ‘things were different in your day’… which of course they were. The silly not going out on Sunday night nonsense is easy for kids to argue against and if they want to avoid that drama class, music lesson or kids club you pre-paid into, there’s not much you can do about it. At work, if you legitimately say no to a leave request then you may have sick leave on your hands. Refusing to sign off a new laptop or swivel chair may result in the employee going above your head to your boss or to HR or to the union. Perhaps all three just to cover all bases. Politically the obvious one’s are the Scottish 2014 referendum where No won on the question of ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’ By 55% to 45% and of course the aftermath of Brexit’s withdrawal agreement. On the latter the UK gov was told no several times before forcing the issue via a resoundingly successful General Election. I fully get the irony of writing this as an independence supporter who would be more than happy to ignore the 2014 result and have another referendum on Scotland’s future. But I, like most others, have ignored ‘No’ as an answer before and will again.

It seems that in recent times the legal culture to sue those who try to tell you ‘No’ is greater than the moral argument of actually telling someone no for their own good. The disclaimers put on cleaning products are a great example. You should know, or have been told no, that injecting Dettol is not a good thing, but hey, people still do it. As a baby becomes a toddler, it hears ‘no’ possibly more than any other word as parents set the boundaries of what can be touched, explored and shouted. This should carry on as the child grows up. There are countless reasons a parent says no, financial, safety concerns or just common sense, but in the main it is usually for the benefit of the overall family/guardian unit which includes the child. Essentially you are trying to protect your loved ones and or responsibilities.

Moving through adolescence (10-19 years of age) children will try to push all the boundaries, this is only natural, but it is still important to keep an eye on things and saying ‘no’ is key to this. Remember as a parent/guardian it is your job to not bring up a brat. Children have more time on their hands now and access to a hell of a lot of misinformation out there, so much more than I could even imagine as a 10 year old. So keeping on top of things is important, discussion is important, informing children of the struggles of the past is important so they understand that nowadays they have it a lot easier than my generation did.They also need to understand that most global, national and local decisions are made based on finance, not morals. Companies are run to make money. They invest to make money regardless of who is effected. Companies make money from wars. They make money from gambling and of course they make money from drugs – the legal kind, not the stuff fictional Zammo injected into his veins.

Girls and boys need to be taught about the struggles of women, blacks, gays and faith spreaders so that they get as grounded an opinion as possible and can make decisions based on knowledge – these will less likely have a parent shouting ‘No. ‘Otherwise, many of today’s youngsters will sheepishly lie down to those advocating that women’s hard fought rights should be ridden rough shod over in exchange for increasing the rights of fetishists and misogynists. If these ‘children’ had been told ‘no’ at an early stage instead of pampered and coerced indirectly by big pharma we’d be in a much more pleasant world than we are just now. Anyway, I bet that took a turn you didn’t expect…