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Ron Williams, 84, is a keen recycler

Climate change and peak oil present humanity with one very large problem: how do we cope without oil? Fossil fuels supply about 90 per cent of the world's energy. They make plastics, medicines, fertilisers, mobile phones and computers.

They run the machine that made the chair you are sitting on.

Yet it is only within the past 100 years our dependence on oil and its products has grown so great - and with it has come a society of convenience and disposability.

In 2004, environmental research body the Worldwatch Institute published its annual State Of The World report, claiming 1.7 billion people belonged to a social stratum whose lifestyles are dedicated to the accumulation of nonessential goods: the Consumer Class.

Christopher Flavin, president of Worldwatch Institute says: "Rising consumption has helped meet basic needs and create jobs. But as we enter a new century, this unprecedented consumer appetite is undermining the natural systems we all depend on and making it even harder for the world's poor to meet their basic needs."

Grace Blindell was born in 1921. She worked as a nurse during the Second World War, later training as a teacher before running a vegetarian B&B in North Wales. She moved to Brighton about ten years ago "in order to be a useful grandmother" and has seen the world change immeasurably since her time on the wards at the Middlesex Hospital. She says: "The biggest difference between now and then is before and during the war we just didn't throw things away.

"We mended things - everything got mended. Your socks, if they got a hole in, you darned them. You took shoes to get resoled and re-heeled. You learned how to patch. Even sheets, when they wore out we used to do a thing called sides-to-middle, where you cut it down the middle and re-sewed the two edges together to make a new sheet."

Grace goes on to recall ideas that have no place in today's world, where goods with built-in obsolescence are accepted as the norm and single-use items pass by unquestioned.

"There were people who came round to mend pots and pans," she says.

"Crockery was riveted together. When your nylon stockings had a ladder, you mended them - now you would just throw them away. It is an appalling throwaway society. The human race does not know how to stop."

According to figures compiled by Essex County Council, the average 1940s household bin contained 9.2kg of rubbish per person. Nearly 70 years later, that figure has risen to 15.1kg per person, bulked out predominantly by plastics and food waste.

Lucette Forrest lives in Hangleton.

She was born in 1931 and after school worked as an actress before becoming a receptionist and eventually going into the hotel business.

As a child she remembers helping at her mother's hotel, doing all the clothes washing by hand, and the appearance of the very first detergent, called Tide. It was so strong she had to wear rubber gloves or risk the skin on her hands. She also recalls the "pig man" who would come and collect their food waste every day to feed his swine.

She says: "Materialism has reared its ugly head. Children want the latest gadgets but there never used to be all these gadgets. People run up terrific debts like there was no tomorrow - but they aren't happy, totally the opposite."

Lucette's opinions are backed up by scientific research. According to a study by the London School of Economics, once people can afford the basics, happiness does not increase with income and, despite the doubling of living standards in the UK over the past 30 years, people are no more happy than they were before.

Regardless of having more disposable income to spend on leisure activities or luxury items, in general people do not have the time to spend actually enjoying them.

So apart from the genuinely life-enhancing items, such as medicine or a heated home, have all these advances really paid off?

Ron Williams lives near The Level.

He is 84 and moved to Brighton from London when he was 14. After the war he worked as a shoe-mender, dying satin shoes for showgirls alongside the usual cobbler's chores.

He says: "People talk about the good old days but some stuff was good and some stuff was rubbish. I never felt impoverished, though. We would make money chopping sticks or running errands. Where we lived in Wembley the soil was all clay, so we would collect dung from the horse and carts, mix it with big drums of rainwater and mix it in with the ground. It made wonderful soil to grow our vegetables in.

"Things move so quickly now, with all these rockets to the moon and social sciences, but people still can't pay for things. There is still cancer and TB is making a comeback.

"Everything is science-made and it is a very wasteful society. I look at shoes now and they are semi-disposable.

People don't have half the skills we used to. I wanted to get my video recorder fixed but I couldn't find anyone who could do it. My daughter pointed out it would be cheaper to buy a new one."

Grace says people feel much more needy today because we are endlessly being told what we have is not up to date or there is a new thing around the corner.

"I was always quite contented," she says. "I think it has made people much less happy, far more discontented. I try not to be a big consumer. I am very conscious of what we are doing to the planet. This idea of progress really distresses me.

"Real progress would be learning to live peacefully with other humans and living in harmony with the planet.

The human race thinks we can control nature. We are not in control - we are idiots if we think we are."

Lucette feels very strongly life was better in her younger days.

"I would rather put up with washing things by hand than put up with the awful materialism we have today. I do feel hopeful we can make things better, but we are never going to turn the clock back. We are never going to get back the lovely world God gave us.

We have mucked it up.

"Let us have less and be happy. It would be ideal to have more and be happier but the two don't seem to go hand in hand. I'm very poor in material things but I have the golden wealth of friends."

3:09pm Monday 31st March 2008

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