Last Sunday I went to a "live day" at the Yarloop Workshops just south of Perth in Western Australia where I live. The machinery was "live" because the steam engines that power them had been fired up by volunteers, their last operation for the year before being shut down for the bush fire season. I took a guided tour through the remains of what was once one of the biggest timber milling operations in Australia. Huge Jarrah trees were once felled in the nearby hills for export all over the world.

It occurred to me as I walked around that as we worry about economic recession, we have no real idea what it is to suffer. Our ancestors worked in places like that in the most atrocious conditions. There were photographs of pattern makers standing at their benches in suits and ties - in temperatures that reached over 100 degrees, with no air conditioning. At the end of a sweltering day they went back to primitive huts - no plasma TV's and microwave ovens for them. And they were the lucky ones!

Those who worked in the bush felled huge trees with hand saws and axes. There was no Health and Safety inspector checking the equipment - men died and were maimed in their hundreds. Their wives had no access to the company doctor because they weren't employees. Many died in childbirth.

When we talk about the "good old days" we really don't have a clue what they were like. However much the current economic downturn is affecting you - remember that it is never going to be this bad for you, and be grateful, as I am!