Relative Links: My mother is Hyacinth Shirley Minott, a cousin of the late great reggae artist Sugar Minott. Hyacinth is also a beautiful flower, but my mother’s friends called her Shirley.
I recently discovered that the flower is named after a Greek goddess who was struck in the head by a discus thrown by Zeus.
When my mother wasn’t dragging my sisters and me to school, which isn’t entirely true, I had trouble getting out of bed.
However, I enjoyed my education and playing with my schoolmates. Subsequently, I always looked forward to going.
**Government’s Public Safety: Business Interest First**
I remember my mother working as a dinner lady at my primary school when I was nine to eleven years old, supervising the kids in the playground.
Later in her career, she became a sewing machinist in a sweatshop on Bloom Street. One afternoon, my mother was shopping after work in the city centre of Manchester at Woolworths, where a four-storey department store was near her factory.
The fire took hold in the furniture department. The foam used to upholster the sofas had toxic chemicals when it was on fire. This caused customers in the store to inhale deadly fumes and substances, causing the death of several people.
Luckily, my mother was thrilled to bits to escape, unharmed, and be rescued safely by beefcake firefighters.
Government health and safety laws were introduced to ensure such substances are not used again. Looking back, governments always act too late regarding health and safety at the hands of businesses, where many need to think of one.
**Profit Over Safety**
My mother’s friend Rita Taylor had a fifteen-month-old baby girl who modelled chubby fat cheeks, big glowing hazel eyes, and a giggly smile. The child loved life.
Rita was distracted while washing the kids’ clothes in her brand-new top loader. She placed the young child in the washing machine to answer the front door.
The young baby fell in when the machine switched to a fast, hot spin, and she returned. The burns on the mother’s hands in her effort to drag her daughter out of the washer are too horrifying to mention.
The young child died from eighty per cent burns. When too many lives are lost, governments prioritise public safety, which should be the government’s priority.
Another example is how long it took for the car to be invented before public pressure forced car makers to fit safety belts. Before unleashing the best tool in the world, the internet, no one thought about enforcing any international law.
Now, we have sex rings preying on our kids at home from a screen in a supposedly safe environment. Intelligence thinks, is society thinking?
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