Cost of Living

Cutting the cost of living a phrase that echoes through the years. If you live on a slim budget it matters. The photograph has all the elements to get that message across. The zig-zaggy graph showing prices rising or falling. The lovely wicker basket of provisions. No plastic bags back in 1948. The young child who must be nurtured with the smartly dressed young mother who has made the right choice by shopping at the Co-Op. Well you can spot the "Join Your M&S Branch" on the mat. A window display of a pyramid of cans. When did you last see that?

But Britain has an obsession with cheap food even when people spend less of their total income on these essentials.

“There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey." quoting John Ruskin. Ruskin besides being a fascinating intellectual chap was a supporter of co-operatives. Well he did send best wishes to the first of the modern Co-Operative Congresses in 1869...