I tried to speak to my building society the other day but after five minutes of instructions to press one of  keys 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 and then a further choice of numbers, followed by some tinny 70s pop music and a voice repeatedly assuring me that a representative would be with me shortly because they value my call (oh, really?) I hung up. Call me impatient but I just didn’t see the point.

I considered my next move and, trying the the clever modern option, I pressed the “contact us” section at the top of their website’s home page but instead of giving me an email address so that I could (possibly) correspond with a human being I was presented with a drop-down option where I had the choice of about thirty questions and answers. At that point I gave up completely.

Since the Industrial Revolution, which began in 18th century England, mankind has come a long way and many of the advances made in science and technology are quite simply mind-blowing. However, progress has a price and that price is a loss of human input, from the cotton spinning machine doing the work of thirty manual workers to the computer making a whole company accounts department redundant.

Maybe the 19th century Luddites were right in opposing the take-over by machines because we now have large parts of the population who are unlikely ever to find work because, quite simply, there isn’t any; technology has taken over. Governments wonder at the social unrest, upheaval  and disenchantment in modern society. Well, they don’t have to look too far for the cause. Progress? Undoubtedly, but at what cost to humanity?