Kristen Hamling: Song strikes a chord about future

POIGNANT: Sandi Thom and a 'pearler of a song'.

TRAVELLING back from one of our family camping trips, I listened to a pearler of a song, I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker, on the radio.

I've loved this song before, but I hadn't fully appreciated the words until now.

After a weekend away in nature with my boys, unplugged and playing the old-fashioned way, I heard the lyrics in a completely different way. In fact, the lyrics hit me and I burst into tears.

My little boy looked at me concerned and asked: "Mummy, what's wrong? Why are you crying?"

How do I explain to an 8-year-old that I fear we are ruining everything and we will leave behind a pile of rubble for our children and their children?

We clever humans have created technology, new medicines, huge multinational organisations, genetic engineering - all of which are taking us further and further away from the way that we are designed to live.

All of my subconscious concerns bubbled to the surface as Sandi Thom beautifully sang the song.

The lyrics are so poignant to me that I am sharing them with the aim to inspire. Somehow, somewhere, someone has got to rage against the machine so that we can keep our world in harmony; well balanced and operating in the way it was designed to ...

"Oh, I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair,

In '77 and '69, revolution was in the air,

I was born too late, into a world that doesn't care,

Oh, I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair.

"When the head of state didn't play guitar,

Not everybody drove a car,

When music really mattered and when radio was king,

When accountants didn't have control,

And the media couldn't buy your soul,

And computers were still scary and we didn't know everything.

"When pop stars still remained a myth,

And ignorance could still be bliss,

And when God saved the Queen, she turned a whiter shade of pale,

When my mom and dad were in their teens,

And anarchy was still a dream,

And the only way to stay in touch was a letter in the mail ..."

Sandi's song captures all my fears for our future and our children's future. What are we leaving behind?

All I can say is thank you a million times to the people that are championing the issues that really matter, such as the environment, the horrid TPP, and the growing divide between rich and poor. Chris and Mandy Cresswell are two people that I revere in the work they do for our community, so I want to thank them and I hope they have the strength to continue. God knows we need people like them at the helm.