GB = Generous Britain

On your work today were you accosted by someone in a silly costume and carrying a bucket?  Has anyone asked you to sponsor them to have their head shaved, legs waxed, or sit in a bath of something gooey?

Are the neighbours’ children asking if they can wash your car?  Do you have a sneaking suspicion that the country has been invaded by strange aliens who look vaguely like custard-coloured teddy bears with a rather fetching polka dot eye patch?

In case you haven’t noticed, today is the annual appeal day for the Charity Children in Need, when normally sane people do daft things to raise money to help make a positive change to the lives of disadvantaged children and young people across the UK.

Last year £38 million were raised, and it is hoped that this target will be exceeded during tonight’s shenanigans. But this is not a new phenomenon.

The very first broadcast appeal for children was a five-minute radio programme on Christmas day in 1927. This was the year after the general strike, and although mass marketing meant that the wireless was now reaching ‘ordinary’ households, there were still close on two million unemployed, the average wage for an agricultural worker for a 50 hour week was £1 11s 6d (approximately £94 today),and the country was still reeling from the effects of a war in which almost a million people lost their lives and a further 1.6 million military personnel were wounded.

And yet, the appeal raised £1143 18s 3d – around  £54,000 in today’s money. Generous Britons will be contributing to Children in Need tonight, but the charity operates all year round, giving grants to hundreds of different organisations, some of which are very small and don’t have the resources to fundraise for themselves.

We at Russell HR Consulting Ltd like to do our bit to help, and support our chosen charities all year round too.  We make a donation to Dogs for the disabled from subscriptions to Law on the Move^TM, to The Bob Champion Trust through sales of Off the Sick List!, and over the past year we have held seminars from which the proceeds were donated to Willen Hospice. For more information on our products, services and charitable work give us a call.

Russell HR Consulting provides expert knowledge in HR solutions, employment law training and HR tools and resources to businesses across the UK.

Subscribe to our free monthly HR newsletter. Russell HR Consulting employment law newsletters are emailed automatically to our ever-growing number of subscribers every month.