Looking from the South West Coast Path, Cornwall, towards The Great Mewstone and Wembury, Devon, and the South Devon coastline.

Between the ages of 8–12 my Mum went on a couple of holidays with her family to Devon, England, where they stayed in a caravan next to the coast. Their caravan was based, along with several others, at the edge of a very large field. Each caravan had a small corrugated iron shed outside it, containing a chemical bucket toilet. Every two days a man would drive a tractor into the field, towing a trailer that had a big tank on it, and would empty the contents of each toilet into the tank before driving off to dispose of it. This gentleman invariably smiled and waved at my Mum and her brothers, gave them a friendly wink, and often whistled cheerfully as he undertook his unenviable task. My Mum told me she marvelled at how anyone could be so happy at having such a job. As a child/preteen, I think I would also have wondered a similar thing. It certainly is not a job that I would ever aspire to doing, that one would delight in talking about at middle-class British dinner parties, or that one would boast about when wishing to seduce someone on a date! However, as an adult I now have some idea as to why that gentleman seemed so contented…

•  He had a job in which he knew what was expected of him and was trusted to do it and someone, somewhere showed appreciation for this (even if it was only the curious children playing outside a caravan in a field as his tractor drew up).

•  He had great skills that he put to good use (being able to drive a tractor, and to carry out an important practical task without harming anyone).

•  He regularly got to see a spectacular stretch of the Devon coastline.

•  He was in good enough health to be able to work and have physical strength.

•  He earned a wage which enabled him to buy nice food.
•  His earnings enabled him to have a pleasant home where he could sleep safely at night.
•  He probably had an element of choice/strong influence over the situation that he was in.

•  Although he experienced the satisfaction of hard work, his working hours still left him with the time and energy to pursue activities that he loved when not at work. 

• At some point in his adult life someone he adored had shown him sustained, fully unconditional, dependable romantic love and he either still enjoyed that or relished the memory of it or, perhaps, he had never experienced that but lived in the conviction that it may happen one day or in acceptance that it may not.

•  He had at least one friend with whom he could talk freely and laugh unreservedly.

Whoever that chap with the trailer was he had a valuable job, access to some of the beautiful nature of our world, reasonable health and relative freedom, and it is likely that he also had food to eat, somewhere safe to sleep, at least one strong interest, knew the joy of friendship and valued the wonder of love. To have all of those things is to have everything.