10th November 2014

Tendring Topics……on line

Two Social Events

            There was a time when I didn’t think of myself as a very sociable person.  Give me a quiet corner, a comfortable chair and a good book and I’d be quite happy with my own company for hours at a time.  That phase of my life has passed.  My interest in books – whether fiction or non-fiction – has waned (though I still enjoy reading letters and emails, newspapers and magazines) and there’s nothing that I enjoy more than the company of friends and family.  I am really extraordinarily fortunate in both.                                            

                                                                                  

  Dr Volker Dudeck, distinguished historian and Cultural Senator of federal state of Saxony, and  seven-year old  Maja Kulke, both from Zittau the small German town where I was  once a POW, with me on my 93^rd birthday.  Note the birthday cake-  a birthday present from the management of ‘The Bowling Green'! 

In May of this year, to celebrate my ninety-third birthday I invited my immediate  relatives  (sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren) and my best friends – from the UK and from mainland Europe – to a celebration lunch at The Bowling Green a licensed restaurant four or five miles from Clacton.  Twenty-two of us sat down to lunch.  There were seven Germans, two Austrians, one Belgian and the rest of us were Brits. The Germans and Austrians had travelled over a thousand kilometres to be with me on that occasion.   It was a wonderful birthday celebration.

Enjoying myself (clutching what’s left of a pint of Guinness!) at the family get-together on 25^th October.  On the right of the picture is a great-niece of whom I am very proud. .She graduated as a doctor over a year ago and is currently gaining experience in general Medical Practice 

Last month (on 25^th October) it was the turn of ‘the family’. I was an ‘only child’ but Heather had s sister thirteen years younger than herself.   Consequently I have a sister-in-law, four nieces, a nephew, five great nieces and a great-nephew.  The nephew and three of the nieces are married and my grand-daughter, younger grandson and two of the great-nieces have partners.   My older grandson lives and works in Taiwan and one of my nieces lives and works in Hongkong.   My sister-in-law, a nephew and one of the great-nieces were also prevented by circumstances from joining us..  Otherwise all came and there were once again twenty-two of us who sat down to a celebration lunch at The Bowling Green on 25^th October.

            Nick, probably the family's most experienced computer expert, had brought along a piece of IT wizardry with which, via Skype, he was able to contact  his brother Chris in Taiwan.    This gadget, by which we could see, hear and chat briefly to Chris, was passed round and meant that he too, became part of the celebration.  I found myself lost for words and probably mumbled nonsense to my grandson on the other side of the world! 

           

            It was a splendid occasion that I think everybody enjoyed as much as I did.  There were two  members of the family – Dani, Jo’s partner and Romy, Nick’s partner - who had not previously had an opportunity of meeting all of us.   Lunch began at 1.00 pm and the celebration didn’t end until 4.30 when, thoroughly exhausted but happy, I was driven home by my younger son Andy,and his family. It made me realize, not for the first time, how very fortunate I am in having a loving and caring family and wonderful friends.

The celebration breaks up.   I am clutching my recently acquired folding zimmer frame that helps me get about safely and folds up so that it can be transported in the boot of a car.

Noses in the trough

             Shortly after the event recorded above I spotted a headline in the local daily Gazette that made our modest family celebration at The Bowling Green, Weeley, seem positively Spartan!

Councillors scoff way through £20k of food headed a report of Essex County Councillors having consumed  no less than £20,000 worth of free meals in the restaurant at County Hall during the past year, .despite the fact that twenty-three councillors had no free meals at all and others had very few. Images from George Orwell’s Animal Farm came unbidden into my mind!  

It seems that the more important was the councillor, the larger – and the more expensive – was his or her appetite.  Leader of the pack was Councillor Rodney Bass who last year received £43,225 (that’s twice the average wage in Essex!) for his role both as a county councillor and cabinet member with responsibility for highways, presumably including pot-holes!   His food bill, paid for by us, amounted to just a fiver short of £1,000! Councillor John Aldridge, vice-chairman of the Council came close behind him with £986 and three other county councillors had had meals costing a total of over £700 each.  This information had become public on the insistence of the Green Party members of the County Council, who have boycotted the restaurant with its free meals for councillors.

            Councillor Rodney Bass feels that he has been unjustly criticised by the Gazette.  The money, he claims, just shows how hard he works.  He told a Gazette reporter that, ‘These are nominal meal costs that are supplied by the county council canteen. My day can start at 8.00 am and finish at 10.00 pm. Am I supposed to exist on no victuals at all?’

The fact that Mr Bass’ working day can start at 8.00 am and finish at 10.00 pm doesn’t mean that it often – or even ever – does!  And of course no-one expects him, or anyone else, to work all day without food.  It may, indeed, be a good idea for the County Council to run a restaurant for the benefit of both stall and councillors.  What council-taxpayers do expect is that he, and all other county councillors, should pay for their meals like everyone else.

As Mrs Thatcher, not really one of my heroines, used to say:  ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’.   Someone has to pay for it.

Those EU Immigrants!

            What a problem they’ve been causing!   Nigel Farage says the only way we can stop them flooding into our country is to leave the European Union.  Our Prime Minister is determined to reduce and control their number even if by doing so, he breaks EU rules.

            Now – Surprise! Surprise! It turns out that they’re a blessing, not a curse.  Far from being ‘benefit tourists’ they’re ‘paying guests’, generously paying guests in fact;  handing over to the government in taxation billions of pounds more than they receive in benefits and services.

            I suggest that the reason that they are still regarded by some as a drain on us is that the services under pressure are the education service, the NHS and other public services.  The billions that immigrants pay out, are paid directly to the government which is continually squeezing those public services and/or privatising them.

            The government has far more interesting and important things to do with those extra billions than hand them over to health, welfare, education and highways authorities.. They’d only fritter them away on services to the public! Our rulers at Westminster have much more important priorities. They have NATO membership and a ‘special relationship’ to maintain, and a totally useless and very expensive nuclear submarine fleet to keep at sea; not to mention having to make sure that they don’t inadvertently increase the tax 'burden' on any of their multi-millionaire financial supporters.