…how much better off we’d be.
I’ve spent the last 6 days out in the best and worst of Britain and it is a mess of contradiction, confusion held together with the sticking plaster of goodwill provided by some of the lowest paid workers in the UK.
ON January 23rd my extremely elderly, disabled
but previously reasonably independent (with my mother’s constant help)
grandmother, had a collapse. The following four days brought mum to the brink
of collapse and she moved heaven and earth to galvanise services for my gran.
On Wednesday I travelled from Edinburgh to the West Midlands to take over for a
few days and that is when the fun began.
The Avanti West Coast train I was booked on showed as
cancelled when I arrived at the station. I was not allowed to board the Cross Country
train due a few minutes later which would have taken me where I needed to go
because – according to station staff – the train companies would not agree to
take each other’s passengers. This is a problem I’ve encountered many times on
our crumbling privatised rail network. Passengers are left stranded at stations
while trains that could take them roll past with plenty of empty seats. And at
present most trains are running nearly empty. So I waited the two hours for the
next AWC service which was delayed (there were at least two delays that day due
to deaths on the line… Is there any wonder!)
I won’t go into all the horrors of the mad, bad, sad journey
but, suffice to say, I was supposed to arrive to relieve my mum at around 4.30.
I actually got there after abandoning my journey before the end and jumping in
a taxi, at 10.30. It took 6 trains, a wobbly plank across a track in the cold,
wet and dark (to get from a broken train to a ‘rescue’ train) and one bus –
with no proper social distancing. Plus, the subsequent trains were all
different companies and almost all mostly empty. In fact the final train I
boarded somewhere around 10pm was a CROSS COUNTRY train – the company I’d been
barred from in the morning.
While the train company operators are clearly just horrible
and money grubbing – the staff were professional and kind and long-suffering.
Then I took over at my grandmothers and was treated to a
spectacular display of NHS and care service staff – kind, caring, incredibly
hard working, professional to a man and woman. The carers who were the icing on
the cake, started over the weekend and were mainly Asian woman, and Muslim – of
the variety so disparaged by our useless, lazy, grubby, careless, dishonest
Prime Minister. Also, Polish immigrants.
The irony was almost painful.
So, yes - If the people running the country were as competent, caring and hard working as the low-paid people who actually keep this country running, how much better off we’d be.
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For light relief do remember to check out my books My BOOKS and also NB there are you tube videos to go with Fun Poems for Children published last year.
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Also - remember - while this old Luddite is not on ANY social media you can link this post and in March I may be hosting a new, weekly current affairs programme on Jambo! Radio Glasgow. I love radio so I 'm VERY EXCITED. I will keep you posted.