Category: General

Blabber-Mouths. I hope you’ll forgive me for reiterating something I have previously mentioned, but it is apposite. In the mid 30s, discussion on bodily functions, female problems, divorce and anything else that was deemed ‘not nice’ was only aired by small groups of people which definitely did not include children. Consequently one was fairly mature before you learned very much about these sorts of problems. This delicacy was applicable to other areas, the newspapers were careful what they said about politicians, people in high places and pure gossip. In workplaces there was no fraternisation between the various grades of people, such as labourers, tradesmen, office staff, management and senior management. Similarly in the services the disparity between the lower deck and the wardroom, the parade ground and the officers mess in particular, was on a par with the behaviour of the inmates of the mansion of a belted earl.

It is therefore unsurprising that we in our 80s find it almost an anathema the way in which everyone from the Queen to some young, simple rising star in the entertainment world, can now be stripped bare on television and the press, even by mistake, with no checks and balances, nor acceptance that mud, once thrown, sticks. It now seems that a politician, especially one in high office, has hardly slammed the door on his way out, before there is a detailed, intimate record and analysis of his time in office, on the streets in book form and in the press. There is no shadow of doubt a lot of people, including myself, did not agree with the man’s policies, but the aspect that is most interesting is that those who have now taken over, by their actions, clearly show that they did not approve of what they were permitting under the previous regime. They did not, like some, resign in protest, they sat it out keeping their posts, when they should have acted, and only now are attempting to make amends. This volte face is not only confined to this country, the worrying thing is that the Americans, having made a total mess of their policies, and by reflection, ours, in Iraq and Afghanistan, they appear to be considering dumping the whole thing without reference to us and our responsibilities.

The rule whereby government papers cannot be opened before 30 years have elapsed, helps no one.

Is digital radio a con? It is not so many years ago that the Argos catalogue had pages of hand-held radios with all the wavelengths, and innumerable stations. We used to be able to listen in, if we wanted, to any country in Europe, and if the ether was good enough, worldwide. Now we have digital radio, with very few stations preset. And as far as I can see there is nothing like the quality or the selection of the radios that gave you that freedom. I know, I tried to buy one.

Savouring is something I have always done, as we all have, but only recently have I had time to think about it . The next time you are having a meal think about your taste buds and not your hunger. When you lift that first forkful of whatever, you taste it and register in detail the taste, in other words you savour it. Your next forkful may be of something else, and I believe again you go through the same process. It is only as you proceed that the savouring diminishes and the satisfying of the hunger takes over – often not even hunger, just usage, you have that much every day so why should today be different. When we start on a plate of scrambled eggs on toast, assuming we like scrambled eggs on toast, towards the end, do we still savour and enjoy each mouthful as we do in the beginning? If not should there be more variety, as in a Greek Meze, or perhaps canapes, even Eastern cuisine? Some people read while they’re eating, surely they’re not savouring.

Just a thought.

Another View on Global Warming and the Recent Flooding. I include here a theory that I postulated to my Dutch friend, Jan, and I wonder if you would agree with it or like the rest of my family realise that my brain is going to mush.

When you think of all the conflicting changes that take place in, on the earth and in the atmosphere there must once in a while come a time when so many things are changing at once, that something most unusual will occur. I do not believe however rapid global warming has become so rapid that it could have wreaked the sort of changes that we are finding throughout the world this year. Nor do I think that this is a prelude to a total change in our atmospheric and physical conditions. Atmospheric pressure, air and earth temperatures, volcanic effects, and induced changes in the action of the sea, together with the gravitational effect of the universe, are all with us, and affecting us in different degrees. It is the degree of change in each case which we noticed over the years, but if all of these influences have their rhythms suddenly conflicting, I believe it’s possible that the condition can arise that may not be unprecedented, but could be beyond recorded information. If I am right, it does not mean that this is a one-off instance, it may be part of a build-up and die down. Most actions and reactions in nature, I believe, are on a sinusoidal basis.

The How Did They Manage It? On UK television recently I watched fictional films of battles taking place during the Napoleonic Wars, (Sharpe), and the English Civil War, (Cromwell). In these films the battle scenes were bloody and explicit, which made me wonder how men who have been through one flight could face another. Often you see actual film footage of men going over the top at the Somme and other battlefields, and going steadily forward in a hail of machine-gun bullets.

The enactments in these films of the Civil War and the Napoleonic Wars, illustrates the extremes of hand to hand fighting, and the sheer barbarity of war. As an ex combatant, in the Navy and the police, I am able to say from my own experience that while there were times when one had concerns, either the training or the repetition without injury, seemed to be sufficient, in my case it least not to give me any serious worry concerning my own mortality. What I find incredible though is how the soldiers in those far-off days, of pikes, cavalry sabres, short swords and muskets, were prepared to go back into battle time and again. In all soldering, in the broader sense, one is convinced that ‘it won’t happen to me!’ this is part of the answer. In the old days to some extent, the reward was in plunder, and a large part of those armies of most countries was made up of mercenaries, who had a totally different outlook on war, to conscripts, or even volunteers. I know that being part of a unit, especially one with a history of heroism and honours-gained, has a binding quality, which has to be experienced to be realised. I don’t think I am a coward, but having watched these films, I find it incredible what those people were prepared to do repeatedly. ‘Fight hard or be killed’, induces a level of adrenaline which I believe blots out reason, and induces aggression that the individual is not aware that he possesses. It is a sort of reaction, like the one you would have finding an intruder in your hall in the middle of the night.

Here in Northern Ireland the British Army and the police, then, daily walked the streets not knowing if someone had a bead on them. As I have said before, one cannot be constantly worried about personal safety, in time the condition is taken for granted. Our men fighting our current wars are not only under the same stresses as their predecessors were, in Belfast, but they have to contend with a different terrain, different attitudes and customs and road-side, bombs. This has some of the same aspects as going over the top and facing a hail of bullets…Facing that with equanimity is to do with example, camaraderie, and pride – ‘if he can do it I can, – and it won’t happen to me anyway!’

Sometime ago Sophie was very ill, and I became head cook, bottle washer, and shopper extraordinaire. It was then I developed this theory. I found shopping in a supermarket so difficult, controversial and aggressive that I had to find a reason and came to the conclusion that somewhere at the back of Tesco’s was a Nissan hut, decked out like two aisles of a supermarket, for classes run by a butch feminist, for those women who felt that men had no business in supermarkets. The course would teach them aggression, hindering ploys and subtlety. Once I had evolved the theory, it was clear it was well founded. I came to the conclusion that the women were divided into three gradings, young mothers fast on their feet with a high level of aggression, matronly ladies preferably with bulk, who could emulate both a bull elephant and a drawbridge. Finally, gentle little, slightly vague white-haired great grannies of great age.

The pears on our fruit counter are close to the top end of the aisle. I was stationed there trying to decide which pears to buy. I had one hand on the trolley which was upstream of me and close into the shelves, and in consequence my body was nearly facing the shelves. Suddenly round the corner at roughly 8 knots, came a young woman, with two children on her trolley as ballast, and hit my trolley squarely in the bows with the result the corner of the handle of mine buried itself in my rib-cage; .needless to say, no apology, just a stone-faced stare for having impeded her. At the other end of the fruit counter, where the bananas are, a lovely little old lady had quietly positioned herself and her trolley in such a way that all the bananas were all hers. She tentatively touched them, clearly looking for something that wasn’t there, took some out, examine them, and put them back, and this went on as people and me piled up on the aisle. I couldn’t help feeling she was so charmingly unaware, it must have been planned histrionics.

In the middle of the range there is a mixture of subtlety, delicate insouciance, .and outright aggression. .There is the Slitherer. She pushes her trolley slowly along, peering at the stock, then just as you are reaching for a product, she slithers backwards and bars the way with herself and her trolley. So you advance and you are just about able to reach when she slithers forward again. That must have taken some teaching, because not only am I 6 foot plus, 15 stone, also with a trolley, but I smell of aftershave. She must have been aware of me.

The drawbridge is a very clever technique. A robust lady will stand close to the shelving with a trolley and herself aligned. As you turn the corner of the aisle you subconsciously register that she is there and as you progress steadily up the aisle she is still there, but on approach she suddenly swings the trolley through 90? with its bow still firmly against the shelf while she stretches out across the aisle to collect something from the opposite shelf. This can take some time, so you gently give her trolley a touch with your trolley, just to show that you really do exist. You get a look which makes you amazed that you haven’t suddenly turned to a pillar of salt, and then the eyes go back to look for what she was trying to reach.

There is also the revetment .- the protection of the produce. This can take two forms, it can consist of two people adjacent with their trolleys in a row covering some 10 feet of shelving. They are discussing some highly important matter and if you try to excuse yourself, you might just as well be on another planet. The second version is when a relative of one or other of these ladies sees them she joins them from across the aisle swerving her trolley behind her. This is a clever ploy, it not only protects the immediate products from being tampered with, it can protect half an aisle.

There are many more ploys, and I expect local newspapers will present prizes for those people who can think up brighter and better ways of destroying a man’s shopping routine.

I hear so often today of break-ups of relationships that I started questioning in my own mind why such a high proportion seem to fail. I am not trying to preach, nor criticise, just analyse what it takes for one-time total strangers, with different aspirations, different backgrounds, even different customs in some cases, to choose to live together in the most intimate of ways, and what it takes to hold them together.

My credentials for the analysis are twofold; when I was eight years of age my parents separated and I never saw my father again. Today I have been married for almost 63 years, with a burgeoning family of great-grandchildren. Most people are aware, especially those that have experienced it, that the break-up of families has long-term repercussions inducing loneliness, insecurity, a loss of self-confidence, and in some, not all, an aggressive outlook. An examination of the glue which holds some families together successfully would seem therefore to be worthwhile. It is expensive in self-control, understanding, courtesy and consideration of others, and requires a good deal of unselfishness. Within a short time most of these attributes become routine, but as each is as essential as the other, and many I have not enumerated, at times it can be like crossing a stream with small steppingstones set at long intervals. It is then that you need the long view, the wide perspective, and mutually cool heads.

Fortunately those first months of marriage, or association, are so heady, such fun and without need for restrictions, that the process of melding, easing the rough corners, teaching and learning subconsciously, grows without notice. This is the period of building a nest, which, like in nature, is psychologically necessary because not only is it fun, one begins to find more and more about each other, their tastes, their likes and dislikes, their attitude to money and relationships outside the immediate family. This is all part of building up the glue, providing the memories, and looking forward to the aspirations. Some children of wealthy families are denied this experience because the nest has been bought and provided for them, including the car and holidays in the country seat. I believe, sincerely, that having to overcome paucity of cash, perhaps accommodation problems, and all the other pinpricks which are part of creating a family, are the strongest part of the glue. That is when one learns self-control, understanding, and consideration. Without these, friction is inevitable and that is a solvent that destroys the glue.

Part of the understanding and consideration is to sieve outside influences, some of which can be corrosive, to assess the true value, and the effect they might have on the relationship within the family. These influences often come from the wider family. Nothing in this world, even the world itself, maintains a steady and placid progress, so family life will have its ups and downs. These will test the strength of character of the participants who must learn as they live. The advent of children to most of us is the second part of the glue, those early years when every day is a revelation have as much or more to do with the binding of a family than any other aspect. It is therefore essential that young parents can devote a lot of their time to bringing up their children, for the sake of the children and for the creation of the glue. Love, family love, is the super-glue. Generating super-glue takes time and patience, and is well worth the effort.

Recently a very old friend was in hospital for a period and during that time she developed, on three occasions, MRSA or some other awful, unpronounceable, disease expressed in letters. One reads about these cases in the press, and it is only when someone you know is infected that you realise the size of the problem and the fact that it is on your doorstep. We, the old ones, are always bleating on about the hospitals of our day, the inflexible rigidity of the discipline meted out by the matrons, and the quality of service that we received. Of course in those days there was no penicillin, the cure-all that is now blamed for these new diseases so virulent that they have the ability to mutate and defeat the penicillin that spawned them.

Recently the number of people incarcerated in jail has risen to an unprecedented level, and this fact led me to wonder why, with so much humanity in close proximity, there were not outbreaks in jails of diseases similar to our MRSA. It is not that I wish them on our prisoners, merely that I wonder how or why it has been avoided. Is a lesson to be learned here?

I know about scrubbing floors, I have scrubbed many in my day, and I know I’m totally out of date when it comes to cleaning-machines. My mother was a cleanliness freak, we lived by carbolic soap and scrubbing brushes. So the other day when I saw on television an article about MRSA and hospital cleanliness, they were showing a cleaner swishing a very large, soft mop-type device that my mother would have condemned. She objected strongly to the use of those mops made of linen and a bit like dreadlocks, she said they never cleaned completely, they only moved the dirt and germs elsewhere. I just mention this in passing.

If reports in the press are to be believed, when the uninitiated go to prison there are other ills that they are open to, drugs and a criminal education. If the present prison population has risen to such an incredible extent, and presupposing that the ills referred to above are indeed as serious as expressed, this would raise two questions. The first is why the insouciant has to be lumped with the recidivist; and secondly, why has the breakdown of society increased to such an extent, without having been tackled, so we are now arriving at a point where it is clearly out of control?

I believe that the fear of prison is so mild as to place no restraint on those perpetrating the crimes we are hearing about, such as stabbings, gang warfare, house incursion with brutality, shoplifting and protection rackets. The cost .to the country of criminality, coupled with the penal system, must be crippling. One of the reasons of course is obvious, as I’ve said previously, it is lack of respect for others, for authority, mainly brought about, I believe, by lack of parental control in the early years. It is time that the parents were forced to take the responsibility for the the crimes of their children, at least up to the age of 16, and have to pay a penalty accordingly. Crime will never be eradicated, obviously, but the eradication of entry into crime must be a national priority. First-time offenders should be segregated, and care taken, as I believe it already is, to ensure that the penalty fits the crime, and that rehabilitation is a priority.

Sight and Convenience. Pre-WW2 large conurbations poorly served by public transport and without shops, did not exist. There were villages, towns and cities, with shops and markets within walking distance that satisfied the everyday needs of most. A few years ago we moved house to an area where the nearest shops are about a mile or more away, and they only provide essentials as they see them, and there is no localised competition. This situation has arisen of course, because everyone has access to a car. Recently I discovered that my sight had diminished to the extent that my vision was less than required by law as a driver, and now I am dependent upon others. I still use phrases like ,I must take you.’ or ‘tomorrow I have to go.’and then I realise that I will not be taking or going as an individual, but being taken, which places me in a situation where I am dependent, and I don’t like it.

With all this publicity of saving fossil fuels, the carbon footprints, and all the other heinous ways in which we are damaging the environment, I can envisage a time when the motor car will become unpopular, especially for two-car families, with the result that hundreds of thousands of houses will be stranded, shop-less and dependent upon public transport, and if it is as complicated, or as impossible as it is where I live, to get from A to B, God help ’em.

When one gets to the point in life where you have outlived most of your friends and those you haven’t are probably in sheltered accommodation, one can be excused for questioning every change in the routine of life. My current problem is diction, other people’s diction, on television and on film. In an essay I did on secondary schools in the 30s, I recounted the fact that, in my school, in South London, the new boys had elocution lessons for one hour, every week for the first term to eradicate the Cockney accent. Later, post-war, the Rank Organisation trained all its actors to speak in the same way, clearly, succinctly, and with a manufactured accent, which I can’t bear to listen to now. However recently I have found it very difficult to understand what people on television are saying for a number of reasons, they are either speaking with regional accents, always regional accents at high-speed, or it could be that the bit of my brain which translates speech into thought is going to mush. Somehow I don’t think it is the brain, because when I see films made from the 40s to the 80s,I understand every word. The modern films made particularly in America, where people speak with American regional accents, often not moving their lips, and also at high speed, I find totally unintelligible, but. as some of my grandchildren recommended me to watch the films, I feel that the jury is out.

Writing about the films of those early days also brings to mind the fact that a high proportion was light-hearted, almost to the point of light weight, set in environments out of reach of most of those in the cinema, but they were fun, not to be taken seriously but to be thoroughly enjoyed. Round about the 60s we had that spate of the kitchen sink dramas, in which life was real and life was earnest. They had their day, and then there were the lighter films, like Notting Hill, and Four Weddings And A Funeral, but we don’t seem to get as many today as we did long ago. The ones in the 40s and 50s were clearly a reaction to public need having had four years of war. The fact that Pride and Prejudice is never off our TV screens is an indication that a lot of the public, tired of the headlines, the murders and the rapings, which are a daily diet, and the stresses of modern living, would appreciate amusing, clever, even if cynical, light-hearted films to be displayed on television. From where I sit, it seems that the films are enacting the headlines, or the headlines are paralleling the screen – what politicians would call a double whammy. I’m not against regional accents, I could listen to Sean Connery for as long as he likes. My problem is with those accents that are so thick and enunciated so quickly and indistinctly I can’t make them out, so the whole point of the film is lost

A final plea, to stop an old man wondering if he is either deaf or daft, let’s have some light-hearted, clever and amusing, films in which the diction is universally understood. I think it comes down to the difference between entertainment, the blanket term, and amusement, the latter raising the spirits at times when needed.

The New Boys We spent the first month at Butlins Holiday camp at Skegness which had been renamed HMS Royal Arthur and sounded in our ears like an aircraft carrier. Inevitably the result was that Smith and some others were able to give rein to their fantasies in the local pubs, not realising that the girls of Skegness had heard it all before as each new batch of amateurs arrived and was put through the mincer – within the proscribed month of basic training – so that we came out marching, thinking and looking alike, transformed in to automata, or so the Navy vainly hoped.

At the holiday camp we occupied the made over chalets, two to a chalet, ate in the dining halls and relaxed in other parts of the buildings, Once again the Navy showed the English lack of appreciation of Irish traditions. Two men from Belfast, one Catholic and one Protestant, were put together because they were Irish. I occupied the next chalet and the fights which went on inside the Irish domain were often fierce to the point of becoming bloody, but make some derogatory remark against the Irish and they were both at you.

The first week passed on wings, there was so much to learn both about being a sailor – with knots, lashing ropes, boxing a compass and so on. Then there were the traditions of the Navy, the reasons for the ridiculous uniform, as we were decked out in ‘square rig’, called that because the whole uniform was square, presumably because sailors in the time of Nelson were expected to ‘make and mend’ their own clothes and the design had therefore to be simple. Even the term, ‘make and mend’, had come down to us for ‘free time’. The collar was square, the tunic jersey was square, even the trousers were square and made wide enough to be kicked off in the sea if the need arose. The front was designed with a quick-release system, in that there was a huge flap which dropped down to reveal two side flaps crossing the lower abdomen as well as one’s underpants – a quick flip of the buttons and the trousers would be off in moments. Nelson was never recorded as having made any comment on any of the other advantages of his design, or, on second thoughts perhaps he did.

When the sailors got hold of the uniform there had to be further amendments to show that they were sons of the sea and not civvies dressed up. The tunic was altered from a ‘V’ in the front to be squarer showing more of the shirt, and the blue edging to the shirt. The whole collar were scrubbed and washed with all sorts of prescriptions to bring the colour out, with exactly that intent, if a sailor had been serving for years his collar would have been washed hundreds of times in sea water and would therefore be faded. Ergo, all new entrants wanted to appear anything but a novice. Some were persuaded, by ruthless shopkeepers to buy collars of a light colour, but they soon realised the synthetic colour was an even bigger badge that they were initiates, rather than an indication of long service. The washing never gave an even colour change, there were always corners where, because the ribbon over-lapped, the colour was stronger. Such vanity did not stop there, the trousers had to have gussets set in to make them even wider, and a silver three-penny piece had to be sewn into the centre of the bow on the hat ribbon, an accomplishment I was good at which augmented my ten shillings a fortnight with the sale of my services in this regard.

Having lived with terrorism for close on 40 years, and still living with it, having been threatened and held up by terrorists, including youngsters with Molotov cocktails, I have thought about it repeatedly. To some extent, I can understand internecine terrorism, even if I think it’s futile, but international terrorism seems pointless. The only people who are going to suffer are the innocents. A bomb in the centre of London, with all sorts of different factions claiming responsibility, whose philosophies are totally unknown to those people they have managed to kill and maim, achieves nothing, except misery for those involved, including the ones that have to clear up the mess.

Domestic terrorism, like Northern Ireland, achieved very little in the long-run, it possibly shifted power marginally, with different people committing the same excesses that perpetrated the original trouble. A select few become wealthy, vast numbers are either dead, been injured, traumatised or inconvenienced. It was not worth it, all of us are far worse off than when we started.

I am convinced that apart from those in charge of the terrorism, the manipulators, a large proportion of the rest are in it for kicks. Today, here, young children and teenagers lay traps for the services, police ambulance and fire, dial 999, and then when the service arrives they are pelted with bricks and Molotov cocktails. This is entertainment, an adrenaline rush, excitement and different from the perpetrators’ meagre lives. Terrorism is not a war, in spite of the fact that the terrorists would like you to think it is, they are making war on the innocents, in every way, increasing the taxes, causing disruption, killing and maiming mostly people going about their daily lives, probably with very little political opinion. In a face-to-face war, both sides are there for a reason, and they know what it is. Initially there may be fear when things start but then one gets on with what one is trained to do, to one’s best ability, possibly helped by adrenaline. This is a different sort of war, innocents get hurt, but that is not the raison d’etre, as in terrorism. I am convinced from my own experience, that the young people who become suicide bombers, bomb makers and terrorists’-tools, do so, not out of any political persuasion, but either for the excitement, or because they have been led to believe their name will go down in history, like hunger strikers. There is also the excitement of being sent to another country to learn one’s trade, and the actual teaching is also exciting, the thought of suicide, capture and incarceration is put in a blind spot, in the way serviceman believe that it is always someone else who gets killed, that it won’t happen to you, ,and only after having experienced a tour, does one know what one is getting into.

Everyone knows the Basque Separatists’ reasons, but what man in the street can tell you why that bomb was placed in London?. The IRA bombs, here and in London, were intended to make the British Government so sick of Northern Ireland politics, that they would agree to Northern Ireland becoming part of Eire. This involved damaging the economy by doing as much structural damage, and disrupting our way of life as much as possible. One aspect of the Northern Ireland Troubles which I believe is not unique, was the outside finance, technical and political help which was provided by the Irish Lobby in America. I am convinced that these people had never visited nor had much knowledge of the true situation in Northern Ireland, but nonetheless they enjoyed the excitement of being involved, by running fund raisers. They wanted into the act vicariously and were happy to provide the help, the weapons and the money, to have innocent people slaughtered, some by mistake, for which an apology was given. This also is a ludicrous state of affairs

Terrorism is now worldwide and interlocking, which might lead one to believe that in fact it is an industry, with aims not as altruistic as we are supposed to think. Some of the IRA were trained in Libya, the IRA sent people to South America to train people there, one can believe that it is a network, especially when there is no way that anything will be achieved. Terrorism is like kidnapping and blackmail, one cannot pay up, or it’ll grow like a rash. For this reason and those that I were enumerated above, to any sensible person international, and all terrorism would seem to be a futile exercise.

Some of us feel that the Internet has been permitted the level of freedom which is beyond commonsense. When one can obtain details of how to make a bomb, how to form a suicide pact, how to obtain pornography of every sort, and that the hits on these types of programmes are probably of a very high-level, it is time to call a halt, In my own experience I have found that certain title phrases in common use, which as a whole have a simple meaning may, individually, have a sexual connotation, and so cause the hits to rocket. I believe that the Internet now needs some sort of policing. I am not a believer in regimentation, and I believe also that I am fairly broad-minded; what people do in their own homes or together, which affects no one else, is their business. However, if people are encouraging unusual behaviour in any form, either sexual, political, or even self-destructive, I think they should be stamped upon because children today, and I have repeated this many times, are not in many cases as supervised either as they used to be, or as they should be and are lonely.. The resultant effect is that they turn to the computer and the Internet for company. When you see the background, the educational standards and the ages of some young people involved in political martyrdom – suicide bombers, it demonstrates how they are vulnerable and can be led astray and indoctrinated way beyond what they have been accustomed to.

The current state of affairs should be a warning to those responsible for maintaining the Internet, that they have spawned a divisive tool which is too easily manipulated by the unscrupulous, the criminal and the degraded. It is time for those in authority to put an end to the sort of abuse I mention here. This must be taken on board throughout the world; one country on its own can’t do it, with satellite communication,. It has to be an assault of nations united to bring reason back into the Internet.

Suicide. Many people, including myself, have experienced a period of stress so excessive that they have thought in terms of suicide. This is not a cry for help as it is sometimes referred to, it is a point of desperation, when the future looks so barren as to be totally pointless. I do not believe that these suicide pacts are in that category and I have neither the knowledge nor the experience to comment further.

Devaluation. The current price of wine brought back memories of the 50s. We played bridge for a penny a hundred, with the money being contributed to a general fund by the losers. Some of us played golf for stakes of a shilling for the first nine, a shilling for the second nine and a shilling for the round. The reason the wine brought all this to mind was because the bridge kitty was spent on bottles of wine to drink when we had a night out. In those days, only a few years after demob, we were still fairly lowly paid yet now we see what we used to buy fetching £25 to £40 a bottle.

But that is nothing compared with the devaluation that has taken place over the last four years, when the value of houses has risen by at least 100%. The problem is that this is not an overall devaluation, there are articles coming from China at half the price they used to be, but other essentials are also rising in cost. So in effect it is a selective devaluation brought about by the change in the way-of-life of some of us, more than others. It is having a knock-on effect. With young people it seems that it costs a year’s salary to get married, and another year’s salary to keep up with the weddings of one’s contemporaries. Our salaries may have risen, but our demands are outstripping them to the extent the family now works longer hours as an aggregate.

The long-term effect of this change causes people to no longer respect the value of money, or to save for the future, aggravated by all that has happened to pension funding – the whole pension structure has broken down. People are making extreme purchases as investments, and this is exacerbating the situation. With the breadth of taxation in all its forms, coupled with the throwaway society and the spend today worry tomorrow philosophy, I believe we’re heading for financial meltdown.