The Elephant in the Room!

Well, it's happened.  Many have been foreseeing it for some while.  This patchwork quilt has come apart at the seams - I can't with any realism add 'at last' - and it is seen for what it was ... a pretence, a sham, something thrown together to give someone the transitory pleasure of holding the top job, a job for which she was never fit.  Now she has resigned and we are subjected yet again to see the members of a once respectable political party thrashing around like rats in a sack as they try to find yet another leader who will, incidentally, be saddled with the responsibility of running the government of the country.

What's behind it all?  Some would say it's a combination of world events: the Covid-19 pandemic; the war in Ukraine and its resulting effect on energy prices; a global decline in economic growth.  Some go further, and are persuaded to admit a degree of incompetence in leadership.  A few risk being labelled as 'Remoaners' or 'Remainers', as they suggest that the effects of these international matters have been made worse for this country by the self-inflicted difficulties and isolation resulting from Brexit.  Although that was some years ago now, these effects have become visible at last in the form of increased (and apparently unforeseen) levels of bureaucracy and paperwork that have frustrated - and in many cases totally annihilated - international trade and have, at the same time, generated political frustration in Northern Ireland that is yet to be resolved.

Is that all?  No.  The roots of the present fiasco stretch back much further than that.  If you have 6 minutes to spare, listen to this interview with trade union leader Mick Lynch.  He specifically refers to situations created decades ago in many industries, not just his own.  

Many background aspects of British life were distorted and made more difficult to operate by the introduction of a raft of private companies to manage them.  Naturally, private companies have shareholders, and shareholders expect dividends.  And where do these dividends come from?  In part, I expect, from the efficiencies that were introduced by commercial managers as they competed with each other for business.  But in far greater measure, I suggest, they come from increased prices to those using the services, whether it be transport, energy or clean water and sewerage facilities.  And of course there's another component to commercial management - bonuses: bonuses that can be fairly easily won, and are, in effect, a virtually guaranteed addition to an already generous salary.  These, too, have to be met by either increased productivity or turnover (which is another term for increased prices, when the consumption of those services is relatively stable).

But what is really behind all this trauma?

My Bible readings this week have been in the book of Jeremiah.  There are many parallels with the present political situation.  The nation is under threat.  An invading army is just beyond the borders and people's leaders are turning in fear to their spiritual mentors for help.  They are told in no uncertain terms that this is a peril they have brought upon themselves.  They have not fulfilled the responsibilities of leadership.  This is what they should be doing: "Administer justice every morning; rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed." (Jer. 21:12); "Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place." (Jer. 22:3)

You can read these two chapters in full here.  They illustrate the penalties of selfish rule and oppression in many guises.  These penalties can be readily understood in terms familiar to us, living two millennia and more later.  The underlying truths are still valid today.  Both as a nation and in the way our governments have led us down the decades, although efforts have been made to improve the lives of individuals, we have moved away from the basics of how man should treat his fellow man.  Instead of being the servant of the people, the state has become their oppressor.  Instead of welcoming the foreigner in need - as was the case eighty-odd years ago - we have shut our doors, closed our boundaries and barricaded ourselves with punitive legislation - poorly administered - against any acts of international human generosity.  

I fear we will all pay the price for the neglect exercised by those we elect.

A Flick Through the Diary

It's been an interesting couple of weeks.  Quite apart from my car journey last weekend and its unexpected ending (see last week's post here), lots of other 'stuff' has happened.  There have been acute aspects of long-term matters, expected developments and surprises.  Such a mix deserves more than just a place on the diary page!

Let's start in the kitchen.  For many years, it's been my habit to split a loaf of bread into three and store it thus in the freezer, removing one third of a loaf at a time for use.  The reason for this is simply to prevent the end of a loaf from going mouldy before I get around to using it.  For this process I use old bread bags to pack two portions of each new loaf into and, in order not to introduce any contamination - and thereby undermine my aims from the outset - I sterilise them first by popping them in the microwave for half a minute.

This week, I followed my usual habit, but the microwave objected, expressing its feelings with a flash, a bang and a puff of smoke.  After packing the bread away in the freezer in un-sterilised bags, I ventured gingerly to test the microwave with a mug of water.  To my surprise and great relief, the water got warm and I've used the machine quite normally ever since without further mechanical protest.

Before we leave the 'engine room', I have to admit a superlative degree of procrastination when it comes to maintenance arrangements.  Over the last few months the hot tap has begun to drip.  It moves easily enough to the off position but, it still allows water to drip out unless I apply pressure at the 'head' of the tap.  Once I release that pressure the drips recommence.   One night, out of curiosity, I measured how much was being wasted and found that almost a litre had accumulated from bedtime to breakfast.  Inspired by recent videos of the discoveries as the level of water in the nearby reservoirs has got lower and lower, and realising that my drips are contributing to this decline, I finally called the agent yesterday to arrange for a plumber to visit.

Last week the postman delivered a large cheque from a finance company.  It looked real so, in great excitement, I paid it into my account.  On looking closely at the covering letter, however, I became suspicious that this could be a scam.  There were many factors, but one in particular was the sentence about 'if you have difficulties in banking this cheque', which invited me to 'provide your bank details to us on the above number and we will cancel the cheque and pay the funds into your bank account.'  I decided to leave the money in my account for a few days to see whether it would be clawed back once the banking system discovered it wasn't real.  Meanwhile I wrote to the company expressing my misgivings.

Deciding this week that sufficient time had passed, and that reclamation would have happened if it were going to, I distributed the cash: some to charities, some to savings and some left for current use.  Within hours of my doing this, I had a phone call from the finance company explaining that the cheque was genuine.  After expressing my relief, I asked for more explanation.  It transpires that one of my pension policies had a 'guaranteed minimum pension' clause and, at the time my Financial Advisor had arranged the transfer of this policy as part of tidying up my occupational pensions, its value didn't meet that guarantee provision.  What I have now received is compensation for this oversight ... some nine years after the event!

The flow of my editing work for WEBBS has dried up for the moment.  On one hand this has allowed me to focus on other things, such as family history, but it also leads me to feel unfulfilled as regards my contribution to the charity's work.  My supervisor is taking advantage of this lull to offer help to another team who are coping with an urgent request and, as a result, some of this week has been spent 'back in the typing pool', keyboarding scriptures in the Balochi language.

And - last for this post - I can report that my development work as church treasurer has reached a 'plateau'.  I've finally agreed my 'DIY ledger' on Excel to the embryonic system I've been setting up on QuickBooks and, when three bank statements arrived this week, I was able to enter them with some confidence into both systems.

What excitements will the next weeks hold, I wonder?

Wrong Turnings

Many a good novel or play of the past has carried a subtitle: I offer but two examples, which you may or may not recognise: "or What You Will"  and "or The Mistakes of a Night".  This may not be in the same league, but today I offer one of my own to apply to what I'm about to write: "or Oh, I Know Where I Am Now".

When I started driving for a living, the number of times I'd driven within the M25 could be counted on one hand ... two at the most. I've often told of praying for a red traffic light so that I could snatch a quick peek at the map on the seat beside me.  Eventually I learned my way around the metropolis, and my subtitle above was often muttered after following the map from one new destination to another.

Since moving to Yorkshire last summer, I've had to undergo just such a customisation.  At first it was finding a shorter way to join the M1 southbound to avoid a lengthy dog-leg via the A1(M) and the M18.  The first route I took was to junction 35 by way of Swinton, Rawmarsh and the outskirts of Rotherham.  Then I found a shorter way through Mexborough and Conisbrough to junction 1 of the M18 and, more recently I've discovered an even shorter route to emerge at junction 31.

In each case, having noted my chosen route from the map (SatNav was no use because, as soon as I turned away from its suggestion, it was trying to turn me back again), I found I had to make the journey quite a number of times before I got it right, and I've lost count of the number of times I've told my cousin that I 'took a wrong turning at so-and-so'.  The worst of it was, having checked with the map and realised where I went wrong, I then got that bit right next time, but made a different error instead.

During the Covid pandemic, having enjoyed many of their zoom lectures, I decided to join the Western Front Association, and last month I attended my first live meeting of the Yorkshire branch.  The route was quite straightforward: A1(M), A64 and the York ring road.  The only trouble was that virtually every time I'd driven up that part of the A1 I'd been going further, and by the time I spotted the A64 turning, I was in the wrong lane, still heading for Scotland!  I only just got to the meeting in time!

Today I went to the next meeting.  It was very good, and the speaker excellent.  I made sure I was in the right lane at the right time and the journey was hitch-free.  The bug was still with me, however. and I muffed getting on to the little side road to get me onto the village roads between the A1(M) and home.  Instead of heading for my own front door, I was on the main road again, heading back towards Leeds!

Needless to say, I took the first possible escape route.  I battled with totally unknown winding lanes and the blinding low-angled sun in my face, and at last I uttered that well worn subtitle again. I'd arrived in Hooton Pagnell, a beautiful village of stone buildings that I pass through if I go to watch Frickley Athletic play football.

Going One Better!

There's always a temptation to build on a successful project.  You want to achieve greater success; squeeze something else from a basic idea that went well ... build your own example, I'm sure you'll be able to agree with this maxim.

A few months ago I wrote about two cousins; when I attempted to eliminate one of them, I found that the data I'd collected applied to him and I had to find evidence to eliminate the other.  This week I've attacked a similar challenge.

I've mentioned before my latest project, an attempt to provide mini-biographies of each of eighteen siblings and their respective families.  A few weeks ago I decided I'd got as far as I could with research and that it was time to begin the write-up.  I suppose it's inevitable that, over and over, I got to a certain point where some detail that seemed essential to the story was missing, and a quick flip back into research mode was essential.

So it was, this week, that I realised that I hadn't a note of the death of the husband of one of these siblings.  Since he was born in the 1870s, I couldn't even hint that, 'at the time of writing, he's probably still alive'.  It transpired that I had found a death, but hadn't recorded it because there was nothing to link this particular man, who died in 1964, with his putative wife.  It was too early for his date of birth to be recorded in the death register, and it was in a part of the country that had no links with the family.

I checked back at the births, and found not one but three births of that name in the same county in the same year.  Well, if I'm honest, it was one and two halves, rather than three.  I was looking for William, and what I found was William, John William, and Willie.  I compared these to the list of deaths who were born in the target year, 1879, or two years either side. It's a fairly rare surname, so there were only twelve of them - I realised that all three were represented.  The twelve comprised two straight Williams (both in un-associated parts of the country, coupled with their birth years being either side of 1879); two William E's, one of which was the one I'd noted: the additional initial was another reason to be doubtful of him; a William H and two William Henrys; the afore-mentioned Willie and four 'also-rans', Charles, George, John and Robert, all of whom had a second initial: W.

The only clue I had to work with was the date of birth as recorded in the 1939 Register: 30th April 1879.  Past experience has led me to assume that if this is incorrect, it's usually the year that is wrong, not the 'birthday'; thus I felt confident in eliminating Willie from the birth trio, because his birth was registered in the September quarter.  April, I decided, was a bit too early to 'drift' into the following quarter.

I was left, then, with John William and William, both born in the June quarter.  Of those deaths, John W was the only one of the twelve who had died 'in-county' and of the two William E's, the one I'd chosen was born 1879, the other was both further away and born in 1881.  I decided that the only way to resolve this was to work forward from their births.  They were fairly easy to find in their first two censuses and, in each case, I found registration entries for their parents' marriage to confirm I'd got the right family by checking with their mother's maiden name in the GRO birth index.  My uncertainty was justified when I realised that apart from 1881, John William had been known as William.

By 1911, both had married; one had a son, the other a daughter.  The William I sought married the subject of my project in 1934, so my next search was for the death of one of those wives.  Fortunately they had different names.  One was Ellen Mary, the other Elizabeth.  There were many deaths for Elizabeth between 1911 and 1934, but the ages were all wrong; there was only one Ellen, in 1916, and her age matched the age of William's wife in 1911.  And as a final bit of circumstantial evidence, when they were married in 1906, William had gratuitously added a second name Earnest to match Ellen's second name.  Though not used in 1939, it matched the death entry in 1964.

I felt pleased that I'd decided not to take my initial find at face value, but equally smug that the one I'd picked was the right one!

Can You Trust Truss?

What makes you angry?

Let me tell you what makes me angry.  First, is dishonesty.  That can be simply saying something is true when it isn't, or vice versa.  It can also be allowing an untruth to stand when there was an opportunity to correct it, but you didn't.  

Second, is being caught in a 'cleft stick'.  In other words, being in a situation where there are two options, neither of which is the right thing to do or say, but that the right thing isn't on offer.  If someone asks me a question, I may go all round the houses to explain something rather than give a 'yes' or 'no', if I realise that my answer depends on circumstances beyond the question, and neither would be an honest answer.

So, I often get angry when I'm listening to a radio interview, and the interviewer asks "would you back so-and-so?"  As often as not the interviewee begins to explain the circumstances when she would do so and when she wouldn't, but he pushes again for a simple 'yes' or 'no', talking over the attempted explanation (genders introduced there solely for clarity). I get angry and either shout at the radio, or turn off in disgust.

Third, is when people fail in management and still are rewarded with a magnificent bonus, when by all that's just they should be sacked and replaced.

I could go on and on, but time - and my readers' patience - doesn't permit.

We have a new government because the previous one made me angry (Well, not directly, but I think you will get my meaning).  I'm not sure the new one is going to be any good at reducing my anger levels, though. 

Somewhere else along my list would be doing something that's completely counter-productive when a far better solution to the problem at hand is staring you in the face.  

I like the idea of 'the polluter pays'.  If you make a mess, you clear it up.  Similarly, if you find a few extra thousands in your bank account because someone put the wrong number on a transaction that was meant for someone else ... do you go on a spending spree, or make an effort to return the money to the right place?

When all the world is saying "tax the excess profits that energy companies are making from the increased prices, and relieve the pressure on those who are juggling food and heat instead of enjoying both", it seems the height of nonsense to ignore that advice and instead introduce measures that will make the rich richer and do nothing to help the poor, in the vague hope that wealth will 'trickle down' to where it's needed.

Someone said - many years ago - "An engineer knows that water trickles down.  Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the driest little spot.  But money trickles up.  Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow.  But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow's hands."

I'm still angry.

Reasons, Causes, Explanations and Excuses

Readers who have followed this blog for a number of years may remember times when I have expressed feelings about the island of Ireland, its people and its history.  As I ponder these feelings and their roots, I think one of their origins dates back to a visit my wife and I made to an exhibition about the Great Famine of the 1840s-50s ... possibly to mark the 150th anniversary.  I can't recall where it was, but the pictures of the suffering have remained with me.  Then, when I discovered that the radio in my van could pick up RTÉ, I learned a lot about modern Ireland and its present culture and electoral systems.  Time knits all these things together.

I recall one particular post in which I drew a comparison between the news coverage here in England of affairs in Scotland and Wales on one hand and affairs in Northern Ireland on the other.  It seemed to me - and still does - that events on this island of Great(er) Britain were far more likely to make the news than anything happening on the island that, by default, could be described as Lesser Britain.  Less in size, means less in importance, one could imply.

It is little wonder, I feel, that some people there fear that they are 'second-class citizens' because of where they live, that they must constantly remind the authorities of their existence, their rights and the problems that are peculiar to them as a result of their location.  And yet, as the travels of the King and Queen Consort this week have underlined, Northern Ireland is just as much part of the United Kingdom as Scotland or Wales.

During all the time Brexit was being discussed, planned and negotiated, I had the feeling that the problems resulting from the land border between the UK and the remainder of the EU were being largely ignored.  One morning, I listened to a BBC news bulletin as I drove through the streets of Dublin to catch my ferry back to the UK; I shouted to the radio "But that won't work!"  I won't delve further into the specific difficulties of squaring the circle and the protestations that were made about there not being a border down the Irish Sea.

And so we are where we are today.  Here in Great Britain, there are protests - with good reason - about the lack of even the announcement of a date until after the late Queen's funeral, for a statement on the planned financial assistance regarding the energy pricing crisis.  That's a two week wait at most.  Just consider for a moment, what outcry there would be if Parliament were not to sit for six months!

And yet, that is the situation in Northern Ireland.  Since the elections earlier this year - that's one-third of a year! - the Northern Ireland Assembly has not sat.  The DUP, in its wisdom, has declared that it will not take part in the country's government until that circle has been squared, pointing out that the fact that Northern Ireland is being treated differently from the rest of the UK is an unfair discrimination between equal parts of the United Kingdom.  

In a way, their action (or, more realistically, inaction!) is little different from the striking railwaymen I wrote about last week.  It's a way of bringing their legitimate concerns to the attention of those in authority.  The difference is that while, in one case, (only) those who rely on the trains are inconvenienced, and that only for a few days and, meanwhile, other - albeit slower or more awkward or expensive - alternatives are available; in the other case, (all of) the people of Northern Ireland are being deprived of the functions of a legitimately elected devolved government.  

In each case it's not the people who have the solution in their hands who suffer the consequences.  But I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide who ought to resolve the problems, and how!

The Train Now Standing ...

Earlier this week, I watched a video about the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Great Western Railway.  Filming took place in 1985, just a week before the closure was announced of its great engineering works at Swindon.  All that remains of that today is a network of streets of uniform houses, purpose-built in the 1830-'40s to accommodate the great numbers it had employed.

The presentation included many stories of whole generations whose lives had depended upon and benefited from the success of what many referred to as 'God's Wonderful Railway'.  Sons had joined fathers, just as years later their sons would join them, among the thousands in its workforce.  There were many who had been born in those houses, and had grown up there with no thought other than of following father and grandfather into the engineering shops.

It was said that, despite nationalisation in 1948, the camaraderie & esprit de corps was possibly stronger in 1985 than at the centenary 50 years earlier.  Tales were proudly told of annual outings and free passes for staff, of a workforce that was appreciated and therefore willing to serve.

In the middle of my home county, Norfolk, lies the village of Melton Constable.  In 2011 it had a population of just 618 but a century earlier the number was almost twice that size when it was the centre of the sprawling Midland & Great Northern Railway.  With its four arms reaching north, south, east and west from this complex junction, the M&GN was but one element of a comprehensive network of lines that covered East Anglia from the Wash to the Orwell, and from the east coast to the fens and beyond.

Its demise immediately conjures up the smiling moustachioed image of Dr. Beeching, whose report in the early 1960s led to the closure of half the nation's network.  But in the case of the M&GN the axe preceded this notorious blow to our public transport system, for virtually all of this proud network was closed in March 1959.  A steep decline had begun at the Melton works when the London & North Eastern Railway took it over in 1936 and transferred a lot of work to Doncaster and Stratford.

As at Swindon in the late 1980s, the age of corporate loyalty and service, of 'jobs for life' had gone for ever.

Towards the end of the twentieth century, it was decided to unpick nationalisation, and franchisees were sought to run segments of the railway system.  Could privatisation re-create that atmosphere of a past age?  I think the clue to the answer is in the question.  It was a past age.  Much had been lost in that particular 50-year span.  Technology in all its forms had moved on at a faster pace than ever before, and many who are of an age to remember the immediate post-war years now realise that the life of the 1990s - let alone the present day - was beyond anything they could have imagined in their youth. 

During that interval, as well as a decline in demand caused by a change in industrial and engineering patterns and the increase of road transport both for business and leisure, there had been a dramatic lack of investment in the whole organisation behind that proud lion-and-wheel BR symbol.  In many ways it was allowed to drift forward into the diesel and electric age in just the same way that it had drifted out of steam-power.

Like so much in life, the ever-present trains had become something to take for granted and in great measure no envious thought was given to what had already been lost in the 'sixties, 'seventies and 'eighties.  No one, it seems, had given a thought to the possibility that the falling away of demand had led to reduced earnings, and a lower than necessary level of maintenance.  The system was on its knees by the time private companies were invited to take it on, with all the attendant extra expense of corporate organisation, dividends to shareholders and the level of executive salaries to those running them.

Fast forward a couple of decades and more, and the situation is worse rather than better.  Fares have been pushed up as much as the franchisees can get away with, but even so, there's not enough income to meet the true cost of running the railways.  Yes, there are plush new stations and (more franchises) attractive catering booths at the bigger stations, but many of the smaller ones have become unmanned halts of the very simplest of designs, with nowhere to buy a ticket and no security whatsoever.  

These facilities would require a greater workforce but, as we're seeing at the present time, the workforce they do have are not being paid all that they feel entitled to, given the present increases in living costs and rising inflation.  With their financial hands tied, and a government unable or unwilling - or both - to inject further support, the management are unable to play a realistic part in negotiations to achieve the modernisation that they see is vital to the continued development of the service.

And so, when plans are made to make a certain journey in the coming months, when it would be good to 'Let the train take the strain', my first thought - and that of thousands of other potential passengers - is to the car, and the already clogged motorways.