Who is responsible for the single old folk?

 I have a situation with an elderly cousin, or rather elderly widow of a cousin of mine. We are coping more less OK; but this situation is I suspect not uncommon and is part of what I feel is a major situation - care of the old and vulnerable and who is responsible for single old folk?

My cousin, we will call her "Mary", is a childless widow in her mid-nineties. She has no family members physically closer than a two hour plus drive away. Who would have been her closest relative, her sister,  has died as has one of her sister's two children. The other child is in his early eighties, suffers with Parkinson's, and is a four hour drive away! So in terms of blood relatives who could help we are down to great nieces and great nephews who are working, have their own families and are at least two hours away.

Her nephew and niece on her husband's side are in their sixties, do not have good health and are a four hour drive away. So we are left with folk like me, her husband's cousin and we are a two hour plus drive away so we cannot just "pop over". She has LPAs in place for Finance and Health & Welfare. (I am one of the two attorneys)It is easy enough to keep her finances in order using online banking and fortunately money is not an issue. But Health & Welfare LPAs do not kick in until the person has lost the capacity to make decisions and although she is in the early stages of dementia she does not cross the loss of decision making capacity threshold.

She has carers and they are very good but I cannot help feeling that her quality of life could be so much better if there was someone who could gently persuade her into doing things. Neighbours help with shopping and do the odd "handyman" job and there is a local tradesman who is trustworthy and reliable who does bigger things.

Maybe I shouldn't worry, but I do. I understand and accept that people shouldn't be bullied into doing things. Just because something is not what I would like doesn't mean it is wrong for other people. "Mary" says that things are fine, but she is slowly deteriorating and it is sad to see it happen. Talking to carers they themselves have similar issues with their own parents who live a distance away.  I guess that all we can do is let "Mary" make her decisions and we support her as best we can. At least she has us and others who visit when able and phone regularly. What about those who literally have nobody and have financial issues? 

Political and economic issues will ebb and flow. Leaders come and go and the shock waves that they cause will fade. But there will always be an ageing population who deserve our love and support.

The real existential question for 2025

 What will happen sooner; The End of the World or the completion of HS2?

Happy New Year

What's the point of Ruby Football?

The world has changed since I was a youngster some 70 years ago when, holding my dad’s hand, he took me to watch rugby every Saturday afternoon. He had officially retired from playing but was all too easily persuaded to turn out for one of lower sides (‘Combe ran 7 or 8 teams in those happy days) if they were short. I went to a rugby playing grammar school, having passed the 11plus, and started playing when I was eleven. There was no mini-rugby back then. 

 

I went on to play the club game until I was in my mid-thirties and then coached mini-rugby. I played for, Westcombe Park the family started playing for them in the early 1920s, Canterbury where my wife and I lived in the seventies and the odd game for Askeans (my old school). Was I any good, not really although as my contemporaries pass away, I am getting better. Before too many years pass, I would have been on the verge of an England trial if circumstance had been slightly different, at least that is the way I will tell it! 

 

The key question is why did we play, why did I play? I enjoyed all forms of sport although not very competent at any. Firstly, you had to enjoy playing the game, the physical activity, the sheer thrill of it all. There was the camaraderie of being in a team of like-minded individuals, the testing of your, and the team’s abilities against the opposition and last but not least the friendships forged over a pint or three in the bar after the game. It didn’t really matter what team you were in, the 1^st XV or the Extra B, how good or bad you were. The key factor being that you were a rugby man, no ladies playing back then, and you would find a welcome in practically every club in the country. Apart from the playing and helping run the club the high spots were going to Twickenham to see England play or perhaps going to see the All Blacks or other touring team play ‘London Counties’ or the like. The vast majority of spectators at these games were either player/ex-players perhaps with children and/or with an enthusiastic lady in tow. There was no need to make the game more attractive, we all understood the laws even if the referee didn’t!!

 

We cannot go back to these ‘golden days’; the professional genie is well and truly out of the bottle. Back in the day when I started the RFU was proud of the concept that Rugby Union was “one game” from the pinnacle of the international team to the lowest level one set of laws applied and anyone, given the right talent, would be able to make it to the international team. The days when Wade Dooley who made it to the England team whilst playing for a junior club, admittedly a very good junior club, Preston Grasshoppers, are long gone. Incidentally Preston Grasshoppers must be doing something right as they, according to their website, run 5 men’s teams, a full selection of underage and mini teams plus a women’s XV and a Girls U12.

 

For better or worse, society has changed. Saturdays are no longer reserved for sport if you are an adult man. There are myriad competing distractions and commitments. Today’s players are no longer willing to commit nine months of weekends to their local team as their fathers might have been. The benefits of modern communication are counterbalanced by the cons. One coach has described WhatsApp as the “worst thing that could have happened to grass-roots rugby” because now you can cry off with a two-second message rather than a phone call to an angry team secretary or coach. It seems to me ludicrous that you can only play for the club that you are registered to, particularly in the lower teams. All players want to do is play. If the away team has only twelve players, but the home team has eighteen why not play a fifteen aside game. Having substitutes stood on the touchline also reduces the number of teams that a club can run. I for one would have rather played a game than have been a sub for the team above. 

 

I am sure that the top players today enjoy the game and the camaraderie just as much as I and countless others did. They do have to consider their earning potential and due to their sheer size, speed and fitness they face more chance of injury than we did. When you hear the top brass talk about growing the game, they mean increasing the number of spectators and getting more revenue from TV rights, not how many people are physically playing each Saturday.

 

So, what is the point of Rugby? At the top I would suggest that it is in the entertainment business as is all professional sport. Whether there are enough spectators willing to pay to watch the game every week to fund the salary bill of the top players is another question. My personal view is no, at least in the UK. Football is to firmly entrenched as the mass spectator winter sport. Rugby will always be a distant second at best.

 

The laws should be modified to recognise that the professional game is different to that played by the majority of players. They do not want and cannot cope with a fast non-stop game. They need a breather as they slowly walk/jog to the next scrum where the ball is put in straight down the middle and the hookers actually strike! Substitutes and leagues should vanish, the county cup competition should be the highlight in the fixture calendar. As people are unwilling to commit to every weekend there is a game perhaps the season should be split into smaller blocks with a couple of weeks off at the end of each block so that players can do other things with their families. 

 

Perhaps this is all a pipe-dream and I am just Don Quixote tilting at windmills. No matter what happens in the future at the age of 77 I will probably not see the demise of Rugby Football Union, or if I do, I will probably be too far gone to care. But if things don’t change the game will surely fade away. That will be a great pity, not for me, but for my grand-children. I would simply like them to have as much fun from rugby as I have had.

  

Modern Times!!

 I am obviously further out of touch with modern life than I realised. As regular readers of my FaceBook posts will know last Saturday my youngest son took me to Twickenham to see England v South Africa (Rugby Union for the uninitiated).

This week I received a survey from Twickenham asking me what I thought about the ground and match facilities. The focus was on the "experience"; the entertainment, the fanzone (didn't know there was one) etc etc.

All I wanted to do was watch a good game of rugby, share some banter with those around me during the game, have a couple of beers before the game and at half-time (not during the game) and be able to get to the toilets without having to queue for about 15 minutes! Perhaps a beer after the game!!

I have been going to Twickenham on and off for seventy years, my dad used to take me and we stood on the old South Terrace.

Yes the game has changed, the venue has changed and the "experience" has changed. Whether the changes are for the better is open to debate - but then I am just curmudgeonly old man!

Farmers and Inheritance Tax

 I am somewhat confused by the furore over the inheritance tax bill that will fall on farmers. If I understand correctly (and I sometimes don't). The government is saying that it will only affect relatively few farmers. In which case it won't raise much money. So why are the government doing all this when the benefit to the exchequer is so low?

When death does stalk the barren land,

When death does stalk the barren land,

The stench of rotting carcases rises

Through the pale watery light

Of the dying sun

 

All around is the decay of a dying civilisation.

Hypocrisy rules as leaders wallow

In their own self importance

Waffle rules where once reason reigned

 

Oh Locke where have you gone?

Has that beacon of light been snuffed out?

Are we forever destined to learn nothing?

Hobbes is gone, forgotten, his legacy spent

 

We are left in the land of the blind

Where the one eyed man is king

Sadly floundering in the mire of his own making

His lifeblood slowly ebbing away.

Like a stag caught in the cars headlights

He stood bewildered frozen to the spot

While the inevitable came hurtling towards him.

 

He now lies fatally wounded

While the carrion crow circle around

Waiting, wondering when to strike

While the populace wait; watching the ship of state

Drift aimlessly along.

 

 

Barry Mellish

July 2009

 

General Election 2024 - Time to change the voting system?

 Well, the election is done and dusted and with only a handful results to be declared a few things are patently obvious, to me at least:

1.     The Tories were routed with only 24% of the vote. 

2.     Labour have a stonking majority with 411 (so far) seats they have an overall majority of 177, at the time of writing, so much for my prediction of 55-65!

3.     LibDems had a fantastic evening returning at least 71MPs (up from 8.)

4.     4 Green MPs (sadly not Hélèna)

But looking beyond the numbers of seats it is clear that there was not a massive swing of support to Labour, rather it is a massive swing away from the Tories. Labour only polled 35% of the popular vote whilst returning 63% of MPs. Our antiquated electoral system of first past the post means that a swing of a few votes in a number of seats can result in massive swings numbers of MPs returned for each party.

 We desperately need some form of proportional representation – but which? I like the concept of constituency MPs, someone that we can write and ask to help resolve local issues. It also enables people locally to return an MP that they want; be it Jeremy Corbyn, Shockat Adam, Iqbal Hussain Mohamed etc etc. If we had a pure proportional system there would not be room for these “oddball” candidates and politics would be the poorer. I for one am fed up with hegemony of the “big parties”. 

Having been returned with his massive majority and relatively low share of the popular vote compared to previous governments, I cannot see electoral reform being high on Sir Keir’s agenda. One can but hope, but I do not see the pigs on the runway ready for take-off – turkeys do usually vote for Christmas!