Social care, Postman Pat and Where We Live

Hi Everyone

Some say that growing old is not much fun, and for some, that is true. Fortunately, I am only just reaching middle age, so the Main Contractor and I are very fortunate. I mention this as the big debate this week is social care: how can we make radical changes, and most of all, how to pay for it and by whom. Also this week it is reported that there are 442,000 fewer millionaires in the UK than there were last year. There are no doubt a number of reasons for this, but there is also no doubt that a good proportion have left the country to find a more friendly tax regime. That probably means that taxing the rich to help to fund social care will result in more wealthy people leaving the country. With an ageing population, how to fund social care has been a thorn in the side of governments of all colours for a number of years. It is not often that I feel sorry for politicians, as usually they are the victims of their own bad decisions but in this instance they are facing an almost impossible situation. With ever rising costs and a growing number of people needing help and support, it is surely time for all concerned to put party politics aside and work together to put the future of us all in a better place. I really hope major improvements can be made, as it may be that I and possibly you will need their services in the future.

There is one advantage of approaching middle age is that I have a memory (or what is left of it) going back nearly 85 years. This week I collected our son from our main railway station. Just behind the car park where I waited for him is the city's main postal service sorting office. In the 15 minutes that i was waiting, I counted nearly thirty post office vans arriving at the site. It seems that nearly every postie has his or her own van. Back in the 1950s I was a postman for three years for ten days helping the real postal staff cope with the enormous quantity of Christmas cards, letters and parcels. I only remember seeing three or four postal vans. The postman (I don’t remember any post ladies) was expected to walk or get a bus to his delivery patch, and he was expected to do two deliveries every day from Monday to Friday with one delivery on Saturday. The stamp on a letter or card was two and a half pence, equivalent to one penny in today's money. If you apply inflation from the 1950s to today, a stamp should today should cost about 24p. Today a second class stamp is 91p and a first class stamp a staggering £1.90p with now only one delivery a day, and not every day. The first class stamp guarantees that nearly all of them are delivered the following day. Back in the 1950s nearly every letter or card was delivered the following day. Back in the 1950s, 23 to 26 million letters were delivered by a man with a canvas bag and a strong pair of shoes. Now 15 to 18 million letters a day are delivered at an enormous increased cost by a man and occasionally a woman in a comfortable, warm van in a pair of trainers. How times have changed.   

Our local city does not always get a good press. In many ways it deserves it as our public transport is at best very poor for a city of that size, the main streets of our five towns show sad signs of decline and many older buildings from our industrial past need some serious reclamation or demolition. The good news is that we are surrounded by beautiful countryside with a National Trust area where we walked this week just 15 minutes away and the country's first national park, the Peak District, just 30 minutes away. On the edges of the city are many lovely homes set in some very attractive locations with only short commutes into the city. With property prices probably nearly half the prices in London and the South East, what is not to love about our area? Just don’t tell anyone, as we want to keep it to ourselves.  

Just a Thought:  

My favourite part of a care plan is when the paperwork weighs more than the person carrying it.  

Jokes about our postal service are not hard to set up. It is all about the delivery.

An old industrial plant was turned into a luxury apartment complex. So now you can pay £2000 a month to sleep where a lathe used to sever fingers and thumbs.

Brian