Britain is no country and Burnley no city for the ashes of an old War veteran called John Clarkson

Royal Navy Second World War veteran, John Clarkson, was a retired labourer who died two days after his 91st birthday in January this year. Despite being unable to swim, John signed up to serve at the age of 18 in 1940 and saw active service on board an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. After his cremation his Granddaughter, Claire Wynn, kept John's ashes in a specially-made casket with a plaque inscribed with his name, age and date of death and contained a family photograph.
 Enter forty-three year old James Greenwood, one of the burglars who broke into Claire's house in Burnley through a kitchen window when she was on holiday and made off with John's ashes as well as an iPhone,  Xbox, stereo system, DVD player and a tablet computer.

When he realised what he had stolen he dumped the mahogany casket in a wheelie bin in a panic and as a result it ended up buried in a landfill site and despite a two-day search by council staff, remains unrecovered.

In a seeming act of contrition, Greenwood acknowledged the anguish he had caused John's family and said that the 20-month jail sentence the court gave him was 'not enough' and wrote to them saying he would let them give him ‘a good beating’ when he got out of prison.
Claire, however, said :
"No court in the country would send him to prison for as long as he deserves, because what he did to my family was unforgivable. It was a disgusting crime. For him to offer amends by taking a beating was the final insult. We don’t want to hear from him at all. It has been an awful time for us. The sentencing was on Remembrance Day, which is also my mother’s birthday. It was so upsetting."
As a result of the letter, Greenwood was handed a restraining order preventing him from contacting the family for five years.

Claire said :
"The other things which were stolen can be replaced but not my Granddad’s ashes. When my Grandfather was in my house we knew he was there and there was part of him left and still with us. This is worse because we don’t know where he is."

Britain, a country where even an old man's ashes are not sacrosanct.

Britain says"Goodbye" to an old Northern Irish BBC political correspondent called John Cole

John Cole, once the BBC's political editor, has died at the age of 85 and along with millions of other old Brits, I remember him covering and guiding us though the major stories during the Margaret Thatcher era in the 1980s.

What you possibly didn't know about John, that he :

* was born in Belfast in 1927 where his father was an electrical engineer into where a Protestant unionist family and started his newspaper career when he joined the 'Belfast Telegraph' after leaving school, the Belfast Royal Academy, at the age of 17.

*worked as a reporter and industrial correspondent, then as a political reporter for his paper and gained a scoop when he interviewed then Prime Minister, Clement Attlee who was holidaying in Ireland.

* moved to England and the 'The Guardian', then based in Manchester, at the age of 29 in 1956, reporting on industrial issues and transferred to the London office in 1957 as 'Labour Correspondent' and appointed 'News Editor' at the age of 35 in 1963, took on the task of reorganising the paper's amateurish system for gathering news.

* headed opposition to a proposed merger of The Guardian' with 'The Times' in the mid-1960s, served as Deputy Editor and in 1975, failed to secure the editorship for reasons which may have included his commitment to the cause of unionism in Northern Ireland and what was seen by some as 'inflexibility' and a 'lack of flair'.

* joined 'The Observer' as Deputy Editor and remained for six years until, in 1981 he got a call from the BBC offering him the job of Political Editor and said : "The invitation to have a ringside seat for what must be the most fascinating period in modern politics was irresistible." and "us modern Presbyterians don't believe in predestination, but on this occasion I thought I'd give it a whizz."

* had little previous television experience, but proved to be a natural broadcaster and became a familiar figure on tv and radio but was put under strain by the workload and he suffered a heart attack in 1984.

* returned to work and covered the IRA bombing of the Brighton Hotel and got the memorable interview with Prime Minister Thatcher on the pavement in its immediate aftermath, in which she declared that the Tory conference would take place as normal and some years later was one of the first to forecast her resignation in 1990.

* was held with affection by tv viewers, trusted by politicians and known for speaking in the language used by ordinary people rather than 'Westminster experts', articulating the viewpoint of the ordinary man or woman in the street.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqCskMPUOaM

* with his distinctive Northern Irish accent found himself lampooned by the magazine 'Private Eye' and as a puppet in tv's 'Spitting Image', but also led the way for BBC broadcasters with regional accents.

* retired as the BBC's Political Editor at the age of 65 in 1992 and saw 1995 memoir, 'As It Seemed To Me,' become a best-seller and at the age of 79 and in 2007, wrote an article for the 'British Journalism Review' in which he blamed politicians and the media for the fact that parliamentarians were held in such low esteem and was particularly scathing of Alastair Campbell's influence during Tony Blair's premiership.

Tributes :

The BBC : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24865251

Prime Minister, David Cameron : a "titan at the BBC" and an "extraordinary broadcaster."

Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband : "my generation grew up watching John Cole. He conveyed the drama and importance of politics."

Former Prime Minister, John Major : "John Cole was one of the finest political correspondents of my lifetime, and a real credit to his profession. When John spoke, everyone listened. He was always well-informed, balanced - and trustworthy - and set the bar very high for all who followed."

Nick Robinson, who followed as the current BBC political editor : he "shaped the way all in my trade do our jobs."

Veteran BBC broadcaster John Humphrys : "The thing about John was people really liked him. That sounds almost silly and trivial for someone doing his job, but he broke through and that's incredibly important. People related to him as a warm and decent human being. They could see he was a decent man. His humanity was there and it came across. In the end it doesn't matter how brilliant a hack you are, if people can't relate to you then you don't succeed."

"

Britain is no country on Remembrance Day for an old foreign correspondent called Robert Fisk

Robert was born 67 years ago in Maidstone, Kent less than 10 miles away from where I now live. He's been Middle East correspondent of 'The Independent' for more than twenty years, primarily based in Beirut and holds more British and International Journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent. Robert has, in fact, lived in Beirut for the last 37 years, so in a sense, Britain has been no country for him for some time, but it is particularly so at this time of year and his article in his paper today was entitled :

Poppycock – or why remembrance rituals make me see red
The poppy helps us avoid a search for the meaning of war

He referred to the remembrance poppy, used since 1920 to commemorate soldiers who have died in war and inspired by the First World War poem, 'In Flanders Field' and the fact that the wild flowers grew and the battlefields where so many young British soldiers died in Belgium fighting the Germans in the First World War. Today, small artificial poppies are sold by the Royal British Legion and the money raised used to support British military personnel past and present.

Robert :

* was, on a brief visit to London, appalled to notice that tv presenters, politicians and dignitaries have resorted to stereotype by wearing 'those bloody poppies again' and questioned how this 'fashion appendage – inspired by a pro-war poem, for God’s sake, which demands yet further human sacrifice – still adorns the jackets and blouses of the Great and the Good?'

* at school, used to wear a poppy as did his Dad, who was a soldier of that Great War, in the trenches of the Third Battle of the Somme, 1918 and at Cambrai.

* remembered that, as his father grew older, became sick and read the biographies of 'that most meretricious of officers, Earl Haig – butcher Haig of the Somme, whose wife gave her name to the original poppies', came to regard the wearing of these 'sickly and fake petals as hypocrisy' and stopped wearing the poppy, as did he.

* recalled that at Ypres four years ago, was honoured to give the 'Armistice Day Lecture' just before 11 November, but did not wear a poppy and 'politely declined to lay a wreath at the Menin Gate – that “sepulchre of crime” as Sassoon called it.'

* asked if there is 'some better way to remember this monstrous crime against humanity?' because, in the original poem of Toronto doctor, John McCrae's : 'the poppies were there to remind us of our duty to kill more human beings' with the words : ' In Flanders fields, the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row– but then his dead soldiers exhort the living to “Take up our quarrel with the foe…/ If ye break faith with us who die/ We shall not sleep, though poppies grow/ In Flanders Fields." '


* suggested that instead we read the last words of Nurse Edith Cavell, before she was shot in Brussels by the Germans for rescuing Allied soldiers behind enemy lines : “But this I would say, standing in view of God and eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone” and cast poppies aside.

Robert's article in the Independent :
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/poppycock--or-why-remembrance-rituals-make-me-see-red-8927751.html

My earlier posts about the War :

Monday, 14 November 2011
Britain is still a country with a few old men who lost their fathers in the First World War

http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/britain-is-still-country-with-few-old.html

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

Britain, once a country enthusiastic for war, thought it had said "goodbye" to it at 11 o'clock in the morning on the 11th of November 1918
http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/britain-was-once-country-enthusiastic.html

My post dealing with my mother's family in the War, photographed here in 1914 with her 16 year old brother, George, in uniform and my mother holding the studio flowers.

Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Britain is still a country which remembers its 'Old Soldiers' like 109 years old Claude Choules 

 http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/britain-is-still-country-which.html

Britain is a country with Scotland, no nation for old men with autism

The charity, 'National Autistic Society Scotland' has warned of an 'invisible generation' of old people with autism in Scotland whose condition is often misunderstood and misdiagnosed partly because there was still a tendency to only associate the condition with children.

It made the following points, that :

* Scotland has an estimated 58,000 people with autism and more than 11,600 of whom are thought to be over 60.

* its recent survey of adults with autism revealed that more than a third have waited three years or more to access a diagnosis.

* there is little research into how the condition develops in old age.

Robert MacBean, 'Policy and Campaigns Officer' said:

 "Huge strides have been taken in changing attitudes towards autism and increasing understanding of the lifelong, disabling condition ...but there is still a tendency to think of autism as a condition that just affects children, when there are older people with autism in all our communities who need our support and care. Too many older adults with autism are missing out on diagnosis entirely and too many are still waiting for their needs to be assessed. And all too often, it's unclear what support will be available for them as they get older. This must change."


Retired joiner David Silvester, 67, from Moray, was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, a form of autism, two years ago. His condition had been misdiagnosed as 'bipolar disorder' and 'schizophrenia' since he was in his late 20s.
He said:
"My diagnosis came as a huge relief. For most of my adult life I'd asked 'what's wrong with me?' The diagnosis finally explained my life, who I am and took away a lot of the negative feelings I'd projected onto myself. When I was very young, research into Asperger syndrome was also in its infancy. But I'd known from an early age that I was 'different'. If the adults around me had known what to look for, they would have seen classic Asperger's traits. On the outside I appeared articulate and functioning well. But inside I was struggling. After my diagnosis, I thought a world of support services in Moray would open up to me. It was a big disappointment to discover this wasn't the case."

More positively, however, Moray Council is now developing its 'Autism Strategy' and David is involved in educating people about the condition and encouraging decision-makers to put in place effective support.

David said : "It would be great if the public could see that older people with autism are not 'weird' or 'odd'. We just see the world in a different way. We need the right support at the right time, but we also have skills, talents and abilities."

Allan Tubb is a 65 year-old retired teacher, living near Inverness who sought medical help twenty six years ago and was finally, diagnosed with Asperger syndrome last year.
He said :
“I’d been told there were no facilities for diagnosing someone of my age. I was serially misdiagnosed and prescribed pills that just made me feel worse. Luckily, a sympathetic locum psychiatrist insisted I must be offered an assessment. If I’d had a diagnosis earlier, life could have been different. But I’m not angry for what I’ve missed. What I feel most is disappointment for the past, and fear for the future. My autism means I have problems seeing the consequences of what I do, and this can make planning and organising my life difficult. Health professionals told me that if people like me managed to cope with our disability for years, there’s no need to receive support. Getting older makes the difficulties more acute.”

Britain is no longer a country for an old Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, played by an old actor, David Suchet

As the last tv episode of Agatha Christie's Belgian detective, 'Hercule Poirot', airs this month, David Suchet, who has played him for a quarter of a century, over 70  episodes to 700 million viewers worldwide, bids farewell to one of his "very dear best friends”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hmx6dQJf_rk

Things you possibly didn't know about David aa Hecule, that he :

* first donned the iconic moustache in 1988 filming 'The Adventure of the Clapham Cook' and makes his last appearance on 13 November with : 'Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case' which he filmed after going on a nine-month diet and sheding two and a half stone to play the detective as a much older man, confined to a wheelchair and dying.

* is said, by Michele Buck, the Executive Producer, to know Hercule "inside out” and "has read all the books and written on a bit of paper every single detail and nuance that may affect the character” which he carried with him at all times during filming.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo8b6wyV_2U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZJpGq6W1bw

* is also said by Michele to be "the most charming, avuncular, witty, generous man. He’s really collaborative, he cares. He knows his lines. He researches. He does these huge 10-page denouements, and to deliver it with conviction and correctly takes an awful lot of work.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ficM-ibey7Q

* was picked to play Hercule by the Christie Estate and said he had made a promise to the writer’s daughter Rosalind Hicks, not to make Poirot a caricature and told  : “You can smile with Poirot but we must never laugh at him.”

* filmed the last episode as the first, so he did not become too emotional and waved 'goodbye' with a poignant last shot and then had a two-month break eating the weight back on.

* filmed the last scene of the final episode, 'Dead Man’s Folly' in front of Agatha Christie’s house and walking through the front door said: "Who am I now? Am I David Suchet walking into Agatha Christie’s house or Poirot walking into the location ?"

* is considered to be the definitive Poirot, who was first played on stage by Charles Laughton in 1928 in the ‘Alibi’, followed with Austin Trevor on screen followed over the years by seven more, including Peter Ustinov and Albert Finney.

Britain is no country for old servicemen seeking compensation for damage from Cold War nuclear tests

“We are like ghosts, they don’t see you, they don’t hear you,” said Jeff Liddiat of the British Nuclear Test Veterans’ Association and reflecting on the struggle, of more than a half-century, to get justice form the British Government for servicemen who were exposed to nuclear tests like those above on Malden Island in the Pacific in 1957. “I suppose they hope those remaining of us will die sooner rather than later, so there’ll be no one left to bother them.”

At the height of the 'Cold War' between the Soviet Union and the West in the 1950s, Britain carried out a series of nuclear weapons tests in mainland Australia, the Montebello islands off the west Australian coast and on Christmas Island in the South Pacific involving servicemen in the Army, Royal Navy and Air Force, as well as personnel from New Zealand and Fiji. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWdpZHmhnEY Now, like Jeff, they are a dwindling band of old men still seeking compensation for the ill health suffered by themselves and their families as a result of their exposure.

In 2009, on of them, Dougie Hern, then 72, told the BBC :
"We saw a bright, brilliant light. It was as if someone had switched a firebar on in your head. It grew brighter and you could see the bones in your hands, like pink X-rays, in front of your closed eyes." Dougie believed that the radiation exposure he experienced that day and four others, accounted for his diabetes, the spurs growing on his sternum at that point in time and the past, the death of his 13-year-old daughter from cancer.

To old men like Jeff and Dougie, their experience over the years has been one of Whitehall cynicism and neglect based on the fact that :

* they were given no warnings about the possible dangers they faced at the time and, since then, denial by the Ministry of Defence that the illnesses suffered by them and their offspring had anything to do with the radioactive fallout they faced.

* have seen successive governments spend around £5m to block legal action by them to get compensation.

* have, in view of the fact that Ministry of Defence's medical stance is based to a large extent on a Japanese study, carried out in the 1940s on the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, pointed out that advances in medicine has meant those test results need to be reviewed.

* see that other countries, including America and France, have accepted responsibility to their personnel and paid out compensation to those affected by the tests in the Pacific and Australia.

* cite the case of the widow of the late Derek Spackman, a navigator on a Canberra aircraft sent from its base in Darwin on a mission to sample radioactivity from tests carried out by American scientists in the Marshall Islands in 1954, who has been refused a war widow's pension by the British, but was awarded $ 75,000 by the US Government.

* seen many of the 25,000 men, who took part watching the mushroom cloud wearing just shorts and sandals, die in the interim and according to Jeff : “Three years ago our membership stood at 2,000, now it’s a thousand. I think there are similar falls in numbers among others who are not members."


Jeff himself, who was a leading aircraftsman stationed in Maralinga, in Australia, has experienced liver disease and skeletal degeneration, had a daughter with cancer, a son with a low sperm count and skeletal malformation has said :
“I know of few hundred cases where children have been affected. It’s not something uncommon” and "We are not focused purely on getting compensation any more, but we would like official recognition of what happened and help in starting a benevolent fund for those who fell ill as well as for their children and grandchildren. Some of these illnesses have gone through generations.”

Douglas Hern, from Lincolnshire, now 75 years old, but at the time a 23-year-old naval cook based in the Christmas Islands at the time of the tests and whose daughter died of cancer at the age of 13 said :
“What went on at the time was astonishing, but so few people know about it. I was doing a collection recently for the British Legion and out of 200 people I spoke to only five knew about these tests and how people were exposed. We need to tell the public what happened, we should not be simply forgotten.”

The tests carried out between 1952 and 1967 bought Britain its place at the world Superpower table at a cost which has neither been calculated nor appreciated and continues to cast a shadow over the lives of that dwindling band of old men.

2011 news item :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkVt399g6IM
 

Britain is no longer a country for and says "Goodbye" to an old jazz saxophonist called Tommy Whittle

Three weeks ago on the 13th October I said "Happy Birthday" to Tommy who was 87, but unbeknown to me, Tommy died on that very day. So now, sadly, when I learn of his passing, it's "Goodbye Tommy".

What you possibly didn't know about Tommy, that he :

* was born in 1926 in Grangemouth, Scotland and started playing clarinet at the age of 12 before taking up the tenor saxophone at 13 and moved to the town next door to mine, Chatham, during the Second World War, at the age of 16 and in 1943.

*  started playing in the dance-hall band of 'Claude Giddins' in the town where I live now, Gillingham and after the War, joined 'Ted Heath's Band', playing with him until 1952 before joining 'Tony Kinsey's Group' at the '51 Club'.

* in the 1950s, joined 'Cyril Stapleton's BBC Show Band' where he featured as a soloist in radio broadcasts and in 1954, formed his own quintet and released 'Waxing with Whittle' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvViy23HAyc
followed by : touring with a ten-piece band, leading various small groups and doing jazz club work.

* during the 1950s, took his sextet to France and the USA, briefly deputized in the 'Stan Kenton Band' which was touring Britain and in 1955 and at the age of 29, was voted Britain's top tenor-sax player in the 'New Musical Express' poll and topped the 'Melody Maker' poll the following year.

* in 1958, became band leader at the Dorchester Hotel in London, where he stayed until early 1961 followed by a long period with the 'Jack Parnell ATV Orchestra' and later with 'Laurie Johnson's London Big Band', while continuing to play regularly at jazz clubs and recording with Benny Goodman.

 * during the 1980s and 90s, was in demand as a session musician, appeared again in the 'Ted Heath Band' and into the 21st century, continued to lead his own quartet and accompanied the successful 'Ella Fitzgerald Songbook' and became a member and then leader of the 'Pizza Express Allstars Jazz Band'.

* in 1979 at the age of 53, featured playing 'Children's Games' in the tv 'Jazz Series' presented by Annie Ross :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pEGHnB_Edk

* in 2005, at the age of 79, was awarded a medal by the 'Worshipful Company of Musicians for 'Lifetime Achievement in British Jazz' and continued to perform in 2012 in Manchester and this year in Wolverhampton Grand Theatre where he wowed the audience and played 'Misty' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoRQ9-MmatE

       

Britain, no country for old men, is also no country for obese old women

An article in the 'Daily Mail' today was entitled :
Britain ranks just 21st in the women's expectancy table

It was based on a report for the World Health Organisation compiled by academics from University College London, which, for the first time, provided a detailed comparison between the overall health levels in more than 50 countries in Europe and shows that Britain ranks 21st out of 53 for female life expectancy rates – just behind Greece, Slovenia and Portugal. This means women in Britain enjoy less old age than their counterparts in Europe.

The statistics show that, British women :

* have an average life expectancy of 83 years which is two years shorter than women in France, Spain and Italy – as well as a year shorter than the average in Cyprus, Malta or Andorra.

* have, by way of explanation, obesity levels which are the worst in Europe, with 23% of them considered 'too fat', double the European average.


* compare badly to British men, who although they have an average life expectancy of 78, are placed 11th in the table.

Professor Michael Marmot, from University College London who chaired the study believes the country’s failure to tackle rising obesity levels is partly to blame for the disappointing figures and said :
"For obesity, particularly female obesity, we are absolutely dreadful. It’s dramatic and appalling that we have such high levels of obesity. We really are storing up big problems there. We are doing very badly. Why we eat so unhealthily is a much more broader and complex question. We think there are things we can do to change that but we’ve not done very much so far."



My earlier post on obesity in old men :

Saturday, 18 February 2012

Britain is a country with more and more fat, sick old men

http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/britain-is-country-with-more-and-more.html

Britain is still a country for and says "Happy Birthday" to two old actors, Robert Hardy and Michael Jayston and one old rock guitarist, Peter Green

Robert is 88, Michael 78 and Peter is 67 today.

A personal thanks from me to :

* Robert, who I saw on black and white tv in the BBC series, 'The Age of Kings'  as King Henry V in 1960, when I was 13 and he was 35 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r2bcfFzC88

* Peter, who I heard with Fleetwood Mac playing 'Man of the World' on a 45rpm vinyl record in 1969, when I was 22 and he was 23.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_dg6TRNxg4

* Michael, who I saw at the cinema in 'Nicholas and Alexandra' as Tsar Nicholas II in 1971, when he was 36 and I was 24 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW3dVvPgQ-c

* Robert once again, who I saw on tv in 'Winston Churchill : The Wilderness Years' as Churchill in 1981, when he was 56 and I was 34 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAphLIIJr4c

Britain in the winter of 2013-14, still a country full of cold, old men

In Britain, with winter approaching, four of the 'Big Six' energy companies have raised their prices of gas and electricity by about 10%, before the surge in demand, with the average combined bill now standing at £1,267 per year. Executives from the firms, which have been accused of acting as a cartel, will appear before Members of Parliament tomorrow to defend the sharp rises. Apparently, these companies operate with small profit and if Angela Knight, Chief Executive of 'Energy UK', is to be believed : “The profits here are, what, four to five per cent, four or five pence in the pound. That isn’t particularly big” and the companies were also making large investments in Britain and therefore had to have an “operating margin”.

Against this background the charity, 'Age UK' has :

* in a survey, found that 28% of pensioners said that their 'main concern' was keeping warm in the coming cold months and on that basis 3,000,000 old men and women fear they will not be able to do this in their own homes this winter.

* highlighted the fact that 36%  of old men and women aged 60 stay or live in just one heated room of their home to save money and 30% say they avoid heating rooms like the bedroom, bathroom or living room because they are worried about the cost.

* warned that cold weather and poorly heated homes increased the risk not only of influenza but also of heart attack and stroke and there are about 24,000 excess deaths, mostly of old people in a typical British winter, many of them preventable.

* said though its Director, Caroline Abrahams, that : “It’s vital for older people to keep warm, both inside and outside their homes in the winter months. Being cold, even for just a short amount of time, can be very dangerous, as it increases the risk of associated health problems and preventable deaths during the winter.”

* stressed that one of the main causes of cold homes for old people in Britain is poor insulation, with some of the worst levels of home energy efficiency in Europe.

I find that I have focussed, over the last three winters, on the fact that Britain is and continues to be a country with a shameful abundance of cold old men and women  :

In January 2013 :
Britain is a country where fewer old men than usual will die from the cold this winter because of a charity called Age UK and 'Spread the Warmth'

http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/britain-is-rich-country-and-one-where.html

February 2012 :
Britain is no country for the cold, old men who will die this week

http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/britain-is-no-country-for-cold-old-men.html

 November 2011 :

Britain, no country for poor old men who can't afford to heat their homes in what might be their last winter... fear not !

http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/britain-no-country-for-poor-old-men-who_17.html

December 2010 :

Britain in a harsh winter is no place for old men

http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/britain-in-harsh-winter-is-no-place-for.html

December 2010 :

Britain in the grip of severe winter weather is not just no country for old men but for anyone

http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/britain-in-grip-of-severe-winter.html

February 2010 :

Britain this winter has been no place for old men but one with plenty of advice from the Government

http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/britain-this-winter-has-been-no-place.html

Britain is no country for those lonely old men who once enjoyed companionship in an English day care centre

Should Government Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, be accused of hypocrisy for saying that British people don’t care enough for their lonely old men and women ? 

Richard Furze, Chief Executive of the charity 'Friends Of The Elderly', clearly thinks he is when he says : "Policy rhetoric about preventative services without funding is surely hypocritical. The Government should not be too quick to tell others what more they should do when they are cutting funding for services such as community transport and day centres that are a lifeline to so many older people." 

 Is he right ?

The facts are that :

* day care centre figures from the 'NHS Information Service' show that in 2010 there were 88,498 old people using centres in England, which fell to 68,160 by 2012 and 55,655 by 2013. 

*  In some regions such as the West Midlands, the numbers plummeted by 52% per cent while the drop was 46% cent in London.

'Yes', he is right, despite the fact that a Department of Health spokesman weighed in to support his Secretary with : "Day centres can provide a valuable service but the wider problem of loneliness needs to be tackled by a change in attitude by society. There is no substitute for each and every lonely person having someone to visit them."

This wouldn't cut much ice with old men in Derby where the BBC reported :
The last remaining day care centre for the elderly in Derby could close because of spending cuts.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-24036210

 

 

Britain is still a country for and says "Happy Birthday" to a retired and resilient old movie actor called Bob Hoskins

Bob, who brought his tough presence to his films, had a tough London upbringing, received only limited education and he left school at the age of 15, but with a passion for language and literature instilled by his English teacher, is 71 years old today.

What you possible didn't know about Bob, that he :

* was born outside London in 1942 in the thiird year of the Second World War in Bury St Edmunds, Suffok, the son of  Elsie, a cook and Robert, a clerk and communist sympathiser and then from two weeks of age was brought up in Finsbury Park, London.
 
* reminded me of my own youth in Deptford, London, when he said : "Our flat was tiny. I had a put-you-up in the front room. We had a bath in the kitchen. The point is you didn't really know anything else; that's how life was. I looked around and all my mates were the same. It was a very skint area."

* after leaving school at the age of 15, was a market porter in Covent Garden (left) and, as he said at the age of 25 in 1967, "trained to be an accountant and thought this is not for me, so I bummed around. I worked on a kibbutz in Israel and travelled the world".

* said of his youth : "There was a lot of crime, of course, in the Forties and Fifties - robberies, old people getting mugged. There were gangs around Finsbury Park (right) and Haringey. They had knives and coshes and sticks. It was quite violent and it didn't take a lot to get into a fight. You just had to look the wrong way. We were all thugs. If I wasn't an actor I'd probably have been a serial killer or a burglar - something like that".

* started acting 'by chance' in the late 1960s in his mid-twenties, when a friend, an aspiring actor,  took him along to an audition after which as he was given the lead and said : "The first night an agent came to see it and he said, "Look, you've got to take this up professionally." So I said, "Get us a job and I will." "

* said : "I became a professional actor overnight and then I thought, I've got to learn to do this, because people are paying to see me. So I read the experts. I read Stanislavski and that seemed obvious; I read Lee Strasberg and that seemed like looking busy to impress everyone. And I found out that men are completely emotionally crippled - we can't express ourselves - so I started watching women. I became an actor by becoming a stalker."

* had his first major tv role was in 'On the Move' at the age of 34 in 1976, an educational series intended to tackle adult illiteracy, in which he played Alf, a removal man who had problems reading and writing.

* in the same year, came to wider attention in the original BBC version of Dennis Potter's drama Pennies from Heaven as philandering 1930s sheet music salesman, Arthur Parker, who escapes from his dull life by fantasizing elaborately choreographed musical numbers in which he and the other characters lip-sync to original recording of popular 1930s music.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcCIVcmqFs8


* played a convincing and menacing London gangster in 'The Long Good Friday' in 1980 and delivered a wordless screen masterpiece when he is picked up and taken to his execution by a IRA gunman, played by Pierce Brosnan in his first screen role.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVVrZJaN1IU

* in 'Mona Lisa' in 1986, won the wider approval of the critics and a 'Cannes Award', 'Best Actor Golden Globe' and 'BAFTA Award' and an 'Academy Award' nomination for Best Actor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdEOkAZlV3M

* in 1988 played Eddie Valiant, who investigates a murder involving the famous cartoon character, 'Roger Rabbit'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAnNvnViJpo
* in August 2012, announced his retirement from acting due to his ongoing battle with Parkinson's disease.

* kept his cockney wit and self-deprecating humour and once said : "I'm just a short fat bald guy who got lucky. Where's the glamour?"