What are the essentials?

If I was trapped in my bedroom because my ground floor was flooded following ‘Storm Denis’ what would I need?

Do I assume the toilet still flushes and I can have a wash? If the water is still on and the electricity is safe I can boil a kettle, make drinks, cuppa soups, couscous, use a microwave oven and fill hot water bottles. I can make toast and rely on helpful neighbours in boats to replenish my dwindling stocks of bread, milk and butter. 

Presumably I can’t do any washing as the machine is in a flooded kitchen.If the bathroom is functioning it might be possible to wash underwear and shirts but if the heating’s off where do they dry? 

If I have no cooking facilities how long could I last in a bedroom on take aways delivered by another helpful neighbour in another boat? Shouldn’t I be trying to get out into fresh air? What if I can’t find my wellies? And when do I start clearing out the filthy carpets and furnishings downstairs?

At a time like this the mobile phone is a boon, neighbours with boats or similar are life-savers and the emergency services are heroes. But ...

If there is no plumbing, no clean water, no electricity, no heating in my home I don’t think I could stay in a bedroom unable to flush the loo, make myself a drink nor have a wash. I couldn’t recharge my phone and couldn’t listen to a radio unless it’s battery operated. It would be impossible to stay in bed under the duvet with a full bladder and nowhere to relieve myself.

What are the essentials? If you are used to camping presumably you have LED lights, portable loos and gas burners for heat and cooking. But our last camping trip was many years ago and our portable loo is trapped somewhere unmentionable in the back of a shed which itself has seen better days. If the garden’s flooded presumably the shed would be too. 

How to prepare for a flood, then?

Have portable gas-fired heating at the ready? Have a gas camping stove, whistling kettle and camping saucepans and spoons to hand? Have water purification tablets and stocks of tinned foods and bottled water? Have tons of wet wipes to help maintain a modicum of self-cleanliness? Ensure my camping loo has sufficient cleaning solutions to keep it hygienic to use? Have a hot water bottle in a state of readiness? 

And if I could manage to be this prepared how would it affect me psychologically to have to live like this, cramped in one or two bedrooms with the smells of rotting carpets working their way up the stairs? 

My heart goes out to people suffering in the latest floods. But this crisis is going to be more commonplace. What are the essentials? How long could any of us cope - camping out in our bedrooms? 

And what about the victims of coronavirus trapped in their cabins on their cruise ship? This is not what they paid £3K for. They truly will suffer cabin fever. Presumably - although surrounded by water - the ship’s electrics, plumbing and kitchens are functioning. Travellers can wash, eat, use the loo, sleep in warm bunks and watch tv. But stuck in one  cabin with no end date in sight? How does that help their stressed states of mind? 

We are no longer, in the main, the generation that got through the war. We aren’t used to blackouts, hiding in shelters, waking up to a destroyed home or queueing for rations. Climate change and mass cruise travel can damage the environment. The weather is shifting, airplane travel is a pollutant but ferry travel seems greener. 

Time for us all to wake up and readjust to a less indulgent lifestyle. Alter our habits, adapt to wet winters, blazing summers and prepare for floods. Simplify our holidays and hope for the best but plan for the worst. What do we really need to do more than just survive? What are the essentials? 

Be independent of marriage, if needs be.

The above homily may sound anti-marriage but it isn’t. It was a phrase my mother said to me several times, and she had a long, happy life married to my father. And she was probably very glad when my brother and I did eventually marry as I’m sure she didn’t truly think living together was the done thing. Nothing was ever said but she approved of marriage, despite the title of this piece.

What mum meant is that women should stand on their own two feet. They should be financially independent and have qualifications so that they can be ‘independent of marriage, if needs be.’ Ironically I have earned more than my husband - since before the year 2000 - thus proving my financial independence - but not independence of marriage - yet he got a better pension settlement than me. Go figure! (Depends which party is in power in number ten and how flush your employers are, it seems.)

So, yes, I’ve been financially independent of marriage. I paid our mortgage from the mid-nineties till the end of its term, while Richard became an impoverished, romantic artist. But he always paid for the car and its maintenance, our utilities, and, until his recent illness all the food & groceries that we consumed. I made sure, however, that we had a roof over our heads, and, when needs be, paid for repairs to it so we were always dry and warm. 

It’s disturbing, then, to read of the plight of homeless women, who, according to the online headline I saw, are escaping violent marriages and have nowhere to go. This is not what my mother foresaw in her quest for independence of marriage - ie squalid homelessness - but this can be the net result for women who have no money of their own and all other avenues are closed to them.

Mum always believed in divorce - no woman should endure unhappiness within a marriage - but also said that many women, especially of her generation (born between the wars) that stayed in the marital home because of the reason cited above: they had nowhere else to go. If, however, they had their own earnings they could at least save to put a deposit down on a flat. If they had qualifications they could take up the remnants of a career and maintain that flat. And not remain in an unhappy, maybe terrifying marriage, nor end up on the streets. Financial independence gives choice.

How desperate must you be to have no bank account, to have to show your violent husband exactly how much money is in your purse and to justify every penny spent on, wait for it, his meals. Just to avoid a broken nose, multiple bruises, and possibly frightened children whose bedclothes you have to wash and dry - through bedwetting - before the vicious man returns and makes his demands or accusations.

It takes a brave woman to leave a home and survive on the streets, in the cold and wet,  only to be jeered at or urinated upon. But perhaps it’s better than staying in a house where whatever you do fault will be found and punishment meted out.

Women, everywhere, should be given opportunities to gain financial independence so that none have to remain in a dangerous relationship nor end up in a shop doorway. 

Be financially independent of marriage (or any relationship), period. Just to know that you are able to live off your own earnings, if needs be, gives immense power to a woman. I know. I am one. 

The Guardian, Weds 5 February

Domestic violence is a major cause of homelessness. Government figures show that in the year to June 2019, 24,000 people were made homeless in England directly because of domestic abuse.

(Abuse) survivors can face homelessness or returning to their abusers when their time is up at a refuge. This is because councils are only required to provide housing for domestic violence survivors if they can prove they are more vulnerable than the average homeless person.

Terry

It seems, just as the late, great Terry Jones’s spirit departs this earth, that it’s timely to reflect on other lives marred by cruel illnesses. 

As a child I remember my aunt showing me a shiny LP with a green & white cover. It was a recording made by the contralto Kathleen Ferrier. The memory has remained with me, not because I knew her singing voice nor her works (I was only eight) - her renditions of folksongs and popular ballads and the classical works of Bach, Brahms, Mahler and Elgar. It was more that I remember my aunt telling me Ferrier had died so young but had had an extraordinary voice. It seemed cruel to me, even though I was only a nipper, that she died aged only 41. My mother was that age, then, and I didn’t want to lose my mum. Jacqueline du Pre was also young, 42, when she died. I recall her energy when playing the cello but, struck down with multiple sclerosis, at the end she ‘...sat helplessly in a wheelchair, moon-faced and mute.’ Such a wicked illness to land on one so young who had been so robust when she played.

Julie Andrews famously had surgery which ruined her singing voice and Elton John’s voice deepened as a result of his throat procedure. We aren’t robbed of their lives but of their former art. Dean Ashton of West Ham made his England debut in Trinidad. But an injury continued to trouble him and he was forced to retire on December 11, 2009. He was only 23. His broken ankle and a further ligament problem meant an end to his football career came for him when he was far too young. 

Great academics like Iris Murdoch and Stephen Hawking both lost their abilities in a savage fashion. She - a great thinker and writer - lost her mind to Alzheimers and he lost the use of his body to sclerosis (but defied medical science and lived much longer than his first prognosis allowed.)Especially for Murdoch, having been a thinker, Alzheimers must have been especially hard for those around her when her thoughts began to deteriorate. 

Jack Hawkins, the actor, had a rich speaking voice but had treatment for a secondary condition of the larynx, which was probably cancer. The operation deprived him of his natural voice, but with the help of a therapist, he developed a new “voice” and acted in half a dozen more films afterwards. He lost his commanding speaking voice and died 7 years after his diagnosis of cancer. Joan Plowright, although older than many of the aforementioned, lost her sight in the late 2000s, cannot act now and needs a live in carer in her own home. In 2014, she officially announced her retirement because she had become completely blind. 

And today we learn how Terry Jones, director of fantastic Python films such as ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ and ‘The Life of Brian’, has succumbed to a particularly brutal form of dementia. He loved words and was so articulate with them. It seems especially sad that he was robbed of his ability to use language as he suffered from a form of frontotemporal dementia. It impairs the ability to speak and communicate. The very things which made him great and endeared him to many.

He will be missed. 

Going, going green

It isn’t especially through noble thoughts that we have gone car-less. It is simply owing to circumstance. Our sister-in-law reversed the car into our garage back in November. Since then friends and family have driven it, turned the engine over and got the new battery running. Throughout the winter months our vehicle will be a tad warmer in our damp, draughty, narrow garage than if it’s left outside. Never before have I shampooed a car while it’s  been half-in and half-out of a garage. Why the complication? I didn’t pass my driving test - I can’t say I tried very hard - and there’s a vicious ramp at the outside edge of our garage. Very difficult for novice drivers - ie friends or family unused to our car and ramp. And impossible for me as I remain one of the few without a driver’s licence. So the car is rarely moved more than a few feet and was half-in and half-out of the garage whilst I cleaned Cornish mud from the wing mirrors. The journey to the far south west was the last long run it has had. But why so dirty? November country lanes are much muddier but less polluted than city streets, I suppose. 

It’s been interesting for us - since the car returned from the land of corn in mid-November - in terms of getting about. We can’t make quick trips to the co-op, our favourite river-side pub nor the garden centre. However necessity is the mother of invention. Walking and taking public transport gives a new, and not unwelcome perspective. 

Essentially it makes us both walk more. I have never been into our local village on foot as often as now. It’s downhill all the way. And my shopping trolley is no longer a symbol of age simply an act of ‘greenness’. Or so I read.

I have got to know each dropped pavement and rough bits of loose tarmac which help or hinder my progress with a heavy shopper. I have used the First Bus app to know precisely when the next bus is to leave. I usually walk to the village but get the bus back. I’d like to do both trips on Shanks’s pony but two weeks ago I overdid it. Since then my left knee has complained at me. I clearly pushed too heavy a load uphill too fast. I needed to get into training. But food shopping is a must and when one is hungry the empty belly overrides concerns over a thirty-year-old knee injury.

Taxis down into town are a necessity if we have to get somewhere promptly. But these sunny, wintry days it’s a joy to walk. And healthy. (Less so on the many days of heavy rain.) I have perfected the art of pulling the trolley with one hand, wearing a waterproof hat and using an umbrella all at the same time. It’s a simple act of multitasking.

After Christmas I like to introduce cyclamen or primula into the house to replace the sprigs of holly and Christmas tree greenery. But it’s not easy to balance a tray of cyclamen on one’s head while dealing with food shopping. Help was at hand, however. 

Our local farm shop sells all things ecological and repackages washing up liquid and laundry liquid in used bottles. They have a splendid show of farm-fresh fruits and vegetables. If you want to make the perfect vegan salad with pomegranates they will supply the necessary ingredients.

Furthermore, on our first sunny day for weeks I got out into our front garden, removed the dead debris and dug over the narrow flower bed. The resultant empty spaces needed colour. And our farm shop obliged. Not only did they tell me, over the phone, what colour cyclamens they stocked but the days when they could be delivered, and, moreover, delivery was free.

Why battle with busy buses, trying to balance a tray of plants on my knee, if I’m lucky enough to get a seat, when our farm shop can bring the magenta, red, pink and white plants to me? And free delivery to boot.

At the weekend I made a decision. In my attempt to stay as green as possible it seemed a terrible waste to consign our cappuccino maker to landfill. It just about fitted in my shopper and I could walk it down hill into the village to be repaired. And, what’s more, a repair cafe was being held in the village hall that Saturday. Consign to landfill or make the trek to have it repaired, free of charge? No contest.

It cost me £5 in taxi fares, £5 donation for the repair and £2 for a coffee while my cappuccino maker was fixed. An excellent result and I made three cappuccinos once I got home. For £12 I had the machine working again. A new one costs £70 or £80. Going green is a win-win situation.

We miss our riverside pub but there are plenty of lovely pubs and eateries in Bath. Walking in and back from the city is helping us get fit and is non-polluting. I’m sleeping well but have yet to master getting to my favourite swimming pool by bus. I will do it. January is a dark month but these sunny days make me want to get out and about. And mostly for free. 

When we come to use the car again we can go further afield and there will be less need to check bus times and plan shopping to fit in with public transport. But if we never use the car again it is amazing to think how possible life is without one. Going green is maybe just a state of mind. 

Shortest day plus one

The December solstice. The shortest day of the year. This December, after the fury of the Brexit General Election, it was a calm, jolly day, spent feasting on mince pies and dark at 4:10pm. I made a special point of noting the time.

Almost a month later, calculating and mentally allowing for the evenings  to stay lighter for 15 minutes extra per week, I estimate, one day soon, that it will be dark at 5:10pm. If not tonight then tomorrow night or the evening after that. Because of the tilt of the earth lighter mornings occur before the solstice. The winter solstice or midwinter occurs when one of the Earth's poles has its maximum tilt away from the sun. For us the winter solstice is the day with the shortest period of daylight and longest night of the year, when the Sun is at its lowest daily maximum elevation.

Although day length increases in the evenings from December 22 onwards it can be darker in the mornings. Day length at midwinter is seven hours fifty minutes. Today it should average 8 hours 26 minutes. The days are indeed getting longer. We can look forward to 2 minutes extra light, roughly,  on a daily basis.

Today is a beautifully cold, sunny winter’s day. There was surface frost on the soil this morning but that melted in the sunshine. Not yet have we had ice nor snow. It’s a very mild winter. We have had many, many days of rain and hopefully the country’s reservoirs will be so full that there won’t be water shortages nor any need for a hosepipe ban in the summer. 

Riskily, and prompted by the appearance of a timid sun, I bought eight cyclamen plants this weekend. I foolishly and optimistically put them into soil which was still frosted. Perhaps I have been too forward in my attempt to brighten the front garden. But in the welcome sunshine it’s tempting to get on. I may need to get bubble wrap ready in case of much harder frost in coming days. Cyclamen are hardy, of course, but the poor things will have a shock after sitting in the warmth of our breakfast room since Thursday.

Today it is ‘shortest day plus thirty’. The phrase ‘D-day plus one’ reminds me of my father’s endurance in the second world war. When he crossed the channel in June 1944 he went out on ‘D-day plus one’. In other words he wasn’t in the first round of troops to land on the Normandy beaches. He escaped the worst of overhead enemy fire and he and his comrades swung round to Berlin. In 1945, when confronted, along with the allied forces, with the horrors of Belsen, he was a member of the liberating army and went in on ‘liberation day plus two.’

Now, seventy five years later, all I have to concern myself with is whether my cyclamen will get through the night to ‘planting out day plus one’. Will they withstand the weather overnight and for the next 5-6 weeks? I don’t have to cope with bombardment from enemy fire nor risk catching typhus or witness humanity’s behaviour at its very worst. It’s a sunny late January afternoon. In a week’s time it will be holocaust memorial day. If winter comes, can spring be far behind?  ( with thanks to Percy Bysshe)

Mankind is your business

I have only just got round to watching the new version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ offered to us by the Beeb on the days leading up to the seasonal festivities.

The use of Scrooge’s list ‘regarding persistent noise caused by costermongers, gypsies, street musicians, rag and bone men, various other gutter-runners’ was a brilliant way to capture his contempt for those who disturb him with their poverty. 

Transfer that to Christmas 2019. 

It is Christmas Eve. Our PM is sitting in a meeting - at a drinking club - when he looks out of a large, leaded window, surrounded by wood panelling and heavy chintz curtains. In the cobbled side street opposite a fight has broken out amongst some youths with knives. A scantily-clad girl loiters at the corner of an alley, her cigarette lit by a man who is chatting her up. 

Looking further afield across the busy London street our PM sees charity Christmas cards on sale in the porch of an inner city Anglican church. An alcoholic sits on a bench in the grassed-over church yard - all burials now take place in the corporation cemetery. 

Above the porch a banner flaps in the unusually warm December breeze. It announces it is The Trussell Trust food bank. It is the day before Christmas and men and women are queuing for tinned meat, tinned peaches and a small Christmas pudding.

Our PM returns to his glass of scotch, takes a gulp, leaves the room to relieve himself. And the scenes of poverty from ten years of austerity leave his consciousness as he takes a pee. On returning to his plush-covered seat he clicks his fingers and the waiter brings him another glass of malt. 

‘Trouble on the streets, sir. All brought about because they can’t take their ale,’ says the waiter.

Our PM takes another sip of scotch.

‘Instead of hanging around the streets or queuing up for food parcels they should be out at work, sir.’

Our PM nods and orders a well-stuffed cold beef sandwich. He is careful not to say the wrong thing. His colleagues mutter ‘Quite so.’ and ‘That’s a good one, Jimmy.’

‘And what do you have in store for the festivities Jimmy?’ asks our PM.

‘Oh just the usual. But I’ll be back here on Boxing Day bright and early. Ready to serve the nation, so to speak.’

Our PM laughs at the in-joke. And returns to his scotch. Not once does he consider that ‘mankind is his business,’ much as Scrooge doesn’t when Marley’s ghost visits him. His gaze is drawn to plans for the London-based Brexit celebrations by the head of the team sitting opposite him.

‘You don’t hear so much shouting outside the House now that Brexit is in the bag, do you sir?’ asks Jimmy as he offers a linen napkin to our PM. 

‘The sandwiches will be with you directly. I’m hoping to get a bite myself before the evening drinking session kicks off in earnest.’

‘Thank you Jimmy. Mind you take the weight off,’ says our PM. 

‘Always a pleasure to serve, sir.’ 

As 2020 begins, some with a few hours off over Christmas, it won’t be much of a new year for them.

Recycling Christmas

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