http://primettsperspective.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/nhs-in-crisis-very-sad-piece-from-newly.html

 

I am lucky to have never spent a night in hospital in all my 54 years. After reading this young nurse's cry for help, the thought of me or any of my family doing so, terrifies me. It's stories like this that make me want to do something, anything, to try to change this cash-centric, target-led culture that takes the careers of good-hearted, emotional philanthropists and bleeds them dry, while the likes of Cameron, indifferently blow £15m on a museum in tribute to that grandmo...ther of detached cruelty, Margaret Thatcher.

I started my working life in NHS administration and remember a service where prescriptions were free to everyone, dental and ophthalmic treatment was readily available and affordable, hospital food was of such a high standard and produced in proper in-house kitchens that as a young man, I ate almost daily, in the staff canteen, which served the same food as to the patients. The last time I visited a friend in hospital, he was begging me to take food in for him as the externally-produced, junk-food that was supposed to be nourishing him back to health, was making him feel more ill and the portions were so small he felt he was starving.

I proposed strike action against the afore-mentioned, heartless, Tory harridan back in the early eighties - and won the vote almost unanimously. The writing on the wall was as clear then, as it is now - more ugly and socially divisive than any inner city graffiti.

I appreciate that we're living longer and that hospital treatment is more technologically advanced. However, I think it is time we looked at the profits being drained from the service by the global corporations who manufacture the drugs and equipment the NHS pays a fortune for. We need to investigate the venture capitalists now being brought in at a cost of millions, to consult and advise on which bits of the service to sell off, to a queue of eager, blood-suckers. It is the single, most-important area where I believe privatisation should be reconsidered, so that profits can be ploughed back into the service, rather than used to pay for fat-cat bonuses and share dividends.

Ed Miliband may have made a couple of dodgy choices on 'Desert Island Discs' and have a smile that reminds some of a Nick Parks puppet, but we should not let the press use those insignificant and immature jibes to disguise what the Conservatives are doing and ridicule the man who is our best, or even our ONLY hope to stop this rot. We need a Labour government more now than perhaps at any other time in our history, if our children are not going to end up as Gove-educated, second-class citizens enslaved by student debt and by an ever more powerful, greedy and wealthy elite. That is not the politics of envy or even a condemnation of those who have more than others - that's what the right-wing press would want the public to believe - that Labour or Socialism, is the same as Communism. It isn't. Modern day Socialism is about supporting businesses and enterprise while simultaneously helping those in need. Those who have worked hard helping to grow the success and profits of the businesses in which they've been employed, those who have worked hard providing services to others, those who have worked hard launching new businesses, those who have worked hard caring for our sick and elderly, those who have worked hard teaching our children, and those who have worked hard being entrepreneurs and inventors. They're all worthy and all deserve to be able to better themselves and benefit from their success but it needn't be at the expense of those dying on trolleys in hospital corridors, or the increasing number of those living on the charity of food banks or sleeping rough on our streets, or our future generations who will probably start their working life in debt and live out their entire lives under its soul-destroying burden. This isn't what I want for my kids and I doubt anyone else wants it for theirs.

Britain can do better than this.

Political compassion or political indifference?

A couple of Thursdays ago, my wife and I attended the Labour Party South West’s Gala Dinner in Bristol to hear Ed Miliband speak. Although a lifelong Socialist and Labour voter, it is fair to say I haven’t been politically active since my years as a unit secretary in a small National Health Service union, back in the 1980s. Then, as Margaret Thatcher waged war on the miners particularly - and public servants generally, I was proud to have helped persuade a small membership of less than a hundred staff, who administered the contracts of Nottinghamshire’s GPs, dentists, chemists and opticians, that strike action, for the first time in our union’s history, was the moral and correct decision to take, to try to defend our jobs and the NHS, from Thatcher’s heartless cuts.

Nonetheless, I eventually succumbed to the poor morale that was all-pervasive in the NHS during those Thatcher days and got out; deciding instead to cocoon myself in the relatively self-absorbed world of self-employment as a driving instructor. I figured that by relying on my own efforts, working how and when I wanted, success or failure would not be at the behest of a megalomaniacal, ideologically-obsessed government. I was wrong, of course, as a few years later, Thatcherite policies sent interest rates sky-rocketing to over 15% and the home I had bought a year or two earlier was plunged into negative equity, while my £60,000 mortgage repayments rose to almost £700 per month. That was a lot of money twenty-five years ago (heck, it’s a lot of money today) and it forced me to change careers again. I ended up running pubs for the next twenty-two years, because at least living above the shop guaranteed a roof over my head.

When the present economic recession started to bite, our daughter had just been born, people were abandoning pubs out of economic necessity and the writing was on the wall for the future of the market town pub which we had renovated and reopened after years of it being closed. We sold up and moved to Cornwall, where my wife now goes to work part-time (and seasonally), in a small hotel, while I stay home, do the school runs and write. My first book was published earlier this year and I’m working on my next. We are officially poor and my overdraft is scary, but we’re surviving. At the moment.

At the last local elections, I discovered that I didn’t even have a candidate I could vote for. There was a Lib Dem and a Conservative candidate, (not one and the same person) and a UKIP candidate. For the first time since turning eighteen, I left without casting my vote. Instead, I came home and decided that if my sense of outrage was not being represented, I should at least fight for it to be so. For the sake of my children’s future, I felt compelled to stop being a political whinger and start being a political doer.

So earlier this year, after a lifetime of support, I finally joined the Labour Party, a decision that led me to my first Cornwall Labour Party meeting last month and the dinner last week, where Ed Miliband was to personally address the members of the South West region. I wanted to hear the man, who contrary to what I was reading in the press, was our best chance of re-uniting the country, as opposed to the insidious Tory tactic of divide and rule, which I’d lived through before. I wanted to see the flesh and blood behind the political persona and satisfy myself that I could give him my total support. I was not disappointed.

He arrived in the large ballroom, set out with over twenty tables each seating ten of us and greeted those on his own table before sitting down to eat his soup. I then expected him to dine like the rest of us, say a few words and head home after a long day away from his family. I was wrong. He had no sooner finished his soup than he was up and walking around the room, saying hello to every single table, shaking all 240 hands and posing for endless photos before returning for his main course. He then rose to his feet again and thanked prominent Labour members from the South West - people such as Dawn Primarolo, Kerry McCarthy, Alison Seabeck, Doug Naysmith, Marvin Rees, Karen Smith, Todd Foreman, Darren Jones, Mark Dempsey, David Drew and Andy Newman – I’m sure I’ve missed some, so apologies to them.

He then went on to ask the faithful if they were ready for the fight ahead. He restated how Labour had a duty to the citizens of Britain to abolish the bedroom tax, to ensure that 4.8 million low paid workers received a living wage, to allow hard-working mums and dads access to affordable childcare, to freeze the prices of the energy companies so that the elderly and the vulnerable were not forced to make a choice between eating or heating, to stem the spiralling misery of debt exacerbated by Payday loan companies, and to support small businesses by cutting business rates. He promised more policies would be announced between then and the general election, aimed at stopping the Tories’ ‘race to the bottom.’ He declared he would fight for those with lower-paid jobs struggling to make ends meet because the wages of the majority of workers had fallen behind the rate of inflation, while those at the top had seen their incomes rise by as much as ten times more. He would fight to unite the country to address the economic problems Britain was facing, and end the Tories’ loathsome ploy of causing divisions in our society by pitting the rich against the poor, those in work against those on benefits, the young against the old and the fit against the disabled and the sick. He concluded by reiterating his vision of a country working best when working together. It was a solid statement by a man with sensible, reasonable and fair ideals – ideals that resonated with me personally. That he is also a declared atheist, like me, also gives me hope for more secular government and an end to religious privilege in our supposedly democratic system.

To my mind, voting Labour isn’t about finding the panacea for all the country’s problems in a few good politicians. Politicians are fallible human beings who sometimes make inaccurate predictions, read the wrong signs and make incorrect decisions - that’s par for the course. So for me, it has to be about the inherent moral fabric; not just of the political party en masse, but of the individuals who are its integral parts. When the morals of a government are so abject that it measures its success in direct proportion to the suffering it inflicts on the vulnerable and the profit it warrants for the rich, then only the privileged few can benefit. Politics should be about everyone, not just an elitist one percent.

I see nothing moral in watching families choose between heating and eating. I know, because we are one of those families. Where we live in Polperro there is no gas and turning on electric heating is a bit like posting your bank account details on Facebook and watching your balance sink into oblivion. We’ve done everything we can to limit our heating usage and still can only afford to use it between the hours of 4pm and 9pm when the kids are home from school and before they go to bed, when we hope that their high-tog quilts will keep them warm until the morning. We installed a shower and a dishwasher for the primary reason of avoiding having to use an emersion heater. A tumble drier is not even under consideration, even though with kids at school, it would be a real boon. However, we’re not as vulnerable as others who have to make grim choices about how much energy they can afford to use. For the elderly, it could literally be a life or death decision. I know it could be argued that Ed Miliband’s promise to freeze energy prices may be nothing more than a cynical ploy to win votes, but wouldn’t we all rather have a politician who champions for the elderly, the less well-off and indeed, every working family in the country struggling to pay enormous fuel bills, than a politician, who like George Osborne is currently fighting the EU in court, to remove the cap on fat-cat bonuses?

Millions of us face some stark choices as the Tories’ austerity measures cut deeper and deeper into the heart of our society and into the economic fabric of increasingly desperate families. We have never ‘all been in it together’ as Cameron and his sleazy cabinet of manipulators repeatedly pontificate – if we were, we’d have all enjoyed the 14% pay rises the top bosses have continued to award themselves. Let us hope, that when it comes to choices, the electorate understands what is needed when called to the polls. We have to ditch this divisive government of Conservative ideologists and their power-grabbing LibDem coalition partners, ignore the xenophobic fear-mongering of the politically inept UKIP party and vote for a united Labour party with Ed Miliband at the helm. I see no other way of uniting the country behind common ideals and compassionate politics.

Reece Winner For The Win is now published and available on the publisher's site, on Kobo or Amazon. While the printed prices are somewhat high, owing to the books being produced upon demand, the download price from Authorhouse of $3.99 is around £2.50 for most ebook formats including Kindle, Kobo, Smartphones etc.

Creative Writing Course - 5th week's homework.

Our homework task was to try to write a complete short story - something with a beginning, a middle and an end. I knew I was going to have trouble with this because I use too many words. I get so rapt in the detail of the story, which I believe a reader needs, that I can't reach the conclusion concisely enough. Doug wanted us to aim for a thousand words. I've written emails to the taxman longer than that.

Still wishing to shake off my reputation for being cynical, I wrote a charming short story based on a youtube video I'd seen of a stray dog rescuing another stray dog from a six-lane highway in Chile. I completed it on the day we were due back after the half-term holiday, and knew it was total rubbish. Unfortunately, Juren was away and I had no one who could look after Ethan that night, so I sent apologies for my absence. This was perhaps fortunate, as once again I had failed to read my homework instructions properly and had forgotten that Doug had asked that the story be about the sea. My Alzheimer's seems to be getting worse lately. During a Facebook chat with a classmate, I learnt that this next week's homework was to take on board the comments of the class and improve the short story. Obviously, they had not heard my awful construction on completely the wrong subject, and so I had been thrown a lifeline. All I had to do was write a new short story (about the sea this time), critically analyse it myself, and improve it. Yeah right!  Nonetheless, the following is what I produced. I’m not entirely happy with it. It's too damned long and consequently a couple of my peers suggested it sounded more like travel writing than short story. Please leave your comments at the end.

Maldivian Mystery

The warm jets of the Jacuzzi massaged him sensuously as he watched the first dim light of dawn penetrate the starlit sky. He was sipping champagne, celebrating his good fortune to have landed in paradise. The flight he had stumbled across on the internet had brought him to Male, The Maldives’ capital from where he had transferred to Bandos, one of the larger resort islands, a short speedboat ride away. He had spent three self-indulgent days, sunbathing, reading and snorkelling on the kaleidoscopic reef. The euphoria of having a Hawksbill Turtle accompany him on his last subaquatic exploration had so far been the highlight of the trip.

Afeef, the resort’s customer services manager was a man who spoke six languages and wore a permanent smile. Afeef had befriended him on his first night on the island. He had just gone off duty and Jason had perhaps looked in need of company, surrounded as he was by couples celebrating their nuptials - some recent, some decades ago. They had chatted about their individual worlds, their customs and religion – or lack of it in Jason’s case, and had swapped notes about their respective careers. Jason had been in awe of The Maldivian work ethic that involved staff like Afeef, working in the resorts away from their families, for months at a time. He had expressed his envy at being unable to recruit such dedication for his restaurant back home in England, and had joked that Afeef would always have a job waiting for him if he ever decided to leave paradise for somewhere colder and wetter.


The island had contracts with several airlines to provide accommodation for aircrews who had reached their maximum flying hours. Afeef needed an additional beach house to accommodate an incoming crew and had asked if Jason would oblige him by transferring to Cocoa Beach, their newly opened resort in a neighbouring atoll. Whilst reluctant to leave Bandos so soon, the chance to explore another island was irresistible. His new friendship with Afeef would have also made refusal discourteous, and so that night he had packed his single backpack ready to board a boat the next morning. Afeef, whilst grateful for his acquiescence, had seemed genuinely sorry to be saying goodbye as they shook hands on the quayside. 


Cocoa Beach was a tiny island, even by Maldivian standards. It seemed nothing more than a crescent shaped sand bank rising less than a metre out of the Indian Ocean. The only building on the island was the reception office and restaurant. The guest accommodation consisted of individual, reproduction dhonis, the traditional boat of the Maldives, seemingly floating above the reef but built on stilts and tethered to a long boardwalk.

The dhoni was luxurious and had a marble bathroom with a sunken bath, a shower cubicle with space enough for more fun than showering, and enough cotton towels stacked on teak shelves to dry any number of guests. A huge, teak bed upon which a mosaic of a turtle had been created from the pink petals of the Finifenmaa, the Maldivian national flower, dominated the bedroom which also housed his and hers matching wardrobes, dressers and writing desks. Even the stationery, printed with the resort’s letterhead and roughly cut from rustic parchment, exuded the luxury normally afforded to the privileged few. The coffee table in the lounge was effectively a glass-topped well, the lid of which lifted to allow the feeding of the fish on the reef below. On the other side of a full width, sliding glass door lay an outside deck with sun loungers, and the Jacuzzi in which Jason was now luxuriating. From here, a flight of wooden steps led down to the shallows of the reef.

The sound of rain on the sea caught his attention. He narrowed his eyes in the dawn murk but saw nothing as the sound ceased as suddenly as it had started. A few seconds later, it returned, causing him this time to sit up and peer intently across the reef towards its direction. Again, it ended abruptly leaving an eerie silence in its place. He climbed from the Jacuzzi and slipped on a robe as he scanned the reef for clues to the origin of the sound. None of the neighbouring dhonies displayed signs of life. He knew many were empty, as the island was in its first season and had yet to attract sufficient numbers of the type of guests who could afford the $1000 a night price tag.


As he surveyed the water, the darkness of the rocks and coral beneath the surface appeared to shift. He assumed it was a trick of the early light, casting shadows on the gently surging waves. Then he heard the sound again. It reverberated from about thirty metres away, where the dark patch below the sea, pulsated and swirled as though a living entity.

Curiosity gnawed at him until he could no longer resist the urge to explore. According to the guidebooks, there was little out there that could harm him, and Jason continued to reassure himself of this whilst donning his snorkelling kit. Swimming from the steps of the dhoni, the bright, colourful undersea world he had experienced all week seemed gloomy and intimidating in the half-light of dawn. He finned quietly and smoothly through the water, pausing periodically to check his position in relation to his dhoni, which was the only one with a light on. As he drew near to his target, he heard the sound again. He stopped to clear condensation from his mask as hundreds of fish leapt from the ocean in unison a metre or two ahead of him to create the pattering sound he had mistaken for rain. He hurriedly smeared his mask with spit before replacing it in order to view the spectacle unfolding before him. He submerged his face once more, and thousands of small fish moving in a single, writhing mass, enveloped him entirely. As he swam through them, it was as though they were pushing him in peristaltic fashion, from the front of the shoal to the back, where a bigger shock awaited him. Skip Jack Tuna with startling eyes and fierce teeth powered towards him in pursuit of their prey, causing him to raise his hands defensively in terror. He felt the stinging sensation of a single bite to his left hand and swung round frenziedly as the rest of the school swam round him. He watched in wonderment as the life and death ballet continued into the distance, until once again, the reef fell silent and forbidding.


He was coming down from his adrenaline high and beginning to enjoy the customary serenity as he snorkelled back toward his dhoni. His finger continued bleeding slightly, and the drops of blood created tiny wisps that rose to the surface. All of the tourism handbooks stated the reefs were safe. Most sharks were harmless and certainly, the waters were too warm for the notorious Great White. Jason had never been a diver. Perhaps if he had been, he would have heard of another shark, second in the list of attacks on humans and to which The Maldives was home.

Possibly attracted by the sound of the feeding frenzy he had just witnessed, or the aroma of his blood trickling from the innocuous wound to his finger, the Tiger Shark slid its five-metre frame silently through the water. The kill was mercifully efficient. Jason felt little or no pain as the shark sank razor-like teeth into his torso. There was little splashing to arouse the resort’s sleeping occupants, so Jason’s disappearance would go unnoticed for a couple of days. When eventually staff would become concerned, most evidence of his misfortune would have vanished. Of course, if any forensic evidence emerged later, it would be unthinkable to broadcast it publicly in a country reliant entirely on tourism. The investigation, as on numerous similar occasions, would result in a verdict of death by misadventure. This would be publicised, along with the usual warning of how swimming after drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, is extremely dangerous, even in the safe, marine paradise of The Maldives.

Creative Writing Course - 4th week's homework.

When Doug asked us to read out our monologues last week, it became obvious that I had somehow ignored that it was meant to be about an accident that we, or someone we knew, had had.  I sat there for a few seconds wondering how Alzheimer's had caused me to forget the accident part, before scurrying through my notes and reading the instructions I had written down.  The notes read 'Think about when you or someone else had an accident and write a monologue.'  Damn!  It was even in my handwriting too.  I quickly recalled what I had written, wondering if I could pass it off as being about a metaphorical accident, but Doug was looking at me as if he wanted me to go first, so I decided to come clean.


After I had read mine out, Doug graciously said that it could have been about an accident and that the purpose of the exercise had been to make us look inside ourselves and drag out something poignant.  Everyone else read out stories about falling into a swollen river, being hit by a car, being on a train behind one that was blown up in a terrorist attack, falling off a toboggan or being knocked off a motorbike and run over by a bus causing his kidney to 'pop'!  How my story of becoming a publican fitted I wasn't sure.  Maybe Doug was suggesting that my career had been an accident (actually he has a point) or that not following my notes had been an accident, I don't know.  He did say he liked it and that mine had been a true monologue, so at least I'd grasped the concept of  'monologue' if not 'accident'.  He then added 'it was cynical - like we've come to expect from you' which rather pleased me, because that was what I had intended to portray, but then I wondered if he was referring to me being cynical rather than the monologue.  Do I really come across like that?  Chambers lists the following synonyms for 'cynical' - sceptical, doubtful, doubting, distrustful, disillusioned, disenchanted, pessimistic, negative, critical, scornful, derisive, suspicious, contemptuous, sneering, unsentimental, surly, scoffing, mocking, sarcastic, sardonic, ironic, bitter, embittered, worldly-wise, streetwise.  Hmm...that would be a 'yes' then!  Besides, I believe Doug used to work for the Daily Mirror and ought to know.  Nonetheless, I made a mental note to produce next time, something uplifting and joyous, just to confound him.


This week's homework is to continue the following opening line with a couple of paragraphs which 'hook' the reader into continuing reading.  'The day after my eighth birthday, my father told me ...'  At first glance this looked promising.  I could write '...that we were going camping/fishing/boating for the very first time'.  Nothing cynical there, but not much of a hook either.  Some of the best 'hooks' are problems or crises that compel the reader to stay and find out how the character resolves them.  I can't get excited about someone pitching a tent or waiting for a fish to bite, (boating has potential but I feel the 'hook' would take longer than a couple of paragraphs to develop unless I sank it the second they cast off). It seemed Doug had done it again.  What, on the face of it had looked easy, was proving to be difficult.  I decided to approach the question from the eight year-old's perspective.  What would be one of the most painful problems for them to deal with?  With my cynicism already aroused, I wrote the following, and afterwards questioned where from inside me it came.

The day after my eighth birthday, my father told me I was the reason mother had killed herself.  He spat the words through clenched teeth, close enough for his spittle to sting my face.  I cowered in the corner, waiting for the inevitable beating.  I wished he would just get on with it.  I’d learnt to cope with physical pain years ago.  I didn’t even cry any more.  I’m sure that was why he no longer bothered beating me so hard.  He knew mental cruelty was much more harrowing and the scars less visible to doctors and social workers.

Later, in my room, I mopped the blood from my face with toilet paper.  I had stolen a roll from the bathroom the previous week, hoping he wouldn’t notice it was missing from the new pack.  Downstairs I could hear him crying as usual.  Poor dad.  I wished I didn’t hurt him so much.  I wanted to go down and give him a hug.  I wanted him to cuddle me.  I wanted to say sorry for being a bad son, but he would see my apology as a ploy to be allowed food or to watch TV.  That might start him off again.  My belly ached with hunger but I knew I didn’t deserve supper, as I hadn’t deserved lunch or breakfast.   So I stayed in my room, huddled under the sheet still damp from last night’s accident, hoping that by morning it would be dry and I wouldn’t have to tell him about it.

Creative Writing Course - 3rd week's homework.

Last week Doug, our tutor, asked us to write a monologue for our homework.  I was a bit worried about this because I thought it would be difficult.  I put it off all week until I had only one day left, and that sort of pressure can induce manic depression in a procrastinator like me.


Some twenty-odd years ago, I was a driving instructor.  I happen, also, to be teaching my wife to drive at the moment so I did toy with the idea of writing a personal perspective of what it is like to sit next to a learner driver without the benefit of dual controls.  However, my wife reads my blog and I knew I’d be unable to disguise my sarcasm.  For instance, this week, having almost stalled the car by arriving at a roundabout at 5mph, in fourth, she asked me a question she has asked many times before. ‘When should I put the clutch down if I’m stopping?’  I replied, whilst checking I still had all my fillings, ‘before the car shakes so violently you need a dustpan and brush to park it!’  Fortunately, we had started moving again and she was too busy worrying about getting round the roundabout to give me the slap she undoubtedly thought I deserved at the time.  I would be much more vulnerable if she were reading about her driving exploits next to me in bed with her manicure kit in close proximity, so I ruled out the subject, for health and safety reasons.


For the past twenty years, I have managed and owned various pubs.  There had to be loads of material lurking in those memories, but I couldn’t seem to think of anything to get me started.  Then I remembered a piece of writing I had done ten years earlier when on a solo trip to The Maldives.  I had booked the last minute bargain holiday to prepare me for the onslaught of Christmas at the busy pub I was running in Nottingham.  I spent an idyllic week in a tropical paradise, swimming on the most amazing reefs and sunbathing on hot, white beaches whilst scarcely avoiding skin cancer.  I read the only book I had taken on the first day, and the selection of literature on the tiny island was limited.  I also had an overwhelming desire to be creative, and so I began writing.  Nothing that I ever thought I would use, just a few cathartic paragraphs to complement the therapeutic benefits of being in another world.  That rambling monologue had survived on an old laptop and I have dusted it off for this week’s offering.

It is often said, usually by people who believe that getting regularly pissed makes them an expert, that being a publican is a way of life.  Running a pub, I know this is true, in its literal sense.  Whereas the average drunk who makes the statement, believes it to be a way of life to be much envied.  A vocation that brings such bountiful rewards and perks, as staying in bed until just before opening at 11am. Or getting to drink whatever and whenever one pleases - free of course, because all breweries are altruistic organisations who, in an attempt to encourage licensees to be sociable, give them a generous hospitality budget to give free drinks to any tosser who dumps himself at their bar.  The fact that they never witness me complying with my company's Policy of Philanthropy by giving away beer, does not discourage their assumption.  On the contrary, they see this as evidence that I must singlehandedly drink my hospitality budget, at the expense of their personal benefit, and this reinforces their view that my way of life is akin to what they hope God has in store for them when they fall off their bar stool for the very last time.  If I were not an atheist, I would hope that Beelzebub, (to whom God must surely devolve all responsibility for their eternal welfare) will fill their days with a well balanced timetable of cleaning shitty toilet bowls and vomit-filled urinals, whilst trying to do the job of at least two students, who took on bar work to avoid a student loan less than John Prescott's lard budget, but who subsequently forgot that a mutual part  of the deal was a requirement for them to drag their arses out of bed.  If the Lord of Darkness could also give them a generous hospitality budget to ensure they suffer in perpetuity the sort of hangover it is only possible to achieve from a three-day binge with Oliver Reed, then divine justice would have been done.

It's not that I'm unhappy with my lot you understand.  I've been running pubs for almost ten years, though mainly out of financial necessity for the last five.   Yet I do often catch myself wondering if I was ever cut out to run a pub at all.  I certainly wouldn't describe myself as an overly gregarious person.  I like people, and can converse reasonably competently on many social levels, but I prefer to be selective.  I do not enjoy being forced to feign interest in whatever drivel happens to be spewing forth from the Stella Artwatted manic depressive who feels compelled to keep me company during the full two hours of the 3 till 5pm graveyard shift, when I have much more satisfying things to do, like sanitising the ice machine or changing urinal blocks.

I got involved in the licensed trade, as I said, about ten years ago.  I was previously a driving instructor.  My business partner at the time had started dating his local pub landlady at a time when Margaret Thatcher, contrary to her pledge of "home ownership for the masses", had allowed interest rates to hit the bankrupting levels of over 15%.  I was one of those who bought into negative equity.  The business struggled, the car spluttered to the end of its career and my then-girlfriend left me with a mortgage that might as well have been a Third World debt.  I was desperate and in danger of losing everything I’d worked for.  My previous thirty years on planet earth was about to be deleted from some cosmic register if I didn’t act.  My ex-business partner and his now-wife were running a charming riverside pub in a country village where I would occasionally help out and even look after the place when they went on holiday.  I was beginning to think I might be reasonably good at the job when an advertisement in a newspaper proclaimed that an up-and-coming Freehouse Company was desperately seeking Trainee Pub Managers without encumbrances.  I was so unencumbered I was in danger of becoming clinically depressed at the thought and so I applied.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Refresh Your Writing By Leaving The Past In The Past

Refresh Your Writing By Leaving The Past In The Past