IS THIS OLD AGE?

Wednesday 3^rd August 2016. We’re all going on a Summer Holiday!  Well me and the OH anyway. And just two nights. Apart from being skint OAPs, ourselves and umpteen grandchildren to support, we were unwilling to commit any more time away from the Mother-in-law; we are being called out to her so much these days and it’s a long way from Croydon to Portsmouth, well Hayling Island actually. We did get an offer to extend by one day for a very good price, but by the time we had ‘ummed and ‘ard about the wisdom of another night off the leash, and decided to risk it, the offer was all full up.  

So as we had planned, we arrived at Warners Lakeside just before midday on the Wednesday.  We had paid an extra tenner for an early-book in so as to make the most of the measly time we had. We were allocated a table for meals right in front of the stage, a good view for the evening entertainment, but had to share with an unknown couple.

We spent our first day settling in to our lodge, or log cabin as I prefer to call it (which comes with private gardens and best of all an allocated parking space). We then had a look round the holiday village, full of flowers and various sports to take part in, dancing if wanted (including line dancing), shooting and archery too.  And of course a swimming pool and spa.  Neither of us can swim. We prefer just to walk along the lovely country paths running alongside the creek which leads out to Chichester Harbour with a lovely view over the South Downs. Just the job for us being in dire need of a break. 

A lovely day. So quiet.  No children allowed. Everywhere we looked there were these elderly people…..we are more used to loads of noise and kids of varying ages. What were we doing here? Anyway we dressed for dinner then made our way to the ballroom-cum-restaurant. We had ordered 2 bottles of wine for the table, one Pinot and one Prosecco (we were only there 2 nights and the offer was 10% off on 3 bottles so it had to be done). Our table companions arrived soon after, and proved to be a really nice Welsh couple from Port Talbot, the gentleman (Tony) in a mobility scooter and with an oxygen pack and tubes.

Introductions were made, their lovely musical accents making me only too aware of my harsh  London tang.  Long story short, we got on like a house on fire.  Which is actually the point of this blog. We hardly stopped talking that first night, and it continued the same on the second night.  Tony had been a steel worker in Port Talbot, and they still lived opposite the steelworks itself.  They regaled us with tales of the thick clouds of dust which regularly settled on their house overnight, the loud bangs due to wrong stoking of the blast furnaces, and the cancer and emphysema which had lain Tony and thousands of other workers low due to the conditions in which they were living and working.  Not that the company accepted this, and no compensation looked likely.

At one point I had to apologise for taking a call at the table, and explained about Mother in law.  Eyes were rolled.  They knew all about it.  On top of all the problems with Tony, and Gaye’s own cancer, they were also looking after a Mother in her nineties.  Tales of being unable to get GP and (don’t make us laugh) hospital appointments/parking/transport etc.  . Nightmare stories of no-shows from carers and professionals, lack of equipment, and constantly being on call for Mother. We mutually recognised it all. Tony made us laugh with the story of when Mother was away for a while Gaye came home from her cancer carer support group and found him bollock-naked on the sofa.  When she enquired why?, he replied ‘Because I can!’ And we knew exactly what he meant.  We are a nation of elderly people looking after extremely elderly parents.

Moving on to wider subjects, they told us how they were fed up with local families not being able to get a council house or indeed anywhere at all to live in the area because of the incomers being put there, then their grandkids not getting into schools they wanted for the same reason.  They were fed up with queuing behind people drawing out huge sums of benefit money, who they knew had never worked in their lives, nor had been long in the country, while Gaye had to pay for a much needed operation because she had Tony and Mother to care for, and the hospitals were so busy (same reason) that she would have had to wait many months for the NHS to do it.. 

The Government came in for a bashing from all of us too, Cameron’s complete disinterest in the fate of working people (in fact we all thought he doesn’t even believe there are really any Brits who are unable to have holidays, or really need food banks.  Making people wait for pensions they have been working for all their lives, then calling them Benefits!

And so it went on.  By the end of the two days, in spite of the comedian on the first night being absolutely abysmal, and totally inappropriate for the audience of elderly people and special needs parties which Warners caters for, we had, I believe, come to a new understanding that working-class people all over the UK are having similar difficult lives, and consider themselves an under-class with little hope of improvement for themselves or their children.  Us and Them rules everywhere; our lives in London and Port Talbot may on the surface have been so different, but the underlying day to day survival stuff, and the lack of hope for any improvement in our lot this side of the next millennium, was depressingly similar.

But having recently ‘retired’ myself, and my OH being ‘semi-retired’ (still trying to pay off years of austerity), it kind of hit home that this is all there is for the likes of us peasants. Is this is what life comes down to for the impecunious majority? Is this Old Age?