Noblesse oblige

"It's the mind set".

We are in the midst of a campaign "Clean for the Queen". The idea is that people should go out and collect up the rubbish,and the litter that collects because some louts are too slovenly not to drop their fag packet or crisp packet on the street.

The slogan "Clean for the Queen" was dreamt up to coincide with her birthday and fantasises the idea that as head of state, we her citizens could do an enormous amount of good by tidying up her Kingdom.

Now there is no doubt that a little national collaboration, given the right sort of impetus has a lot going for it and it could be one a much needed antidotes to the creeping isolationism of our citizens as they singularly group around their smart phones, lost to the environment and society around them.

But Clean for the Queen, come off it. 

Clean for your neighbourhood. Clean for the little old lady living down the road. Clean for your own sense of self respect but not as a tribute to a time worn anachronistic family whose only claim to fame is that which birth bequeathed them.

The amount of resentment was summed up by a woman in tears, consumed with guilt that her father who she loves has to struggle to live. Who's government sponsored (tax payer) help has been withdrawn, who worries night and day if he is alright, who articulated the gulf between his condition and the woman on the throne who wouldn't know how to pay for her shopping, who has someone to help her dress each morning not, as in the case of the disabled old man but because it is protocol. This mother of two small children was so incensed by the inequality so very angry that some buffoon in the Palace or Whitehall had thought, in these days of bleak austerity for an ever widening section of society, to invoke a sense of noblesse oblige.

And yes this sort of thing is why I write my blog.

Yes  I was emotionally moved listening to a woman on the radio telling her story of her father who at 90 has little or no help in his life and how guilty this made her feel as she tried her best carrying the responsibilities of being a single Mom but living sufficiently far away from her Dad and unable to give him the care she so desperately wished she could. It's the pathos in stories like hers and the unnecessary inequality in our society which makes me write.

The other day I was looking for an address in Canning Town. I knew the area since I had worked in an Old Peoples Home in the area. I used to joke that I wasn't one of the inmates. 

The Home has been flattened and a block of offices built in its place. Where are the oldies who lived there, who's caring for them now, does anyone care !!!

Ejecting the old out of hospital to prevent bed blocking is an economy only if they have somewhere to go and people to look after them. With the modern family needing to have mother and father working full time, sometimes doing two jobs apiece, is it any wonder the kids are going feral and more to the point who is going to pop around to keep an eye on the old person just discharged from hospital now the government have cut back on home care.

Must I also bury my head in the sand whilst, what we had become to believe was a civilised society with props in place to care for our old if and when they could no longer care for themselves is taken away because of budget constraints whilst we refuse to tax the multinationals or our own rich but are happy to spend billions on Trident or Overseas Aid.

Mrs Thatchers dictum regarding "standing on your own feet" is all well and good but when the feet won't carry your weight any-more, who will be the crutch of last resort ?