SO LONG AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH

 

A THANK YOU NOTE AND A CALL TO ARMS - LET'S CALL TIME ON THE ESTABLISHMENT

MANY of you will have seen me asking for help on here through a fundraiser set up by a group of incredibly, incredibly wonderful, kind and generous people. And many of you have donated to the fund for which I am forever grateful.

Nobody likes asking for financial help, especially when you're my age and have never done so before. I've always been fiercely independent even when I was going through what I thought were the darkest days of my life after my partner's accident. But I was persuaded to reach out and am very glad I did - not just for the help received, but because of the people I have encountered over these last few months. Wonderful people, socialists. Actually walking the walk and helping when they can. One of them is even flying out from England solely to help me drive the hire van back. Just amazing. And another is providing me with a home.

Not all can help. I know. I've had to just share people's pleas for help lately, rather than actually giving them something, and it's disheartening. So many nowadays are in such awful circumstances, barely surviving, and it's just so bloody wrong and makes me so bloody angry. But we all just try to do what we can.

I'd just like you to know that the money is for getting me home and in a home which somebody who I do not even know has offered to rent to me and to help me out when I get there with paperwork and so on. Because what some of you may not know is that I was due my pension - finally - last month, but the DWP has been saying for more than two years, ever since I notified them of my last change of address, that I will get nothing.

They say this is because I haven't paid enough in NI contributions because I was a carer for so long. But this is nonsense. I have worked more than ten years in the UK without the NI contributions I made as a carer. I'm fairly sure they think they can just ignore me because I'm not in the country, as they haven't even bothered responding to my last letters. We all know how heartless the DWP is and how they treat the vulnerable so it really shouldn't have come as a surprise to me - but it did.

I also will continue to work when I am back. I teach ESL and many of my students from here want to continue with online classes, plus I am now registered on two different online teaching sites, so hopefully that will grow. I am confident it will. I'm apparently a good teacher! And of course I will continue to write for Critical Mass; meeting and working with my comrades on the magazine and the daily news has been a real lifeline for me and I am indebted to them for bringing me on board. 

With what I can get from the DWP and what I will earn as a teacher I will once again be independent and will, I hope, be in a position to help others who may need it. Maybe not for a month or two, but that day will come.

I suppose part of the reason I'm writing this is I don't want people to think I am somehow living an okay life here and just wanting a handout. I'm not. Like far too many in the UK and elsewhere I eat about three times a week (no big deal, I'm accustomed to it now) and never use heating or air conditioning. And yes, it does get cold here. In winter I go to bed with a couple of long-sleeved vests on under my pyjamas and a woolly hat and hot water bottle because I can't afford to heat the place. The only time I have had proper meals in the last couple of years has been when I have been invited out to dinner with friends, but as I work long (and very poorly paid) hours this doesn't happen a lot. Also, one doesn't like to forever accept invitations without being able to reciprocate. I'm not complaining, other people have it worse than me. A lot worse. Just wanted to get it out there.

Some have expressed surprise at me wanting to return to the UK when so many wish to leave since Brexit, and indeed, I have permanent residency here so could stay. But apart from my pension, or pension credits, whatever miserly amount the DWP give me, there is a stronger reason for me wishing to return. Since the early eighties I have been discussing what it will take for people to do something about what is happening - of course that was under Thatcher, and while we thought she was evil incarnate at the time (and I still do), even she would not have countenanced such behaviour as we see from the current mob of Tories.

I firmly believe the time has come when people are ready to say 'enough'. Whether it will be in the form of a general strike, civil disobedience, protests, I don't know. But something is going to happen. It's like looking at a ticking bomb and waiting for the clock to run out.

Because time has run out for the establishment. If we don't do something now they will see it as a green light to do whatever they wish. We are seeing it with this British Bill of Rights where little by little our rights will be eroded, and by then it may be too late. It's not just the Tories, it's all the major parties. We've seen the complete lack of opposition from the so-called LOTO over the last two years and it's shameful. People have been so happy to see Mick Lynch speaking out since the beginning of the RMT strikes solely because nobody else in any position of power has been doing so. We need some overhaul of the system and we need it now.

People cannot, and should not have to, cope with this rising cost of living, the inequality we see every day, the increasing racism, the vulnerable being treated as second class citizens, the disgraceful treatment of refugees... It just goes on and on. Surely we are at breaking point. I hope so. And that is a major factor in my wanting to be back. When I was living in Norwich in the eighties my postie and I used to discuss a revolution every single morning. People weren't ready then, and a lot say the British are too apathetic to do anything, but I believe millions are at breaking point. And I want to be a part of whatever happens. However it happens. Whenever it happens.

Because it sure as hell is going to happen.

Thank you and solidarity all.