Memory loss – or is it just forgetfulness?
You might think it’s a simple enough question and why i might be asking it, but as we get on in years the black spectre of Alzheimer’s looms large – even if I wasn’t a good enough football player to have the potential damage caused by headers as a worry.
So why ask? Well as I lie awake in the dead of night I find myself thinking about my Mum and Dad, my childhood and I’ve realised a number of things: namely, that I don’t know much at all about Mum and Dad, where they came from or who they were – besides that they were Mum and Dad, Mum a Cheadle girl and Dad a Stockport lad. That got me thinking about my relationship with my kids and how much they know about me other than I’m their Dad. So I’m planning writing down my earliest memories in some kind of order in an attempt to uncover my childhood history and hopefully pass on some Brookes family history for my nearest and dearest. And here’s the rub – there are holes in my memory. The ‘Cheadle’ readers amongst you will know of ‘Webster’s’ – the toy shop on Cheadle Green (a young boys idea of heaven) but who had it before Mr and Mrs Webster? I can see his face in my minds eye but can’t remember his name other than his surname began with ‘B’. How about the name of the Butcher at the end of New Hey Road? I went there for a pound of Simpson’s sausages often enough but can’t remember his name either – other than it also began with ‘B’. This will be a work in progress for a while I think, especially as I struggle to remember things and may even feature here on my Blog one day. We’ll see.
But let’s stay on the theme of memory loss for a moment or two and remind ourselves of the mass loss of memory that seems to be plaguing UK politics at the moment:
Boris Johnson and his cabinet of Cretins who have either forgotten or are (more likely) ignoring the fact that they are responsible for as many as 250,000 (a QUARTER OF A MILLION) deaths if you add up the deaths due to Covid-19 that they own up to and the number of excess deaths incurred as a result of the NHS being unable to treat others in good time. The vaccination roll-out seems to be slowing, we are still seeing over 30,000 new infections every day, still seeing over 5,000 people in hospital every day and the death toll is rising by over 100 people a day every day! Covid-19 is still doing it’s worst and we need to remember to keep doing all those little things we need to do to try to prevent it getting out of control again.
So then, lets look at Boris Johnson and his Cabinet of Cretins who have forgotten:
Their responsibilities to all those Afghanis who were abandoned in our unworthy rush to get out of Kabul.
Their responsibilities to the Windrush generation.
Their responsibilities to the Grenfell Towers families and all those others living in dangerous tower blocks.
Their responsibilities when it comes to respecting, honouring and abiding by International Law and Agreements – you know the ones I mean – International Maritime Law, the Good Friday Agreement etc etc.
It’s just too easy to add to this list – so here goes:
The Brexit promise of £350 million a week for the NHS.
All those new trade deals to replace the deals we enjoyed as a member of the EU.
All those new hospitals.
All those new Bobbies on the beat.
And don’t forget his glorious plan to save Care! All they ever come up with is to screw the average working person. My daughters both work for the same private Hospital and they have been told they will be getting a 1.5%pay rise this year. Guess where that’ll be going? Yep – swallowed up by the increase in National Insurance.
I know paying for the NHS and Care is now so serious that both organisations are on their knees because of numerous governments’ cowardice when it came to actually owning up to how much it would (will) cost and how it would have to be paid for. National Insurance as it is currently factored in is not the way to do it. Taxing un-earned income has got to be included in the equation, it can’t be right that people on minimum wage or low earnings get hit the hardest when there are people out there raking in fortunes from unearned incomes – rental incomes for instance – basically unaffected. Similarly outfits like Google, Amazon and others who pay no or next to no tax on their UK earnings should not continue to get away with not contributing back into the society that has educated, trained and then provided them their often extremely highly skilled workforce. A windfall tax on them can be more than justified and should be levied on them ASAP.
It’s not just the Tories either – Keir Starmer needs to remember that he is the Leader of the Opposition – AND START OPPOSING! He offers no alternative policies to those the Tories are using to rip the UK apart and further impoverish the working people of the country. I’m ashamed to say that I voted for him as Leader but have since left the Labour Party in disgust at his abject inability to lead.
Similarly the Speaker of the House of Commons – lickspittle Sir Lindsay Hoyle – seems more interested in securing his Peerage than holding Johnson to the truth.
Starmer should line Johnson up at PMQ’s so that he utters an untruth in his response. Starmer should then call out the lie for what it is and when Hoyle takes him to task Starmer should turn on him and advise him that the Speakers Office should be fact checking the Tories in real-time and he (Hoyle) should call Johnson out. If (when) Hoyle insists Starmer apologises Starmer should refuse and then wait to be expelled, as is procedure. When Starmer leaves ALL Labour MP’s should leave and, if Starmer has any sense of tactics and has spoken with the likes of the SNP et al, all other Opposition Party MP’s should get up and go. That will leave Johnson stumped for words and embarrass him in front of the PMQ’s television audience. I can imagine his reaction and would love to see it. If nothing else it might focus the Speaker to getting his Office’s act together and putting in place a system whereby statements made in the House of Commons are checked as they are made and any deviations from the truth are identified and corrected immediately– given modern IT technology even in a place as archaic as the House of Commons that shouldn’t be too difficult.
In closing the memory loss theme let’s not forget the horror that occurred 20 years ago today – 9th September 2001 – when over 3,000 innocent people were murdered in a heinous criminal act of terrorism – and the tens of thousands more who had loved ones stolen from them as result of these atrocities. Also let’s not forget all those who have been killed as a direct consequence since that date and all those who have suffered, are suffering still, from losing loved ones.
I was stood in the reception at BT Grand Island in Manchester, waiting to meet a customer, where Sky News played all day and watched the incident unfold, live on television. The shock of what I witnessed has stayed with me forever. Osama bin Laden and his friends declared war on the USA and had to be taken on and destroyed but taking on the Taliban was a mistake and now, as a direct consequence, Afghanistan is under Taliban control again. Where this will end, if indeed it ever does, no one can say but twenty years on from 9/11 the light shining on humanity continues to dim.
Time to sign off now but I’ve just checked up on the Cheadle Civic Society archive and it was ‘Bailey’s’ – what a top bloke he was, kids browsing the latest Airfix models were always welcome – and he made gorgeous Cornish ice-cream!
The man himself, sitting front and centre at his retirement – and just as I remember him 🙂
And the name of the Butcher was Mr Bickerton – and I remembered that all by myself so that’s a relief – it was just a touch of forgetfulness
Changing tack completely now it looks like the grotty summer we’ve had has come to a close – we’ve been promised thunderstorms for the last week – which didn’t actually happen until last night (9th September 2021) when we had about an hour’s rain and a couple of far distant cracks of thunder. Last week was scorching hot with temperatures into the 30’s but July and August were the wettest and coldest for years. It doesn’t bode well for the winter but we’re well stocked with wood for the fires so we won’t freeze.
We’ve had some lovely Chris Packham moments – living in the heart of the country really does put a smile on your face at times – deer crossing the road in front of you, pine-martens peeking round corners watching you as you approach, red squirrels that are so red they’re a really deep chestnut colour, birds of all sorts – last night we had a pair of woodpeckers in the lilac tree right outside the living room window – and we’ve got a fox in our field as well. The chasse starts next week so we’ll have to make sure our gates get closed.
Please all of you continue to take care of yourselves, Covis-19 hasn’t gone away.
Speak again soon.
Jem
9th September 2021