My wife Annie got a letter today from the government department that deals with pensions. Annie turned 60 a few weeks back, so she's now eligible for the pension she's been paying for all her working life. If you've read the Home page on this site, you'll know that she and I have given up our home, friends, and business in Cornwall in order to move three hundred miles to Tenby in south-west Wales to look after my aged infirm father. I should stress that, although I can work anywhere because it's all done online, Annie actually gave up and closed a successful catering firm which she ran from home in Cornwall. Gone, kaput, finished with, website taken down.
We've never been what you'd call rich. We've managed to live well considering how little money we have; we don't go hungry, in fact we eat remarkably well. We don't get cold in the winter. We have been known to panic for a while when we need to put a couple of new tyres on the car, but we've always got by. We like it that way.
Annie has been getting what is called a 'Carer's allowance' because both she and I are classed, accurately, as carers for my father. It's not what you'd call a fortune, about fifty quid a week. Kind of petty cash really, when I think just how much Annie does for my father. And when I think that the going rate for proper care in a home is in the region of £700 per week. That's week, not month; I did a double-take too when I read that one. As I said, this morning she got a letter; it told her that if her soon-to-be-payable pension is more than the carer's allowance, (It is, of course, as you'd hope it would be, much more,) then she would no longer be eligible to receive the carer's allowance, token amount though it is.
In other words, this woman, who has paid all her working life for her pension, and who has in the past six months or so given up her business, her network of friends, her whole way of life to look after my poor old man, is not going to be given her fifty quid a week. And let's face it, it's like beer and fags money; it does not in any way reflect the level of care she's giving my father. He's not without funds, and he pays for anything we buy in order to care for him better, but this never affected the carer's allowance and why would it? Annie gets an allowance, not for buying stuff, but for the fantastic emotional upheaval she's undergone, and continues to suffer; looking after an eighty-nine year old is not trivial, trust me. And while fifty quid a week was always only [shrug] better than a poke in the eye, the government have no qualms about taking even this paltry contribution away from a woman who must, singlehanded, be saving them countless thousands a year.
The next time you see a politician on the telly trying to convince you that they actually give a fig what happens to you and yours, do me a favour and remember this little story. Never mind what you see on the news, with the fancy graphics and all; this is what actually happens, on the ground, right now.