A note to the Prime Minister

Dear Mr PM

Yesterday my husband laid off one of our best workers. He was loyal, hard working and dedicated. We have tightened our belts and downsized our company to protect ourselves and our business for the past eighteen months. Darren had been with us for four years, he is in his mid thirties, he is not nameless, he isn’t a P45 or a dispensable commodity. He was a married man, with a mortgage, a wife and he is a damned good friend as well as an employee. When my husband told him we had no choice but to lay him off, Darren cried Mr PM but despite his own misery he understood our position.

My husband is distraught, he would be the first to admit he sobbed and I mean he sobbed. He is inconsolable; he laid off a good man and a friend. He shattered his friend’s life, rocked his stability and caused him grief and pain. He had no choice. Me and my husband are not hard faced business people, we are a small family business who have trained at least 5 young men over the past few years to become plumbers. We have sacrificed our time, our energy and our money to build a business we are proud of and that we love. My husband has a conscience, dedication to his work and the men he employs. He is a kind, gentle man.

Why am I writing this to you? Because I hope you never suffer the misery my husband did. I hope you can remember my story. Every day we fret for our future, we are the human face of your country, we are the hope for your country and your ‘Green’ Policies. We have a home, a mortgage, children and our one remaining employee. Think very carefully Mr PM about your decisions. I would hate for your wife to have to hold you whilst you sobbed the anger and the misery of your decisions out of your body. I would hate for you to have to turn to her and say, ‘all my life I have worked long and hard and for what? This!’.

We are not unique Mr PM; this is the country you inherited. It may be useful to you every now and again to remember the words of Yeats, ‘Tread softly because you tread on my dreams’. A country without dreams and hope for the future is like a man without a heart, it is a shallow, worthless, shell.

Yours sincerely

A Grieving Employer

Lest We Forget

Today is Armistice Day. When I was growing up, I remember my Grandmother telling me the stories of my grandfather and his experiences during the First World War. My grandfather was a quiet, shy man. When he was 17 years old, he joined the Cheshire Regiment and according to my grandmother, ‘he changed’. He fought in several campaigns and many of the young, innocent boys he grew up with never came home to the small market town of Sandbach in Cheshire. These included the 16-year-old boy, who my grandfather held throughout the night whilst he shook and cried with fear, asking for his mother. In the morning, my grandfather’s compatriots had to prise him from my grandfather’s arms as he protested that he was keeping him warm. The boy was cold and he was dead. My grandfather hated to travel but he served in Egypt, amongst other campaigns, where he contracted Malaria and according to my grandmother for many years, he would suffer the effects of malaria with intermittent bouts of shivering, sickness and fever.

My grandmother’s stories are my history. One thing I am certain of is that my grandmother loved my grandfather devotedly all her life and when she talked of the changes in my grandfather, she was not bitter - just resigned. She once told me that after his death, she missed every single day, and she lived over 20 years after my grandfather. No matter how ‘difficult’ he could be to live with he was her true soul mate, she accepted the sacrifices he made, and the impact they had on the rest of her life.

Over the years, I have watched friends go to war in The Falklands, Iraq, Afghanistan and serve during the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Now when my own children tell me of their friends going out to Afghanistan (one was the youngest solider ever to go Afghanistan, reaching his 18th birthday just days before he was sent) I know they will come back changed or they may not come back at all. When my own ex husband went out to Afghanistan I worried for the effect it would have on my children, I told a few white lies to protect them, making light of the fact that their father was not even in a war zone and that he was in no danger. It wasn’t entirely true but what could I do? They needed to believe that their Daddy was safe but the truth is, no one is safe in a war zone.

Yesterday students from all over the UK protested against cuts in Student Grants. Do not get me wrong, I wholly agree that every person in this country is entitled to a decent education and the opportunities this education could afford them. Had people like my grandfather never fought the wars they did life in the UK may be very different to today. The damage some elements of the protesting of students caused to the Conservative Headquarters was unforgivable. Where was their respect? I am not convinced that the people who initiated the destruction and invasion were all genuine students. I cannot condone the use of violence or destruction. There are too many people, young and old, who have given and are still giving their lives, their innocence, their limbs and in some cases their sanity, for the sake of others. At 11.a.m. sat at my office desk, I will observe the two minutes silence. One of my thoughts will be that some of the people who wreaked havoc yesterday will have the decency to remember that there are people, younger than they are, facing fear for their lives on a daily basis. I suspect those soldiers do not condone violence either, they just have to live with it daily.