This present UK government has no idea of the affects of their policies on ordinary people. when they use the term working people it has no relation to most people who work in lower paid jobs. To them anybody who is out of work has only themselves to blame. This from a government made up of people who have never had to face the problem of where the next money is coming from. They have never had to face the daily grind of having to look for work. There is no understanding of how their policies affect communities.
As Charlie Brookes told his son Mark in my book A Ceremony of Innocence set in the 19080's during the Thatcher Premiership while discussing the need to strike against the policies of Brents Shipyard. Charlie is the Chief Shop Steward at Brents, his son an officer in the British Merchant Marine and, though he would never think of it in those terms, upwardly mobile, mixing in circles his father would never contemplate. They disagree about the need for a strike.
"It is still a them
against us situation," Charlie remarked wearily. " The employers
think because they put up the money, they can push the workers around exactly
as they please. It is like going back to the last century. If they could ban
trade unions they would and there is no doubt that this present government will
if they can get away with it. Managers always demand the largest share of the
cake and ignore the major contribution of the workers. Every so often they let
us share a little of those rewards which we have earned with little help from
them. When times get hard, all the talk of sacrifice falls on us not on them.
It is like a little old lady throwing breadcrumbs into a pond to the ducks.
They get plenty when she has food to spare but only a little when times are
hard and maybe none at all when times are desperate. Secure in their world of
financial strength, they spout their sadness at our plight but state that the
burden must be born with servility because we are dispensable. All the years
when things have been good, they have sat in their plush offices, eaten their
expense account lunches and basked in the reflected glory of our hard
work."
" Yes," Charlie
went on, waving aside Mark's protest, " it is my friends sweat, exhaustion
and broken bodies which has allowed them to live in luxury. Now things are
getting hard, you don't see most of them selling their cars and their houses to
make ends meet. They sit back over their brandies and cigars, saying ' let the
workers suffer the cuts, they can take that kind of pressure and besides, they
are not important '. The managers can sit in their enclosed community, never
having to come down the hill and smell the odour of fear or taste the
bitterness of poverty which will engulf us before long. Well, we aim at least
to show them that we think we are important and we are part of the same
community as they are. Let us see how many ships they can make without us or
how much money they make if we are not there. If nothing else they will be made
to take our opinions seriously when they next look into the future and see it
only through their standpoint."
A Ceremony of Innocence a novel which contains adult themes.
Two brothers are at home on
holiday much to the delight of their mother. It was the first time they had
been at home together at the same time for several years. Their father is the
union convener at the local shipyard and he leads the men out on strike against
proposed redundancies at the same time as the brothers arrive home. Though on
the surface both brothers support their father, underneath the surface there
simmers the stew of disagreement. Mark, the elder brother, is fresh from months
at sea as a ships officer and refuses to compromise his upwardly mobile
lifestyle or his friends for the sake of family harmony. He lives for the
moment and grabs any opportunity for happiness. Jim, freshly graduated from
university, supports his father passionately and without question.
Can the brothers find a way to
compromise their positions and fulfil their mother’s wish for a happy few weeks
or will their anger boil over into open conflict and family break up?
A Ceremony of Innocence by Edmund Gubbins. is available from www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk and www.createspace.com as a paper back. From the Kindle Store at Amazon for downloading to e-readers.,
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