Be cruel to be kind.

Coffee mornings, love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re a growing phenomenon in our society. Old people, you see; these days we generally live to well beyond our useful expiry date. What’s more most of us have ceased making those ‘useful contributions’ to our ‘egalitarian’ state, or so I’d thought.

We were wondering, at our last gathering, when this government (any government) might venture to ‘suggest’ that we should, like the sick and disabled, be ‘encouraged’ back into the workplace, if only to force down the wages of the already low paid. Market forces, you’ve got to ‘love’ them, haven’t you?

Bizarrely, most of us (we oldies) still seem to take ‘comfort’ in the words of the Daily Mail, The Sun, The Express, papers with their ‘eyes on the ball’, the 'voice' of the man and woman on the street. God preserve us! Thanks to these ‘quality’ tabloids our radars have been finely tuned to spot and home in on the divide and rule ‘stories’- I say ‘stories’- that these sort of rags like to excrete on a daily basis. Go on, give us somebody new to hate, someone to blame, someone worse off, anyone different will do! No wonder we all seem so eager to cut any ties with Europe and slink off into a miasma of racist, sexist (and any other ist you’ve got) putrefying fug.

Are you insane, no, of course we don’t rant like this, not outside of our coffee mornings anyway. When was the last time you actually spoke to a member of the older generation? Daffodils, the weather, the cost of groceries, that’s what we actually talk about.

So I was naturally more than a little surprised when Mavis- usually so quiet and content in ‘her’ corner, until the biscuits start to run out- started to list people that she personally didn’t much care for. Just between you and me, I think she’s still secretly fuming over MPs expenses. Just sort of started to mumble, she did, more to herself than anyone else, we thought, but before too long she’d captured the imagination of the whole group. Time to bite my tongue, I thought. They’re all, more or less, within my friendship circle so obviously I didn’t want to offend anyone- get me going and, well, best not even go there…

The surprise was really how much of the list- and, my God, it was a long one- I found myself nodding along with. No-one present had any time for the car racing youths that have come to blight Aylsham, or the police apologist that ‘leads’ the ‘Safer’ Neighbourhood meetings. Those of us that had ever bothered to attend were in agreement that honesty was not his strongest point. A number of regional characters were earmarked for particular distain, but I’d prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt for the present.

I’d thought the subject might soon peter out- they usually do, especially if one of those, ‘let's reignite the property market,’ programmes starts- but the list just went on and on. If nothing else, I was forced to concede, life under New Labour has herded the population into more camps than I ever thought possible. Fractured doesn’t even begin to say it!

I think I might actually have dropped off at one point- easily done in a sun-warmed lounge, with an endless supply of sweet tea- but the old bladder had other ideas. In the time it took me to wander along the corridor and back the subject had moved on a pace. I re-entered to a far more heated debate on the state of the Education System- full circle, I think, stemming from the earlier ‘boy racers’ comments- and how seriously it had been undermined by a long line of Education Secretaries. I was more than a little surprised that not a single member of our group was prepared to offer a counter argument. Lining up, they were, to condemn 'sweet-talking' Ed Balls. Even I almost felt sorry for him at one point. But obviously that wasn’t going to last long.

Then the name Chris Woodhead came up. Woodhead, I thought, do they mean the Chris Woodhead, the one that ate, breathed and slept hatred for his ‘fellow’ human beings? Aparently he’s ill; I’d thought- hoped really- that he was somewhat beyond that.



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Apparently he’s got motor neurone disease. I believe that he’s even been quoted as having said, 'I'd rather die than live.' ‘I am clear in my own mind that it is better to end it than continue a life that is extremely frustrating for me and onerous to others who are living with me,’ is what one paper quoted. Full circle, Chris, full circle! What goes around comes around!

At this point the conversation took a bit of a dip and we spend ten minutes or so discussing at what point in our old age we would rather just slip into that long final ‘sleep’ from which there is no return. My God, ‘count me out of any ensuing suicide pact,’ I was thinking.

I gather, from what I was able to unearth about the odious Mr Woodhead, that he is seriously thinking of ending his days when his memory really starts to fail. Now, my memory isn’t as good as it used to be- somewhat worrying at times- but I think Chris’s memory is already somewhat suspect. As ever, the issue remains very clouded; even before the motor neurone kicked in he was never given to moments of open-minded contemplation. Minds don’t come much more shuttered than that, I seem to remember thinking.



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Well Chris, if you’ve really made up your mind, so long and good riddance, I say! You were never one for listening to a second opinion anyway. Just one thing though, before you go- and I do think it’s important that ‘dear’ ol’ Chris is made aware of this historical fact- it won’t be the first suicide that you’ll have caused, will it?

Was it ever documented, how many teachers were driven to suicide thanks to the sort of hateful regime with which Mr Chris Woodhead shackled the Educational System? I could be wrong but I don’t recall the ol’ so-and-so ever showing any great remorse over those deaths. Collateral damage, maybe Chris, eh? You’ve got to be cruel to be kind? A blinkered view of the 'wider' picture, no doubt.



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We may be the older generation, the soft and cuddly, the worldly wise, too old to bother with all of those grudges and stuff. But, it occurred to one or two minds if there shouldn't be just cause for celebration, some time in the not too distant future, a jolly old knees-up! It was Mavis again who brought us all back down to earth- kept us true to the more acceptable face of pensioners- 'We may live in an angry and divided country,' she said, 'thanks, in part, to people like Mr Woodhead, but we're better than him, and I, for one, will not be celebrating the ol' sod's passing.' Made us all feel a little uncomfortable, it did.

Then she went on to tell us that she'd seen Faeries at the bottom of her garden.