Inter Generational Warfare

Our Media driven world would have the current generation believing that previous ones are entirely to blame for the employment, shelter, monetary, and climate change problems they face. I agree some individuals are: the silent power brokers of our world who hoard money like they can take it with them when they die. The vast majority of the populace never had it easy however.

My first job barely covered my train fare and rent plus two meals a day so I had a second working in a pub in the evening as well. As my main job involved commuting to London, that meant I was up at 6am and didn’t finish until midnight. I learnt to sleep on the train without missing my stop, mostly.

I was in shared rental accommodation for years after my parents divorced when I was 18. I got no say over whom I was renting with and would often come home to find I was living with yet another stranger.

I had to use credit at the end of the month for food for the first 8 years I was employed. I was relatively unusual amongst the kids I grew up with to start full time work at 18. Most started at 16 or even 15. I’m the only one on my mum’s side to get a degree which I studied for whilst working full time, paying for it myself with no cut rate loans.

I didn’t qualify for a pension until I was in my 30s thanks to previous employers deeming me too young to pay into theirs or due to needing to be employed for over three years first. The amount I did manage to put away has had to stretch further and further as the retirement age goal posts keep getting moved like the proverbial carrot in front of a donkey and that carrot now looks more like a radish. Yes, the current generation will have a steeper climb on this front but to blame the workers who went before you is a victory for those minted institutions and corrupt power brokers who’re succeeding in setting us against one another so we don’t go after them.

Yes, the multipliers for home ownership have increased horrifically but it was never the easy ride some seem to think. When I did eventually manage to buy a 1 bed flat, it was only made possible by the post Thatcher market crash and a desperate seller. I was ‘lucky’ to have had sound financial advice to have a capped rate mortgage as I saw friends go bankrupt thanks to double digit interest rates that just kept climbing for years. 

As an aside, the reason we all have an aspiration to own our home in the U.K. was a pup sold to us by Thatcher’s governments so they could pay us one of the lowest state pensions in Europe. We need that home to downsize from in old age to live on as a consequence.

Some other things are dramatically cheaper relative to income now eg clothing. I remember my mother having to patch my jeans and cover their scars with embroidery and colourful patches as they had to last long enough to save up for the next pair. I learnt to sew, darn, embroider, and cook from her. My gran taught me knitting. These skills are very valuable as they save you heaps of money over the years. Handicrafts are very zen too.

I learnt to fight for better rights and to never let anyone say I couldn’t do something just because I was female from my Dad- don’t get mad, get even being a recurring mantra.

I’ve fought for both my own rights and those of others by being an activist all my life. My first act of ‘civil disobedience’ was age 10 when I helped plant trees to save the planet. Yes, that’s right, another myth you’re sold is that it’s only the current generation who have/are campaigning on environmental matters. I now focus on local and disability issues mainly as watching humanity desecrate the Earth broke my heart.

For those of you sitting there thinking I’m moaning, I’m not, I’m sharing my history, my truth in the hope the more young people come out swinging, be it strategic voting at the ballot box, be it to  learn to check out facts for themselves, to hold their MP’s feet to the fire or to commit acts of protest. I saw how an individual can change the world by watching the women protesting at Greenham Common and seeing almost weekly student marches. Do not fall into the trap of supporting censorship (cancel culture) for fear of offending. No positive societal change ever came from being nice. In fact, it mostly came from people being downright annoying and offensive, if not aggressive about it.

To the young women reading this, take no shit, tell those who tell you how to dress, to catch a partner, or god help me, ask you when you’re going to settle down and have kids, tell them to go fornicate themselves with a very loud voice. Don’t wait until your menopause to get angry or to no longer care about what others might think. 

To the young men, don’t listen to morons who think women are lesser or that being a man is about possessing your partner. Do not define yourselves solely in terms of what job you do or how much stuff you can own. Learn to be a decent human being and the rest will come. Oh and if you want to know what women are looking for in a guy, ask some women. In fact, gay, straight or however you are, be the best version of yourself you can be. 

Yes, I sound old. I feel ancient and that’s on a good day. I hope you’ve read this as having the good intent I meant. 

Female Specific Medicine

Watching Mylene:Miscarriage and Me on the BBC tonight is cutting me deeply. The following is deeply personal but I think my story and those of many more women needs to be heard.

I was in hospital for the third time for investigation into continuous bleeding in my forties (2x 18 months of being told to wait a bit longer to see if it stops by itself by numerous GPs). The female gynaecologist came to see me after the surgery to say they still didn’t know what was causing it. She then added that I have a very rare birth defect that would mean I’d never carry a child to term and that it wasn’t suitable for resectioning. She then walked away. That was it. No follow up for me to ask questions. No sympathy (my notes stated I wanted to avoid a hysterectomy as I hadn’t given up on wanting a child). No counselling. No explanation as to why the previous two male gynaecologists hadn’t told me. 

To this day, I still have no diagnosis, am still listening to consultants guessing as to the cause of the bleeding and speculating that it shouldn’t re start once I have my existing Mirena IUS removed as I’m now post menopausal (now in my 60s). I’d heard the same when I ended up having emergency investigative surgery during COVID lock down two for further bleeding. I was a year overdue having the IUS replaced thanks to GPs ignoring the advice of not one but four consultant gynaecologists. Conclusion? The implant had run out of progesterone. No **** Sherlock! 

‘Treatments’ leading to use of the Mirena are best described as medieval. 

I’m currently waiting for day surgery to remove my current IUS with no intent to replace it and yet another consultant talking about hysterectomy like it was having your toenails cut.

So here I am, just another statistic on how truly appalling female specific medicine and research is. 

Bite Back

Is there anything funnier than accidentally using human toothpaste when cleaning your cat’s teeth? Well yes, it turns out there is: watching your partner using the malt flavoured cat paste 😈

Covent Garden

My maternal grandfather was a horticulturist and, as such, had a commercial attachment with Covent Garden’s flower market, particularly for his roses.

Decades later, my mum and I enjoyed many days out in the square. There was a particular bistro in one of the former storage cellars we particularly liked. We’d eat listening to the conversations of others and often to music wafting in from a street artist.

The covered market was a treasure house of clothing, jewellery and ornamentation. Then the tiny shops including finding Lush by following our noses, long before Reading had a branch.

Covent Garden tube station is an experience in its own right. Arriving on the platform gives no sense of the ascent to come. We never did brave the stairs with their warning upon the number of steps, using instead the lifts with their trellised safety doors.

The mural painted on the Royal Opera House never went unremarked. 

Later still, a memorable night out with friends involving home made cake in an unusual book and art shop.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0d4s5dm

Truss-t Me

Truss-t me, I have a plan

No financier e’er scanned

Albion’s bankers weep

In envy, such its bang.

Truss-t me, market falls

Like failed rafters,

Expected pro tem,

Will yet ring stock bells

Truss-t me, I have a plan

To save my own skin,

A sacrificial chicken

Make my loyal liege man

Fiona Wilson 

14/10/2022

Pocket Story

It was a dreich day, yet it drew me outside. I pierced the sodden air, listening to the soft susurration of my hosiery and inhaling the petrichor. It was a good day to be alive.  

Mental Health Testimony

I’ve had bouts of anxiety and depression since my teens. I’m what’s called a functioning depressive which means that most of the time you’d never know.

Since breaking my spine, you can add in panic attacks relating to any and every thing medically related including just sitting in the waiting room of the vet. This is not necessarily the classic hyperventilating. Mostly it is waves of increasing anxiety and fear. It can make me impatient (okay smart arses, more so 😂), unable to focus properly on what you’re saying to me, and irrational. A bit like PMT on steroids. 

If you see me self neglecting or self harming with food then I’m already in depressive crisis. If I appear hyperactive and a little manic, my anxiety is spiralling. After a bout of that, I crash and go to ground. A bad attack, say from dental treatment, leaves me depleted for days.

That friend who’s the life and soul of the party might be breaking inside. The one who’s thoughtful and quiet might be scared. It’s not about doing things for them or fixing them, it’s simply looking them in the eye and asking “are you okay?” and making sure “fine” really is fine.