Grumpy old woman

This morning I was listening to the Today programme on Radio 4. George Osborne was cock a hoop about savings made from the welfare budget, savings made by extending the pensionable age. Now I happen to be one of those women. When I started work at 17 I expected to retire at 60. It seemed a lifetime away and it was. Over the years I have been one of the cohort of women who worked because they wanted to and then because they needed to. Relishing independence and women's lib, we took opportunities to try and build careers, looking for equality with men. As the cost of living rose, house prices hit the roof more than once, and childcare became a commercial business. So many of us had no choice but to work to provide security for ourselves and our families. I guess I knew that my state pension age would alter from 60 to 63 some years ago. Suddenly in 2011 that changed to 65 and a half. Talk about moving the goal posts. I have signed the online petition. I do recognise that I have advantages that others may not have, in that I own my house, but I have no professional or occupational pensions. I am divorced. No opportunity to build up a pension pot in response to these changes. No bus pass at 60, though I can buy a senior Railcard. Unfortunately society and employers aren't dealing with this very well. Grandchildren tend to arrive once you are in your sixties. Parents become elderly and need more support. Women in my situation are chasing jobs that should be for the young ones who need to work and establish themselves. Perhaps there would be less of a care crisis for the elderly if my cohort of women weren't still in employment. And then there's the issue of part time, low paid work as skills don't get updated. In my scheme of things five and a half years worth of a state pension, plus a bus pass, represents a substantial amount of money. I have never earned a lot, but I have kept working. I certainly don't want to hear the Chancellor crowing about how much he has saved by taking away more than five years of my pension and everyone else's in this situation. I realise I have become a grumpy old woman!

Mothers Day

I absolutely understand why my children see this as a commercial opportunity they don't want to take part in. I acknowledge the occasion because my mother expects me to and I don't want to hurt her. Observing the dads and children out buying flowers and presents yesterday brought it home to me that this isn't part of my life as a mother. It also set me thinking about my own personal take on the role and responsibilities. In the last year or so of job applications after my archive traineeship I have been asked more than once if the variety of work on my CV shows a lack of commitment. I have been part time, full time and self employed since I moved here in 1993, in a variety of places, some I have returned to with a different role and job title. Sometimes I have had a combination of employers and self employment. This approach to earning a living hasn't been about a lack of commitment. Quite the opposite. My commitment has been to my family. It's been the search for stability, job security, a better salary, more hours and flexibility when needed as a single parent with three children to care for. I have also looked for work that was going to interest me, knowing life is too short to be doing a job you dislike. So this post goes out to all the mothers who put themselves through the demands of training courses,job application forms,scary interviews, disappointments when they don't even got an acknowledgement,and work they compromise themselves to do all in the hope that they can provide a secure present and a better future for their children.

Ghosts of Christmas past

I am watching A Muppet Christmas Carol, the fire is lit, the cat is sleeping. The box of Thorntons chocolates is open, as is the first bottle of Prosecco. My family are here, helping to prepare food, relaxing, catching up and appreciating the opportunity to be together. I am acutely aware that there are many other Christmas scenes. I follow the poet Lemn Sissay on Facebook, and he is sharing the preparations for special Christmas day celebrations for young care leavers in Hackney and Manchester tomorrow. What a brilliant way of celebrating the spirit of Christmas. The recent tragedy in Glasgow is heartbreaking. This time of year focuses joys and sorrows like no other, with its emphasis on the importance of family. Such a loss at this time of year is unbearable to contemplate. Christmas also focuses the memories, tracking back through the decades. The first Christmas without my dad, when he was working in Nigeria. There's a serious black and white photograph of my sisters and I round a tinsel Christmas tree. We recorded a tape to send to him, reel to reel on a Uher, with our festive wishes. My only memory of that time is of a deep melancholy, yet I know my mum would have been doing her best to make it a happy time back home in Manchester. Then there was our first Christmas term at boarding school,unhappy and out of place. A three day plane journey took us to the other side of the world, to join our parents in an surreal equatorial and exotic world. A post colonial Christmas at the club and jungle longhouses to visit, shrunken heads hung like baubles in the rafters. As I continue to search for a proper job and contemplate temporary unemployment in the new year, I am also acutely aware of the struggle for employment and a sense of worth that many of the young people I know are experiencing at the moment. I know I'm worth it even if no one else seems to! But that comes from years of experiences and excitements. I have a secure home and a lovely family. I look at some of their situations and recall the decisions I made in my late teens and early twenties that must have been difficult for my parents. And coincidentally Christmas was the time of year when things came to a head. The break up with the drug dealing boyfriend. The decision to drop out of my first university after a term. It all worked out in the long term, and here I am writing this. So as the year turns and we move towards 2015 I take heart from the memories of Christmas and wish all those who read this the best of times.

Stop working for free?

At the Louder Than Words Festival in Manchester last weekend, writer and journalist Barney Hoskyns discussed his new book about Woodstock, the town, not the Festival. He also told us about his Facebook campaign, Stop Working for Free. He introduced me to the concept of algorithmic hypercapitalism. I have been thinking about his Stop Working for Free campaign all week. This time last year, the first Louder Than Words Festival gave me opportunities to write about music and share my words on line. Melanie Smith, founder of Mudkiss and amazing photographer, asked me to write some reviews with her. The first went up on Mudkiss and since then I have published them through Louder Than War and Penny Black Music. When I look back on the past year I am overwhelmed by the opportunities I have had, and it's thanks to people like Mel and John Robb and John Clarkson that I have been able to do it. All this is done for free, in the same way that the online magazines are produced with hard work and no financial rewards. I have been on the guest list for most of my concert reviews and have been sent CDs to listen to, so I'm not out of pocket. It seems that we are living in times that value celebrity rather than creativity. This is hard on those who have managed to earn their living through their creativity and interests up till now. Creativity has often benefitted from collaboration and cooperation, sharing and caring among practitioners and friends. It can't all be about fees and invoices. I see the same issues in the heritage, museums and archives sectors. This is the area where I am looking for paid work, but volunteering is the trend. Of course volunteering has a value beyond the financial. It can bring many benefits to the individual and the organisations involved. I used to be a complementary therapist, and there were always debates on whether you should make money from ill health. Therapists deserve to make a living, and to cover the costs of their training courses. One way round the issue was to have a sliding scale of charges. You could also make a conscious choice to do something for free. In the past I have been part of local economic trading schemes (LETS) and have occasionally swapped treatments for paintings and pots. I was once a part of a workers cooperative, still a successful business over forty years on. We were trying to change the way we worked together, the business model and the way we were rewarded for our work. I have friends who work as freelancers and writers. Some have earned a reasonable living from their creative work, but like Barney Hoskyns, their working lives are now less secure. Big organisations are taking advantage of a culture of interns, of people who can do something for nothing for the sake of enhancing their CV in their own struggle for paid work. It can be a cynical experience. Over the years I have chosen to do what I am interested in as a volunteer, whilst doing a variety of day jobs to earn a living, some more relevant to my interests than others.I have helped run events, an arts festival and a youth theatre. I have been a school governor, a tour guide and even been on radio and TV to promote causes I care about. Paid work, creativity and interests all came together for me last year when I was a National Archive trainee. I am disappointed that I can't find paid work in that field, but I am enjoying volunteer opportunities to keep my spirits high. Those of us who use social media are all helping market, promote and advertise events and people we find interesting free of charge too! There's an issue around value and price in the creative world. Favours among equals, or giving someone a head start by encouragement and involvement, are all valuable ways of working together, priceless lucky breaks and connections. If it's freely given, and if you don't feel taken advantage of, then it works. Perhaps it's time to seize back value and forget price.

If I knew then...

This is a photo of a pile of stuff ready to be packed up and taken to the new flat where my youngest son and his girlfriend are going to live. On top of the pile is a dhurrie, one of two given to me as wedding present over forty years ago. They had asked if they could take them to the new flat, and I had got them ready to go. Thinking back to that June day in 1974, I realised that I was even younger than they are now. The marriage didn't last, but I have never regretted it. I had a home and stability after the unsettled years of boarding school , with parents on the other side of the world. I got through university with a degree and bought my first house in those early married days. I have watched the process of the flat search in Bakewell, not known for its cheap and cheerful property prices and with a general reluctance on the part of landlords and estate agents to let to young people. Finally they have found one, a great attic space in an old Georgian building. My sensible inner voice thinks that they would be better off continuing to live with me. If they paid me a proper rent and bills, my own financial anxieties would be lifted too. But it's important that they have their own place, learn their own lessons and enjoy their independence. Walking down the steep hill between my house and the town centre I watched a young child running faster and faster, as his mother called 'Be careful! You might fall!' It brought home to me how we give our children negative messages out of fear and hard experience. If I had been warned off my early marriage, I wouldn't have taken that risk. There are many other points in my life where an apparently foolish risk taking took me somewhere I didn't expect to be. Even last year's leap in the dark to become an archive trainee wasn't a sensible move. After all, I had a permanent full time job at the time. I haven't got one now. So taking a chance or two in life is an essential part of growing up and enjoying the process. If I had known then, what I know now, then I would never have had the chance to learn what I now know!

Manx for the memories

This series of photos were taken in the Isle of Man on a recent visit. I have been going there on holiday to visit family and friends for most of my life. As a place and a landscape it is part of my soul. It's been a Viking raiding post, an internment camp in both world wars and a popular twentieth century tourist destination. The boarding houses made way for the financial institutions and parts of the island are now showing the effects of the recession years. As a child I met Manx friends of my aunts who understood and shared their sense of their own past and folklore, inspiring me to explore those subjects in my own life. I have taken my children on holiday to the island . My godmother still lives there. I've been to the TT and the Manx Grand Prix. I have seen the fairies at Fairy Bridge. I've heard the story of the Black Dog of Peel Castle, the Moddy Dhoo. I've climbed the battlements of Castle Rushen and sung 'Ellan Vannin' in the Glue Pot in Castletown.I've watched the seals in Peel Harbour,collected delicately coloured snail shells from Niarbyl Bay and been amazed by the Manx crosses in Maughold churchyard.I've been to Tynwald and seen the oldest parliament at work.As a child I met Gerald Gardner, king of the witches,at Witches Mill. I have favourite rocks and and views. These photos hold the ghosts of past visits, holiday memories, loved ones. The island' fortunes ebb and flow. The three legs of man land on their feet, whichever way you throw them.

Fire and Rain

Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone. Early one morning, nearly ten years ago now, I got a phone call from my friend Joyce's sister, letting me know that she had passed away. There was relief in the shock and sadness.She had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour about eighteen months before. She was told to go out and do all the things she wanted to do before the symptoms caught up with her. She cashed in her pension and took a lump sum on her life insurance.She went to Venice for the last time. She made the most of life whist she could, until she became confined to bed at home and in a hospice. She was a remarkable and interesting woman and a great friend to me and my children. We met through an alternative health course I was teaching as an evening class. We bonded over many shared interests, and had some excellent adventures. It was through Joyce that I appeared on the Antiques Roadshow with my arts and crafts fire screen.Her mother had been an early star, with her Wheeldon exhibition tea pot,later sold to buy her council house in Liverpool. What a story! So we were treated as VIPs whenever we went to see it recorded. I still see us in the crowd if they show some repeats. One of our shared interests was the music of James Taylor. This was at a stage in my life, when as a single parent on a limited income, I was unable to go to live music concerts. Babysitters, transport, tickets, logistics - it was all too complicated.We discovered that James Taylor was appearing at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. It was sold out, but the box office suggested we phone on the day for late seats. We did, and we got two. Her husband came to babysit, we jumped in the car and raced over to Manchester for an unforgettable night. Over the next couple of years, we saw James Taylor twice more. I knew she had planned her funeral, a humanist service. I knew there would be a James Taylor song, and I expected to hear You've Got a Friend, the soundtrack to our friendship. I was caught up in the lyrics of Fire and Rain, 'I always though I'd see you again'. She had chosen 'Shower the people you love with love' and I try to live up to it. One of the sad things is that she has never appeared in my dreams, as far as I know, I never have seen her again, unless you count those occasional and accidental glimpses on an old Antiques Roadshow. The reason I am writing this is that I have just booked to see James Taylor in Manchester next month.Friends gave me a ticket voucher for my big birthday, and it has covered the cost of one ticket. Too expensive to invite anyone to come with me, so I am going on my own. Except I won't be alone. I know it will bring back so many memories. Joyce and I should have celebrated these big birthdays together. This is one way of doing it.