Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 39 Comments

The elephant in the room

There is a lot of political and media focus on certain carefully framed questions at present in the UK…

  • Why are so many parents keeping their children from attending classroom education?
  • Why are there so many autistic children now compared to in the past?
  • Why are schools having to divert so many resources away from core teaching and into special needs support?
  • Why is there such rising demand for Child and Young Person Mental Health Services?
  • Why are so many young people unable to work and pay taxes?
  • Why are we spending so much on disability and carer benefit support? Why is it so easy to claim……

I will say it again, these are CAREFULLY FRAMED. All designed to support a narrative about the pressure this puts on businesses and hard working taxpayers. It’s like the framed questions and narrative which is being pushed about how immigration is causing unemployment, the lack of affordable housing, the breakdown in communities and public services. As a result many in our society now find themselves very much labelled as problems, a burden on others….

I find myself increasingly feeling at odds with the direction of travel the country is heading in. I guess I’m not the only one increasingly feeling like our voices are being drowned out.

Deep sigh….

In all this, in all the political, press, tv and social media coverage I’m not hearing three issues ever being discussed. I guess because they don’t fit in with the CAREFULLY FRAMED NARRATIVE. The large elephants in the room.

Just how difficult, stressful the process is, just how many hoops you have to jump through to try and claim any sort of financial help, disability and carer support. And when you get that support it is at best mo more than the bare minimum, it is NOT a life of luxury.

Child and Young Persons Mental Health Services are stretched to breaking point. It’s a service that has been cut back and underfunded for years. Huge delays in accessing services, services spread way too thin. Again it’s also a nightmare trying to get a young person registered for these stretched services. In our case it took two and half years. A process designed to discourage use. Far too many miss out on the help and support they badly need.

In the UK, as soon as a young person hits 18 they are signed off the support service. There is no equivalent adult service. With Hawklad his Care Lead wanted to hand him onto another service to continue the support after he reached the age threshold, but there was no service to hand him on to. So he was signed off. Support ended. To the number crunchers and spreadsheet decision makers, he is now classed as FIXED as he has been signed off from support. How many young people, how many families suddenly find themselves with no support, no help, no one to turn to. How many don’t even get the support when they were younger. The question shouldn’t be why are so many young people unable to work, why are so many listed as …… it should be why are we LETTING so many young people and adults DOWN.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 34 Comments

What they need

Kinda sums up the Yorkshire weather this week…

Foolishly I listened into a radio phone in as I drove towards home. I think the show was supposed to be a discussion about the proposed disability benefit cuts but had rapidly become a ‘this is how you parent’ rant. Caller after caller jumped on a populist bandwagon. Far too many young people are receiving benefit payments rather than being FORCED to work. Mental Health issues, autism, adhd, you name it were modern day fairy tales allowing the youth of today to stay in bed, play games and be PAMPERED….. ‘In my day’ the rants continued, National Service and a good clip round the ear was the answer.

Not one young voice was aired.

Not one Health Professional voice was aired.

Not one parent voice was aired who had any experience in supporting a your person with daily, life affecting real needs.

I would have called in but strangely the show never gave out a number as the switchboard was jammed, I suspect with even more ‘in my day’ tirades….

After thirty minutes of this madness I switched off and drove the last few miles in stony silence.

This is supposed to be 2025 and it might well just have been Victorian times.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 36 Comments

Sport

Windy walk along the North Yorkshire Coast.

Spot the intrepid Anglers….

Clearly Precarious Cliff Fishing is popular in Yorkshire . Later in the day I was participating in another dangerous local sport.

Cowpat Dodging.

We were trying out one of those new, changing colour LED Frisbees. Problem is that our garden isn’t big enough to properly test out the spinning discs aerodynamics. So Hawklad stayed in the garden and I drew the short straw, jumping over the fence and into the Farmer’s Field. Now we had a proper chucking distance between us. Problem is that earlier in the day, that very field was festooned with Cows, Cows doing Cow stuff…. Lots of Cow Stuff.

Trying to catch frisbees amongst the billion fresh cowpats is real high stakes sport.

Especially high stakes for me, brings back bad memories. A much younger version of me was playing a village cricket league match. Many village cricket strips are beautiful, immaculate, pristine. Not this particular one. It was a farmers field with some well worn matting layed roughly in the middle. To be fair, this farmer had clearly tried to remove as many cowpats as humanly possible, but one or two had been missed. Trying to take an heroic one handed diving catch, I scored a bullseye, landing directly in the biggest and freshest of cowpats. Actually I didn’t land in it, I actually slid through it…..

Let me assure you, cowpat really really really stands out on cricket whites….

It was UDDER chaos.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 37 Comments

Summer of 69

Trip to see the wonderful Bryan Adams. The last time I saw Bryan, I was still in my twenties, wow where did those years go. Looking at most of the crowd, I bet there were quite a few thinking the same.

Odd times back then. I had been with this girl for nearly three years, about that time we had started talking marriage and kids. Planning for the future. We went to see Bryan starting to plan for the long term.

Yet just a few months later, it was over. Life happened and we went our separate ways. We parted well and vowed to stay friends, maybe try again if the right moment came. But staying friends was maybe the problem. We could be friends but never really developed into best friends and soul mates. Careers took us in different geographic directions and we ended up seeing each other only once in the subsequent few years. A nice restaurant meal around the time a certain Bryan Adam’s love song was never off the radio. I remember almost asking her if she wanted to try again, but couldn’t find the words and I wasn’t completely certain. From a mutual friend, apparently she thought about asking the same thing but likewise didn’t. That was it, haven’t seen her again, decades have passed. No idea where she is now.

So last week when Bryan played that love song, it took me briefly back, I had completely forgotten about that time in my life. To a relationship that came close but never quite worked out for both of us. No regrets, just hope she did find the one, someone who could be her best friend and soul mate. Someone I was never really going to be.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 38 Comments

Dog walkers

Couple of hours to ponder life as Hawklad takes an exam at a local college. Passed quite a few dog walkers along these tree lined avenues. A couple of thoughts struck me….

Many of the dog walkers looked so stressed out. Polite but no many smiles. Some talking on phones, some head down looking like they had the weight of the world upon them, some purposely keeping their distance.

Yet every single dog looked happy. Tails wagging, some carrying sticks, some chasing balls., some diving in and out of the undergrowth. All keen for attention and a stroke as they passed by.

Something might be going on here….

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 41 Comments

Storm Farage

A peaceful walk in a Forest. But it’s not always this peaceful. It took the Forest Rangers quite a while to deal with the aftermath of the last storm which hit the area a few months back. Lots of tree damage still evident.

In the UK there is a new word hitting the dictionaries. One which has several meanings. The word is FARAGE. Often found in the phrase ‘Nigel FARAGE is a …..’

FARAGE can mean to some – a wise and gifted political orator who is a man of the people.

But FARAGE can also mean ….

a Charlatan…

a Dangerous Opportunist…

someone who feathers his own best…

someone who tells others it’s wrong to be a part of Europe, has denied the right of his countryfolk to have free access to Europe yet keeps his own European Passport, enjoys unlimited access to Europe for himself .

someone who screams immigration is bad/foreigners are taking all our jobs, filling our schools and hospitals, YET is married to a French Woman

someone who bemoans Europe for how it’s wastes taxpayers money yet then keeps his lucrative European provided pension for life…

someone who is a fascist…

someone who is a racist…

someone who is a right f#@### w#@@#£#

The word FARAGE can also been a family commitment. Hawklad is one of those souls who struggles to find fault in others. Yet with Nigel FARAGE he gets very frustrated, very angry. ‘How can people vote for him, how can they not see through him…’

Once the idea of FARAGE being our Prime Minister seemed like a joke, but then we did get Johnson and Truss. Sadly now his party are increasingly winning local election seats. Unbelievably it could just happen. He could be in charge in a few years time.

That thought horrifies Hawklad. My thoughts are unprintable… Hawklad has made me agree (I didn’t take much convincing) that if that disaster ever happens, then WE will seek to leave the UK. See if we can move to say Ireland or France or Germany or Switzerland or Canada or somewhere that will have us.

All because of a nasty storm called FARAGE.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 26 Comments

Small city

Some readers of the New York Times will appreciate the geography lesson that went along with a recent entertainment review. A review of the Gary Oldman play I mentioned in the last post. Helping its readers they described York as a ‘small city 210 miles north of London…’. Maybe they could have added ‘strangely that the USA’s largest city by population was in fact named after a Duke of this small English city and a small English city which was founded over 500 years prior to that former small New Amsterdam east coast of America trading post was ever dreamt of’. Or maybe they could have further added that it was ‘a small European city which was once the political centre of the Roman Empire’. Although at least one Glossy Las Vegas Hotel probably claims that distinction now as well’.

There might be some form on those type of heritage claims… Trump’s Special Envoy has recently compared the historic and stunningly beautiful Elysee Palace to Trumps Mar-a-Lago Florida Clubhouse.

There are no words 😂😂😂😂😂

But there is a real point here. Quite a few of us often assume that our little part of this beautiful planet is ‘the centre of the known universe’, and everyone will have heard of it. It doesn’t work like that. Life doesn’t work like that. Billions will have absolutely no idea about a provincial small city on an unremarkable island off the west coast of Europe.

Today I was driving towards that small provincial northern city while listening to a radio news item on GRIEF. One recently widowed woman talked about the struggles she was having with banks and large companies, how it was a nightmare to try to change things like joint accounts and pensions. I can so relate to that, even after nearly 9 years and countless communications, still we are receiving letters addressed to Hawklad’s Mum. The Widow added that she often felt like she was going crazy. Her world had crashed to a halt yet when she spoke to people at the banks and companies, it felt like it was business as usual for them. The world was still turning and she had been left behind.

That’s so true, I so understand that. I can remember trying to sort things out with banks, I felt like a wreck, time had stopped, yet I could see and hear the world continuing as normal all around me. People paying in money, sorting out loans for new cars, new houses. Staff talking about holidays, television and nights out. Couldn’t they see me, but why should they. The vast proportion of those I could see and hear had no idea who I was, no idea what I was going through.

Only now can I truly see this.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 33 Comments

Oscar Winner

Not often do we get the chance to see a Best Actor Oscar Winner ply his trade in a theatre. Add to that, to get to see him act locally in a beautiful small theatre which dates back over 250 years. On Tuesday evening we got to see Gary Oldman perform his one man production of the Samuel Becket play, Krapp’s Last Tape.

A wonderful experience and Gary Oldman is staggeringly good. He chose our local Theatre to return to the stage for the first time in 30 years because in 1979 this was where he started his acting career.

It was a play and a haunting performance that made me think about life, some poor choices, missed opportunities and the realisation that time is a finite resource. At some stage I won’t be able to say anymore ‘I will get it right next time’.

Strange I don’t get these deep metaphysical thoughts when we see the Christmas Panto here.

It behind you…

No it’s not…

(If you haven’t seen Panto then that won’t make any sense….).

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 42 Comments

Calm needed

A shed load of calming thoughts needed, a few minutes thinking Switzerland.

The latest madness to add to the ever expanding simmering pot of mayhem comes from the US Health Secretary, Robert F Kennedy. I can think of a few F words that would fit perfectly there. In his words ‘Autism destroys families’.

Absolutely staggering. ‘Destroys’ implies burden, something intrinsically bad which needs isolating and eliminating. Implies the desire to remove from day to day life. This kind of language lays the seeds for Fascism.

I’m sorry Mr F….. Kennedy, what actually destroys families is the lack of meaningful support, it’s the constant fighting the system, it’s the ill informed, hurtful and dangerous comments made by deluded self absorbed politicians. Sadly Mr F…. isn’t on his own in the political world in thinking this way, we have them here in the UK.

Mr F…. Kennedy you are so WRONG. It has been and continues to be the best ever privilege to be a part of a happy, loving Autism Family. Every day I learn so much, see so much beauty, experience so much wonder, togetherness and LOVE.