2 (30) IN LESS THAN A CENTURY VII.

EVERYTHING WAS TO CHANGE.

The seventies. 

In March, 1970, daughter Rosalind came into the world; a lovely little caulkhead (person born on the Isle of Wight). I think I knew there and then that we would stay on the island until we kicked the bucket. Now she is a lovely grown up caulkhead with a smart daughter at Uni and a great young son whose picture can be seen at the end of Post 2 (29). 

Everything was to change. 

In April 1970 the Beatles finally broke up with the departure of Paul McCartney (Lennon had gone in '69): pop groups would never be quite the same again. 
In 1971, London Bridge was transported to Lake Havasu City, Arizona, as proof that the almighty dollar could buy anything. Didn't bother us. Our little family was settled in a charming old semi-detached house at Wootton Bridge and I was firmly established in my NHS post. 

Decimalization was introduced into Britain and overnight our spending money fell to less than half its value the previous day. A cheerful 240 pence to the pound was reduced to a paltry100. Governmental claims that prices would adjust accordingly were bullshit; prices didn't - and never have - adjusted. 
A twopenny box of matches was still twopence after decimalization, but a shilling was worth a mere five pennies, not twelve: QED. 

In 1973 Ted Heath took the country into the European Community (I do not recollect being asked whether I wanted to join, but suddenly the 100 pence to the pound caper made sense). 

The decade had started with the ruling Conservative party struggling, among other things, with the organizational needs of an ever growing and increasingly costly National Health Service. 

Politicians of every persuasion, their civil servants and their advisers (clinical and academic), have forever been disruptive fleas on the NHS hide. It's what they do. 

From a career point of view the seventies is not a time I care to remember. 
There was one bright spot. 

In 1972, Ian Dillow, the then supremo of Wessex Regional Hospital Board's trail blazing (and eventually award-winning) quarterly newspaper, Link, accepted my first light-hearted contribution to its pages: this became a regular column, Barnden's Beat, which survived until my departure from the service in 1989. Life was pretty good. Our baby was flourishing and the youngsters were doing well at school. At work I was deputy to a boss who was ten years older than me and with whom I got along very well. My dealings with the professions and the members of the Executive Council were amicable. In the scheme of things the Clerk would retire at the age of 65 and I, with some seventeen years of management experience under my belt, would succeed him. 

Then, in the words of an old Frankie Laine song, along came junior swinging his little axe. 

Junior was in fact a senior civil servant who came hotfoot by train and boat to the Isle of Wight from London to smooth the way for a huge reorganization of the NHS as we knew it. 

It was to put an emphatic end to any future career prospects I may have thought I had. 
(To be continued.)
HOME. 

Settling in is still taking longer than anticipated, but the back garden trees have been cut back (and down where necessary). The garden is enormous. 

My Leader has been re-covering a chaise longue in the conservatory. Guess who decided to try it out before she was finished? 
More when I can take it all in.