THE END OF AN ERA.
The nineties. The
decade started with the departure of the largely disliked poll tax
and the resignation of Margaret Thatcher.
Within a week John Major became prime minister. (Whoever chose him, apart from his spouse and
Edwina Curry, is a mystery to me. I always thought he looked and
sounded like a serial train spotter.)
It was around this time that I
became part-time (five mornings a week) secretary of Age Concern, Isle of Wight. The office was in the seaside town of Ryde (one room
at the top of a steep flight of stairs) and the honorarium barely
covered the cost of parking my car in the nearest council car park.
I
gave it three years before advising on future local expansion (which
included moving - lock, stock and barrel - to the county town,
Newport). I then got out. Truth to tell, the last contact I had with
it was to buy (just after we moved here) a rather nice bed-settee, at
a very good price, from its Newport shop.
Nationally, Age Concern
later joined forces with Help the Aged to become Age UK. The merger
was a sensible one. How many old folks' groups do you need in a small
country? I was, however, in no way surprised at recent allegations
that it has been advising the elderly to purchase overpriced products
from firms who are paying it commission for the favour. From
experience I wouldn't touch Age UK insurance with a barge pole, but
that's very much a personal thing. It is, like every solvent charity,
a business. Say no more.
In 1992 the Conservatives headed by John
Major won the general election, the Channel Tunnel was opened and
sterling was withdrawn from the ERM. In 1994 the Church of England
(to the gnashing of reactionary teeth) ordained its first women
priests. There was then little of import until 1997 when New Labour,
led by Tony Blair, gained a majority of 179 seats in the general
election: it was the end of socialism as we, who remember the likes of
Ernie Bevin and Manny Shinwell, knew it. In the same year, Britain
handed Hong Kong back to the Chinese and Diana, Princess of Wales, a
loose cannon much loved by the populace (if not by older royals and
her ex husband), was killed in a car crash in Paris.
National
empathy with Diana soon became apparent. Flowers were piled five feet
deep in front of Kensington Palace (proof, if it were needed, that
there are more out than in) and the royal family, forced to
acknowledge, albeit grudgingly, the warmth of public feeling for the princess, returned from Scotland to attend her funeral. An
estimated one million people lined the route: no more than a handful
of them would ever have met her.
Finally that year, almost as an
afterthought, Scotland and Wales voted for devolution. A profoundly
sensible move.
In 1998, Mo Mowlam moved the whole of Ireland
towards civilized government (and hopefully an end to violence) with the Good
Friday Agreement. Her reward was a typically political one. She was shunted
out of the Northern Ireland job by PM Blair and his Machiavellian
sidekick Peter Mandelson.
Poor old Mo really should have known: it
doesn't pay to become too popular in politics.
Maybe the urge to move
was in the air, for we were living in a pleasant bungalow in Wootton
Bridge (where we should have remained to this day) when family voices
enticed us to examine the joys of sea views from a flat in Ventnor.
We moved. Once a day the mail boat to the Channel Islands could be
seen through our patio doors and once a year the Round the Island
Yacht Race straggled by in a few sail-powered hours. There was
little else.
We liked Ventnor; but by early 2000 we were ready to
move on.
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