Letters to the Fenland Citizen editor

Two small services did go ahead

The Royal British Legion and military veterans conducted the Act of Remembrance, both on Sunday, November 8 and Wednesday, November 11 at the Wisbech War Memorial. Wisbech Town Council had informed the general public that there would be no formal Remembrance Parade or Service as in other years due to the Government guidelines and restrictions regarding public events.

Some social media posts suggested the The RBL had cancelled the Remembrance service, which is incorrect. The Town Council is the authorising authority for public events and The RBL are the custodians of the Act of Remembrance, therefore the RBL does not have the authority to conduct a public event or to cancel one.

Both parties have been communicating and working for the best part of this year to ensure that we could recognise Armistice Day, producing many plans to keep up with current COVID rules and guidances. After the Prime Minister’s announcement regarding the latest lockdown, the town council decided that they could not authorise a public event while protecting people’s safety.

The RBL also advised its veterans and members not to parade at the Wisbech War Memorial but to stand in the safety of their own homes wearing their military regalia at 11am on each day. The chairman and a very reduced representation of veterans conducted The Act of Remembrance at the War Memorial on both days as individuals, to represent its members.

Toby North

via email

They can use gadgets but not knives and forks

Have you ever had the despairing thought or conversation with someone else that has ended with the soul-destroying “where the hell are we heading” when you look at the state of society today question?

If you have, you will understand this letter, if not, you must be one of the millennial young parents that think it’s a smart-phone, iPad, television or teacher that must rear your child for you.

There has been an alarming rise in young parents sending their children to school not toilet-trained, so much so, that school teachers are having to explain to a child how to use a toilet as well as English Maths, Geography, etc.

I spoke to a pair of grand-parents a few weeks ago, and they told me of how, when their young grandchildren came to visit for a Sunday roast, that they were sat at the table to eat, and that the child would pick up their food with their fingers.

Obviously, their elder relatives would have tried to instil some kind of table-manners to the young, only to have been met with a cacophony of tears and tantrums.

But as the grandparents turned away, and then back again, they were shocked as to how the child couldn’t use as knife and fork, but could tap away on an iPad without a care.

Some of these new parents are so lazy, so inadequate, and so ignorant, other than the previous mentions. Have you ever seen so many children being pushed around and sitting in shopping trolleys, but not in the seats, but in the actual trolley itself, putting their outdoor shoes all over the food they are buying without a thought of contamination?

Or, even the same parents that are too lazy or bone-idle to feed their children themselves, that they teach children to eat food in supermarkets and then hide the packaging?

This nation has just remembered ‘the fallen’, 75 years after the end of the last world war, that end came 27 years after the world war before it. How the hell would this nation survive today, tomorrow, next week, or next year, if this country faced the threat of an invasion by armed forces from another?

Ashley Smith

March

A gloomy outlook for next year

By Christmas, two million people will have lost their jobs to COVID-19 – that’s on top of around 2.5 million already in receipt of benefits.

Despite the previous theory that further education guarantees you employment, it’s clear that 2020 has broken the mould and skilled and unskilled will all be sharing the dole queues and food banks for the next five years. Clearly vocational training was a bad idea as those people are now finding they are not flexible and able to transfer their skills .

In one documented case, 947 people applied for just one minimum wage job as a restaurant server.

Ironically, despite their solid work ethics, most of them had degrees and other high qualifications. Needless to say most never got a reply.

Out of those few that did, it went down to a choice of two for interview, only for lockdown to close the restaurant to render the advertised job position closed. However, what we must remember is that there are many more who don’t appear on benefit statistics as they have more than £16,000 in savings , while some self-employed don’t qualify so the true statistic is anyone’s guess.

Currently 900,000 people from hospitality are on furlough. As we get into 2021, mortgage and rental repossessions will explode as interest rates rise. Homelessness will double.

Retailers are already reporting shop lifting is on the increase – this will correspond with theft and crime.

The police will have to pull out their vast, well funded resources to cope with the demand before people take the law into their own hands and start waving offensive weapons in the street etc with a total breakdown of society and law and order.

The housing market is stagnating into negative equity, so that means the boom is turning to bust after Christmas.

Mark Burton

Chatteris