General Chat

Brenda


I only know what it was like up to 1967 ....................... but it is ridiculous to think that even then, basically, we had to leave the UK for OH to get a job


and he is one of the highest educated men you could meet.

He has a PhD.

He is a good researcher

He loved to teach

BUT ................. he left the university system to teach in a private school, and that meant that there was no way to get back into the university system at that time.

He was hampered in moving to a better public school by

a) his accent (Cheshire),

b) the fact that his degree was not from Oxford or Cambridge, and

c) my accent (Lancashire) would have weighed against him being made a House Master, or Head Master.

He also loved doing research, that was why he got a PhD ................ and most boarding schools, including the one where he was teaching, didn't allow staff to be in the school buildings, using laboratory facilities, out of school hours or in vacs.

The only way he could get into a university system was by emigrating to the US, and then moving up here ....................... where he got the best of both worlds.


He had a full teaching load, and a full time Research programme going, with funding to hire a technician and support graduate students. And he was as happy as a sandboy, and still is!! 10 years after retiring, he still has 2 offices on campus, and still teaches.



He was not unusual in having to leave the UK to get a decent job, using his talents and education.

And it only got worse during the 70s, as shown by the number of people with similar education who left the UK during those years, benefiting countries all over the world.


I had literally never heard an "accented" voice on the BBC until we returned to the UK in the 1980s ................... all you heard was the "BBC accent". Never ever a local accent.

We were supposed to change our accents from the unwelcome local one to an undistinguished one ............ I never did!


You can still hear that I am from Lancashire ...................... almost 46 years after leaving the UK!


I think the removal of such a "class" social system might also be credited to Mrs Thatcher, to a certain extent.

I don't think 95% of people think she did ruin this country

At ours they do .

Do parents pay for breakfast club Muffy? I thought they did :-) :-)

MT said she didn't want a fly past or alying in state,
Would love to know what else she has written down for instructions on her funeral.


What she wanted NOT what DC or anyone else in the cabinet wants.

Thats how this cermonial funeral came about because of DC..

He didn't wait until the family were in London just shoved his oar in as usual.


I don't think 95% of the British public are going to like paying for the funeral of some who has ruined this country.

I don't live in an affluent area but at daughters school ,breakfast club is almost entirely made up of children whose parents start work earlier.

Supercrutch I think it should be remembered that it was not just London that had poorer areas.
There were many areas all over the country during that era that were seriously deprived and in poverty

They possibly can afford it Sue and would love to just have a normal goodbye,,,,,,its just protocol,but if the state allowed this and it was our mother we wouldnt deny her a lasting tribute from the government I dont think.



All thats missing from her funeral and a state one ,is that there will be no flyover and no lying in,,,,,,which is good as it will save the purse recorded est £800.000.But the cost isnt just the funeral,its for everything that it entails to act it out....

Sue in Leeds


As I've always understood it ............... the costs of a Ceremonial Funeral or of a State Funeral are borne by the State


It is the State honouring someone by giving them the funeral ..................... and not the family asking or demanding it.


so it is quite a precedent for the Thatcher family to be offering to pay fro part of it.


The family is closely involved in planning either a State or Ceremonial funeral ................. over here at least, and I assume it is the same in Britain!

I agree with everything Sylvia says,having lived through going decimal...the pound in your pocket...How the pound was devalued!!

We had regular power cuts.the country was in a terrible state when she was elected.
Think a lot of people forget that,or rely on what they've been told...but Im old enough to remember the struggle trying to make a living in the 60s and 70s.

We had no benefits .no single people getting houses,but we had to get on with it.
Whatever you think,she had a hard job to get the country back to a heathy state and as now,cuts have to be made which can never be popular but necessary.

Just a quickie before I go to bed re the milk.

If as you say if was the parents' responsibility to provide milk and not water or pop then surely we should stop all childrens' breakfast clubs as the principle is exactly the same.

Also it's unfair to say that nobody NEEDED it because some children certainly did in the poorer areas in London. Just the same as the childrens' clinics provided malt and cod liver oil and the absolutely yummy orange concentrate as a necessity.

Personally I would think Mark, Carol and her grandchildren will have a tough enough time at her funeral.........................if I had had all the comments and aggro they must be aware of while planning my own Mums funeral I think my head would have exploded.

Are the Daily Mail going to pay the whole amount for the funeral.

News has just said that the Thatcher Family will donate money towards the cost of the funeral..
Personally I think with all the money Mark and Carol will get from the will they should pay the whole amount.

Guinevere more than one person has said it is a state funeral and Sylvia is quite right - it is not - vast difference

Sylvia, I agree with all you've said, And yes I remember far too well what life was like before Margaret Thatcher,
People who where able couldn't get out of the UK fast enough, Some of my own close family included

Roy

Well said Sylvia, perhaps someone seeing things from a distance was able to see things more clearly. Love her or loath her she will not be forgotten.

The Daily Mail!!!!! The Daily Fascist


Im off to bed ;-)

Lyndi


Thank you!


I know it might be a somewhat unwelcome view that I have .......

................ but it is the one from a distance, and the way in which she was, and still is, seen by the world.

G ................

several people on this thread have been saying "State Funeral", and how she didn't deserve one ................ as though it was "fact"

It is not.

Errol


I know you weren't criticising. However, I did think it worthwhile repeating.



Sometimes, I do wonder what state Britain would be in now if she had not come along!


Bet not many people remember all the mine strikes, dead people left unburied because of strikes, picket lines outside hospitals that people could not cross to get treatment, businesses stifled.

Britain was being left well behind by other countries ................ including such minor ones as what used to be called the "colonies"

Canada and Australia, in particular, were booming, largely as a result of all the people emigrating, businesses moving out of Britain, etc.


The first elements of all that were showing by the time we left the UK in 1967 ................. and I still had family and friends who kept up up to date with what it was like in the 70s, as well as the couple of visits we made back.

It wasn't very pleasant to see!