Postal traumatic stress.

Am I the only person in England who cares about the Postal workers, it felt like it today.
After many of your calls this afternoon I can see why members of the CWU feel abandoned and lonely in their struggle for fairness. I cannot believe how heartless Lord Mandelson is, I cannot believe how devious the Royal Mail are only agreeing to arbitration if the posties withdraw their threat of a strike.
I know there has to be modernisation, I know nothing stays the same, I know that we have email and junk mail and all sorts of electronic gadgetry, but where do humans fit in. Are we not the most important part of the equation or have I got it totally wrong?
I wanted Arthur Scargill to talk to me today about the comparisons of the miners strike and CWU’s attempt to look after its members, but we couldn’t get hold of him. We talked to a contemporary historian instead who told us, without any bias that the notion of bringing in 30,000 strike breakers was as divisive as it gets. The police having to protect the people and the scabs. Families pitted against families, a tactic designed to weaken the workers.
The legacy of Union hatred is out there. Thatcher’s children don’t remember the miners fighting to keep the pits open, Thatcher’s generation are totally unconscious of community, her legacy is found on every street corner. Disaffected kids with no sense of community, the ‘spolt’ generation, the ‘lost’ generation, the young people with nothing to look forward to except yet more alienating toys.
I will carry on fighting for the dignity of any working man/woman. Why? because I really do remember when life was communal and people laughed and shared a joke. When kids really did fall over tin cans and have plaster on their knees. When intergenerational life was not a socio-political term. When we waited for the phone to ring instead of instant calling. When we had patience. When walking was about looking and listening instead of scurrying with heads down as earholes are stuffed with earphones cutting off everything around us.
I remember when seats were given up to the elderly, when childrens stories were scary and lullabys induced sweet dreams. Who knows what a lullaby is now?
The Posties, like so much of our culture, are being sidelined for profit and machines. I am ashamed of my generation for it’s lack of gumption, for its refusal to see that, despite what the Iron Lady said, there is nothing wrong with a noble u-turn, indeed that is precisely what is necessary now.
I have joked that everything wrong in my life is Thatcher’s fault, now it seems less of a joke. As our society splinters around us like the cracking ice in Antartica, at what point do we start caring for each other again? When will we be prepared to stand by each other instead of watching the greedy inherit the earth. I thought it was meant to be the meek who got the goodies, now the meek, as always, are shafted.
I am no political pundit, I am not a journalist who has all the answers, I am an old lady with memories of my childhood, my teenage, my twenties and thirties, I can remember walking out at 3.00 in the morning watching the sun come up over the embankment and being so thrilled I could hardly breathe, now early morning activity is sometimes a risk not worth taking..
I love talking to my framily on Skype, I love writing on my computer, but its only part of my life, I well remember a real life before virtual reality took over.
Enough already. I await Thursday’s possible strike action maybe common sense will prevail.