My mother surprised me many years ago by telling me that I had an inferiority complex, surprising because I didn't associate her with being a psychologist but then I suppose all mothers are really! I mention this because I may be about to confirm this diagnosis. All my life I have had the uncomfortable feeling that 'them and us' was a major factor in my life. There was always someone who had the power to control my life!
This is nothing new of course, you have often read me rabbiting on about the medieval 'Chain of Being', a list in which the station in life of everything from God at the top to stones at the bottom was classified and whatever your position in the list you were locked into it for the whole of your life. Anyone who has been to Higham will have seen the pub named The Four Alls and will be familiar with the sign which shows a King, a Bishop, a Soldier and a Farmer. “I rule all. I shrive all. I fight all. I pay for all”. The whole feudal system was built on this structure and much of our history describes the efforts of ordinary people to get some of this burden off their shoulders. Their efforts span many centuries, from the Peasant's Revolt in 1381 to modern industrial strikes.
My question is whether we have made any progress. Thirty years ago when we had finished paying for Hey Farm and I was on track to be the first in our family to have gone to university I would have said yes, this is an improvement, but of late I am not so sure. Looking back, the first warning sign was when Harold Macmillan told us 'we have never had it so good'. Then Harold Wilson told us that devaluation would not affect 'the pound in our pocket'. Since then I have watched the gap between the rich and the poor widen and now we are in a position where we owe so much money we are told that we have to accept austerity and while I haven't seen any recent estimate of the income gap I have no doubt it is widening rapidly because it seems to me that the burden of debt reduction is falling on those least able to pay.
Is this just my inferiority complex kicking in? Or is my assessment correct, like the pub sign, we are in the position of the farmer, 'we pay for all'. Is there a modern version of the Chain of Being at work? We are told that in the next financial year, £800 million will be cut from the Social Care budget. What does this say about those least able to fend for themselves, the old and the infirm? Are they still at the bottom of a chain of being, slightly above stones, but not much?
The Four Alls.
