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| The Canal Basin, Stone by Emma Joustra |
Back in Crete after two
cool and refreshing months in the UK, I kept any Brexit discussions
under wraps since where we were staying was so ordinary, so
prosperous, so 'carrying on as if nothing has happened', my current
state of mind is just regarded as hysterical.
Anyway, good things
happened and we made up our minds to enjoy our surroundings, the
lovely woods and farmlands, the canal happenings and lots of nice
waterside pubs to have great pub lunches. We tried out North
Staffordshire oatcakes, plump sausages, pork pies and all the
delectable local fare which is scarcely found in Crete unless someone
brings it back in their cases.
The wedding was a
wonderful time where friends and family made a plan to be there
several months in advance and co-ordinated their time off and holidays
around being in England and enjoying the Peak District. Our
daughters, their husbands and children all came over from New
Zealand, finding holiday cottages and meeting up with old friends in
their limited time in England. K had the use of a little mobility
scooter which tackled the roads around the local town and gave him a
bit of a boost. The wonderful three day wedding celebration was a
brilliant time.
I also found our
equivalent Makers Group in Stone at The Artisan Boutique where
several ladies meet regularly for a knit and natter group on a weekly
basis. We admired jumpers, patterns and different makes and I stayed
for a Taster Session in felt embroidery work on one extra day. What
with that and the local library, a church, nice coffee shops and pubs
all within walking distance, we had lots going on. I was there for
the Farmers Market, explored all the new shops and building project for the exciting Crown Wharf Theatre.
The news for us back
in Crete, as a no deal Brexit looms, is ever more sombre. The British
Embassy insensitively sent out a poster about the difficulties
awaiting us should we dare to come back to the UK if S1 medical care
is no longer available on a reciprocal basis in Europe. It seems
that the powers that be have only just worked out a few of the
consequences of their terrible decisions. We were told to expect a
wait of six months back in the UK to be entitled to normal care under
the NHS and the difficulty in finding a GP was spelled out. Also
that social and welfare care would not be available to us. A gap of
six months in, say diabetes care, cancer treatment or many other
problems would be a death sentence to many. Perhaps that is what
they hope for… to kill us all off. Investing in a property abroad
and having to abandon it (virtually unsaleable in Greece) would still
leave us with tax and bills to continue to pay in Greece, while many
would be without anywhere to live or even with family links back in
the UK. It has to be against all human rights to sweep aside
people's life and status (except in a war situation) by those who are
in no way qualified to make such a decision. We keep praying and
praying for this nightmare to be over and for someone, somewhere to
say that our lifetime of NI payments will still be honoured and that
we are not being punished for settling in Europe when the UK was
happily part of Europe. What would be the compensation for ruining
so many families' lives who could no longer travel to be with parents
or children, travel to find work or study abroad? Problems as
occurred in the aftermath of the Berlin Wall and the troubles lying
in wait for us at the Irish border are only a fraction of the
difficulties we are storing up for the future. The United Kingdom
has never seemed to be so dis-united or on the brink of dismantling. Quite a price to pay for ... "sovereignty" and what did people actually mean by it? What precisely had we given away that needed to be taken back?
But its all been said a
hundred times and many people are still oblivious to this Pandora's Box.
In view of this, I need to
write a thank you note to Europe. It was a wonderful hospital in
Berlin who offered medical help to my brother for leukaemia treatment
when nothing was available in the UK in 1961. The kindest of German
families looked after my mother who was accompanying him, while the British Army took my ailing
brother out for tank excursions. It was France, Austria, Norway,
Portugal and Germany whose students of English came to stay with our
family when we were growing up. It was France who (forgivingly)
offered me my first ever job after leaving college at the European HQ
of IBM. It was European law that took up most of my trade
association jobs on returning to England in 1971 while we adjusted to
decimalisation, metrication and new marketing rules. These
arrangements all took many years to accomplish … so I knew first
hand that a successful withdrawal from the EU would take five years
minimum to achieve and the scant two year Article 50 withdrawal move
would always have been impossible. It was from Greece that my
husband's father came to Edinburgh University in the 1930s, London
where my father in law settled and bought up his family. In the next
generation, my husband's work with shipping companies that took him
all over Europe with roll on-roll off ships. And Crete of course became our home after our retirement.
I think many of us were
guilty of thoughtlessly blaming some new code of practice or
regulation change as “another EU regulation” and blinded
ourselves to the improvements or peace that most of us were living through. We enjoyed all
the good things like easier travel, stable currency, food, educational
opportunities, grants for beleaguered communities and belly ached about trivial things such as losing our
navy blue passport covers and swallowed all the misinformation
regularly disgorged by the media. We did not check our facts, we did
not appreciate everything we had in terms of young medical
professionals serving us, youngsters making good in our midst or the
richness of our life as a vital part of the European project of peace and stability. The
dire effects of Austerity throughout the UK were due to the policies
of the UK government and no one else. Objections to bendy bananas
and maroon passports surely pale into significance to the UK Cabinet
callously legislating for a no-deal Brexit knowing that faceless UK
or EU subjects could die from lack of medical treatment because of
some bureaucratic carve up. How have we really become so hardened and what
kind of society are we blindly walking towards?
Since I typed the body
of this text, Boris Johnson has pro-rogued the next parliamentary
session to reduce the time available for MPs to debate the final
Brexit issues in Parliament. Fortunately, there are plenty of people
up in arms about such an assault on democracy and it isn't just me!
What next?
Ask not for whom the
bell tolls!
