Just the usual reminder that my monthly surgery is today, Saturday 16th November: 10.00am to midday, at Woodbridge library.
Do drop in with any issues, problems, suggestions etc. Everyone is welcome! No booking necessary (but if it is very busy you may have to wait)
The Woodbridge Remembrance day – with its emphasis on remembering the dead and wounded of all times and countries, and its acknowledgement of the damage sustained by civilian populations – was as lovely and moving as ever.
It is particularly plangent to be remembering the war dead in a small community like ours, where we crowd into our small market square, where all the names on the memorial are surnames of people you know, and the soldiers who attend may have just finished a tour of duty in Helmand.
I notice that this year opinion is turning against poppy wearing, with people seeing it as a regrettable exhibition of militarism. I have heard people say “I will not be wearing a poppy next year.”
People who find the poppy symbol objectionable should maybe remember that it is only recently that we have fought wars with career soldiers. The bulk of deaths in WW1, WW2 and beyond were conscripts or volunteers – the ‘lads who will never grow old.’ Ones like ourselves, our children, our grandchildren. Ones who were poor, or rich, or middling, who had ‘a head for figures,’ were ‘good at art‘, ‘clever with their hands,’ ‘a scream‘, ‘going places,’ ‘an old head on young shoulders,’ ‘a bit wild,’ ‘dull as ditchwater.‘ Ones who were clever, funny, ambitious, capable, or nothing very special but loved by their family.
Most of all they were ones with all sorts of skills and potentialities and plans for a life that was snatched from them willy nilly.
And they came from all around the world. I have even seen marker stones in Chinese in the military graveyards of northern France.
I will be wearing my poppy next year – the centenary of the start of WW1.
I will wear it to remember my great uncle Bertie who was orphaned aged 6, grew up in a workhouse, and, too old to be conscripted, volunteered to fight because his sister, my grandmother nagged him into it – and who was blown to bits on the fourth day of Third Ypres. There was nothing of him left to bury.
I will wear it to remember my grandfather Howard – a working man who (again) volunteered, ended up in the RAMC, received a direct hit when carrying a wounded man to safety and who had a hole in his skull for the rest of his shortened and hard-working life.
I will wear it to remember all the millions of lives cut short or damaged in the name of war: people from the armed forces and outside. People from all across the world. People of all religions and none.
If people are ‘too cool’ to wear a poppy or choose to see it as an exhibition of militarism, they should maybe stop and think that it is very much a symbol of all those who volunteered or were conscripted. Those who died or were damaged in the name of causes they knew little of, and whose lives finished abruptly for reasons that they knew nothing about.
These days it seems a bit too easy to forget this.
Visiting the Woodbridge branch of ISCU (the Ipswich and Suffolk Credit Union) on Thursday, I was particularly excited to see they were offering a Child Benefit Loan and Savings Plan.
Money is very tight these days and it can be desperately hard to know where to turn when your child needs a new pair of shoes, or the electricity bill lands on the doorstep. People may be tempted to go to a Payday loans company, or a loan shark and find themselves in a spiralling vortex of debt.
Loan sharks are unlicensed moneylenders who charge very high interest rates, sometimes using intimidation, harassment, threats and violence to frighten people who can’t pay back their loan. They often pressurise people into borrowing more from them to repay one debt with another. They are illegal. Payday lenders operate legally and offer short-term high cost loans which can also get the borrower into an expensive nightmare – repaying many times more than they borrowed. Their operation is under considerable criticism from MPs and Martin Lewis, the Money Saving Expert warns against them.
Many people would be better turning to a credit union, which is a savings and lending co-operative, owned by its members. You can join ISCU if you live, work, volunteer or study in Suffolk. Members can pay wages, benefits or pensions into their account – small sums are welcome – and can borrow money at varying rates depending on membership and savings.
The amazing thing about the ISCU Child Benefit Savings and Loan plan is that it provides a guaranteed loan AND savings plan for anyone who is getting Child Benefit. If you join the credit union and arrange to pay your Child Benefit into ISCU you can apply for a £400 loan immediately. The repayments are £12.00 weekly over 37 weeks. Total interest will be £44.11, so you will repay a total of £444.11 (26.8% APR).
If you have 1 child and your child benefit is £ 20.30 per week you will also be building up £ 8.30 per week in savings, and so when you have repaid the loan you will also have a lump sum of £ 307.10.
If you have 2 children and your child benefit is £ 33.70 per week: you will also be building up £ 21.70 per week in savings, and so when you have repaid the loan you will also have a lump sum of £ 802.90
If you have 3 children and your child benefit is £ 47.10 per week, you will build up £35.10 per week in savings, and so when you have repaid the loan you will also have a lump sum of £ 1,298.70
This loan could even be used to help someone out of the claws of a payday loan company or loan shark, and leave them with money in hand at the end of the loan to guard against future emergencies.
Of course, if you just want to save money, ISCU will be equally glad to see you.
Opening venues days and times vary. The WOodbridge branch operates
Thursdays: 10am – 11am at the Salvation Army Centre (at the very bottom of New Street) Woodbridge
