through my holiday so far i have been getting up at what i can only describe as ridiculous o clock in the morning to go off to far flung places up north. or at least, north to a dorset girl. today i got up at the unsightly hour of 8am to get the train to bristol at 9,30am.
and it was a nightmare.
firstly, the train that pulled up was six carriages long. the conductor, was on the first carriage which was an entirely different type of carriage to the rest of the train and therefore there was no gangway between it, so we were entirely cut off from him. by the time we hit frome the train was entirely full, and still we were letting people on at the following stops, trowbridge, keynsham, freshford... and the four other stops on the way to bristol. there were people leaning on the seats all the way up and down the train. it also turned out that it was probably best that the conductor was trapped in the front carriage because he was a total and complete arse. when we approached him at westbury, where the train was 'resting' for ten minutes (usually they would take carriages off at this point but there were wayyy too many of us), he told us that he had announced many times that there was no functioning ticket facilities and we'd have to buy tickets at our destination. let me tell you now. i had been on that train for one hour, and not once in that time had he announced any such thing.
secondly, in the uk today there are a lot of angry people because people who work in the public sector are moaning that their pension won't gain 20% interest on what they put into it. people in the private sector are angry about this also, because their pension is around £6,000 less than people in the public sector. and at my age, with the state this country is in, i am angry because i won't even have a pension. i am also angry because their pension is only two grand less than my entire yearly wage packet. and i work a full year, none of this 6 weeks until the next week off rubbish. i am not saying you shouldn't get back what you put in, i am saying you shouldn't expect it to grow by 20%. because if that were the case, then we'd all be doing it.
some of the placards today read "no cuts", seriously? open your eyes, watch the news, read a newspaper. and not that socialist worker propaganda paper you all kept trying to make me read today. a real one with real facts and figures in. the country is bust. thinking of signs there was one sign saying (but don't quote me on the exact figures) "we will have to pay in an extra £114 and however many pence a year to lose £275 and however many pence over 25 years". if we round that up to £276, you'd be losing £11 a year. now i can't count, but you are sending 20,000 people in one city alone to argue about £11 a year? particularly the argument of "the pension pot seems more about some than about others", because don't even start me. in my family, one person alone has lost £15,000 on private pensions, and you're worried about £275 over 25 years. get a grip.
now. whilst i absolutely wholeheartedly don't agree with the reasons you are striking, i do believe in freedom of speech, and this is my freedom to say what i think. and i do genuinely think, well good for you for standing up for what you think is right. because i am sat here typing the opposite, and we are lucky to be able to do that. i have to agree that the protest march, at least in bristol, was friendly, and there was no trouble and it did not turn into a riot.
just as a post edit here, i should point out that in the three years i have been back in the uk, i have never seen cabot circus as busy as it was today, considering this was done because there is a lack of money in the uk, there seemed to be an awful lot of people out spending it.
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