It’s time that we officially recognise all key workers
When the serving young men came on leave, we put out the flags and had a street party
Jean Silvan Evans
THE current coronavirus crisis has demonstrated the resolve of the British people to overcome adversity and work together to help one another.
Nothing demonstrates this more than the ethos and principles of our
National Health
Service. The NHS was founded by the hard work of Aneurin Bevan who was a miner and son of a miner and he had a unique understanding of poverty, ill health and marginalised people. As a parliamentarian he was a great orator and kept to his principles.
We have had annual awards and honours for celebrities, civil servants, television, film and sports stars etc. However, little recognition is given to those who do vital work which is not equally valued and who often receive low wages in areas such as social and health care, cleaning, transport, retail, construction, etc.
Despite their relative poverty and working conditions they provide the backbone of what keeps our society going. Therefore, I cannot understand why there is no national recognition of their work.
We have a statue of Nye in Cardiff and memorial stones in Blaenau Gwent but truly little outside Wales. When this coronavirus is finally defeated, would it be fitting to have a national statue to commemorate all the undervalued workers who kept the country going in such adversity, including Nye, in Parliament Square?
It would also act as a visual reminder to all future parliamentarians that it is their duty to ensure the NHS is never again starved of funding, the sacrifice made by health and social care workers and the contribution of undervalued workers. Bob Jenkins
Cardiff
Grieving despite VE Day joys
AS THE 75th anniversary of VE Day comes round, so do the memories. Most full of joy and happiness. But I remember being terrified! Really upset – and terrified! For me, World War II was great. The end heralded disaster. But then I was a child of the Depression in Rhondda with my father on the dole. The war meant there was a bit of money in our house. My mother soon had a job in Bridgend Munitions Factory. As young men from the mine volunteered for service, my father got a job again at the colliery and my mother could stop work. It beat the Depression!
No-one in our family or in our street was killed. When the serving young men came on leave, we put out the flags and had a street party. There were air raids, though they never seemed to harm us. The war had done us a favour. Then it all came to an end. The war was over. I was devastated. My first thought was a return to the Depression.
Up and down the valley there was celebration and bonfires. Groups of young people walked laughing and singing from one to another, first up the valley, then down again. Every gathering welcomed our little group to its bonfire and offered us bits to eat or drink. Everyone was happy, everyone was joyful. Except me.
I could smile, laugh and chat like the others. But inside I was grieving. At the time, I truly believed everyone else must be grieving, too. What I couldn’t understand was how they could hide it so well, so convincingly.
It was years before I could accept my young eyes saw through a glass darkly, that the savagery of war was not the best and certainly not the only antidote to Depression. And there was no Depression then.
Instead, the life-changing post-war Labour Government brought in the Welfare State.
Many years later, after the trauma and tragedy that saw the mines closed, I was walking that way again. The colliery had gone. The pit that had been the life focus for so many for so long had disappeared. In its place was the single green field from which it had sprung to feed and nourish, enliven and embitter generations of miners and their families. Jean Silvan Evans Peterston-super-Ely
Some workers have struck it lucky
I, LIKE many millions in Britain, have agreed with the Government and co-operated responsibly with the lockdown.
But am I one of the few, that has harboured doubts on the validity of not questioning our elected politicians? After all these are the same people that deceived the electorate and totally messed up Brexit, these are the same people that until a few months ago were the most untrustworthy people on the planet.
But still I am with the millions of others that have trusted everything that these politicians have said to us, why the big U-turn? Have we all been hypnotised? And truly I can’t understand why none of us said no.
I do know one thing, this government has split the workforce into three camps: the totally abandoned self-employed, who have received nothing yet. Taxi drivers unable to pay for fuel for their vehicles; driving instructors having to sell their vehicles to make ends meet; musicians having to sell their instruments to pay the mortgage, the list goes on.
And then it comes to the “gravy train” furlough employed, the quarter of the “employed” workforce that the Government has thrown billions at, our taxpayers’ money, to sit on their lazy behinds. They are happy watching TV and smile while the self-employed have to go to food banks, and the NHS workers and care workers die saving lives. Disgusting.
And there are people like me and the other part of the workforce that aren’t sat around doing nothing like the furloughed.
When will this society learn that rewarding laziness does not pay? Karl-James Langford
Barry
Hypocrite was right to stand down
IT IS right that Neil Ferguson has resigned after he broke lockdown rules to be with his lover. What is the difference between him and Robert Jenrick, the housing minister who drove from London to Hertfordshire to go to his country residence?
They are hypocritical. It is a case of “don’t do as I do, do as I tell you”. Colin Bull, Llantrisant
Show loyalty by shopping locally
I WANTED to endorse calls by Plaid Cymru’s #ImBuyingLocal campaign urging people to buy local as the
coronavirus pandemic hits business hard.
At this time of crisis, local businesses, which are the lifeblood of communities in Caerphilly county, need our support. Many have had to take the tough decision to close for safety reasons while others have continued to remain open supplying the vulnerable with food and other items. I hope people feel able to support those shops and businesses going the extra mile in the coronavirus crisis.
We need these local businesses to survive the pandemic and thrive in the future when we get back to normal. In my own experience some goods have been available in local shops which were out of stock in the supermarkets.
Councillor Colin Mann, Leader, Plaid Cymru Group, Caerphilly County Borough Council
The small print: Letters will not be included unless you include your name, full postal address and daytime telephone number (we prefer to use names of letter writers but you can ask for your name not to be published if you have a good reason). The Editor reserves the right to edit all letters.