Great-gran with more sense than our leaders
Sometimes, what the country needs in a crisis is a good burst of oldfashioned common sense. And it came this week in the form of straighttalking, 83- year- old greatgrandmother maureen eames.
Refusing to be shielded and hide away at home, she told anyone who would listen — including millions of tV viewers — that she ‘didn’t give a sod’ about the new restrictions imposed on her and her husband michael at their home in Yorkshire.
‘in my lifetime, i never thought i would feel like i was in a country when Germany invaded,’ she said. ‘this is a free country for God’s sake, or i thought it was.’
she spoke for millions of us when she insisted we must continue to live our lives through this pandemic, not be ‘fastened in a house’ at a time when the country needs us to get up off our knees and carry on.
maureen rather reminded me of my maternal grandmother, known affectionately as Battleaxe Blanche, who sent her only two daughters to a convent in rural Western Australia towards the end of World War ii to protect them from what she feared was the approaching Japanese army.
Grandma’s motto was to hope for the best, plan for the worst and make the most of it. maureen says we cannot afford a lockdown life ruled by caution. most of us agree with her — we don’t any longer want to live in fear abiding by the Government’s increasingly ludicrous rules and regulations.
she has tapped into a sentiment of rebellion among young and old, that we will not surrender our freedom to politicians and medical experts who seem to change their minds about the Covid threat on a daily basis.
Families banned from meeting together, friends barred from sharing a drink, lovers told to stay apart — what kind of world is that, what kind of life?
‘By the end of this year there’s going to be millions of people unemployed,’ maureen said, ‘and you know who’s going to pay for it? All the young ones. Not me because i’m going to be dead.’
the former housekeeper has more sense in her little finger than the thousands of experts deciding the fate of this country.
those of us who no longer trust the rule makers and are determined to preserve our freedom salute maureen. We won’t hold raves but we will see friends and family. Above all, we’ll get on with life — and be ruled by the common sense our leaders seem to lack.