Lady Margaret Thatcher

Yes, Lizzie, I saw this and posted it on the other forum. Quite shocking to read that she'd remained undiagnosed especially at her age and had apparently been in a lot of pain for a long time and was admitted to hospital for flu which turned out to be PMR! Shame she's got Alzheimers or she may have given PMR some publicity! :wink:

Hi Mrs O. Seems I'm way behind the times! I thought she'd just been diagnosed. Nothing political, but sad she's had to deal with PMR when she probably couldn't express how she was feeling. Oh well, back to the drawing board, see what other out of date 'news' I can find :lol: .

Love from Lizzie xx

I thought that nothing would make me feel sympathy for this woman who, in my opinion, corrupted the people of this country but this news has.

BettyE - I only know that we didn't live in the UK during the Thatcher years and when we returned in 1990/1 it was to a country we did not recognise. It had turned into a grasping, greedy and selfish place. I certainly believe her mantra of telling everyone they could have everything was what has led to the entitlement society we see now and the financial hole so many people have got themselves into. They were led to believe they could be middle class on working class incomes (to steal someone else's description). You can't - you can have many things but you have to make cuts somewhere to afford them. It's called living within your means as I understand it. People say to us how lucky we are to have our flat here, how they would like that too. We aren't lucky - we didn't smoke, our holidays were in a caravan, I don't have enormous wardrobes of clothes and noone would want my cast-offs (they are worn out) and we didn't buy what we couldn't afford how ever much we would have liked to. One of my husband's staff (a nurse) spent the best part of 400 or 500 pounds a month on clothes alone, sometimes more. £5000 a year - over a working life that adds up to an awful lot of money!

Eileen, That could be me writing!

I think that growing up in the war was a big influence on me. We learned not to waste and it's stuck.

My sisters and I often say how lucky we have been. We had parents who value education and encouraged us to work hard.My mum never forgot that she was denied the grammar school place that she won and made sure we did not waste our opportunity.

We also were young when as teachers, health service worker and boffin we could get a job wherever we liked and have retired with pensions that we earned. I do not envy today's teenagers. Their chances have been squandered by trivial, greedy people who sneer at the Public Sector. Well, I'm proud to have taught hundreds of shildren to read even if I didn't get a huge salary.

We'll probably never meet but I feel we'd have some good conversations if we did.

I'm constantly amazed at the amount a lot of us have in common! I didn't grow up in the war but the 50s weren't a lot better in the rural slum I grew up in. Very picturesque but views don't supply electric or water. No buses except to get to and from the Grammar School 11 miles away. No shop for over a mile. Miss Read's books in real life. My aunt got the \"scholarship\" and went away to weekly boarding at high school but my mother didn't even sit the exam as she knew there was no money and a violent father at home (product of the Somme) so she stayed to look after her mother.

And if I hear the criticism about final salary pensions much more I shall explode - you don't GET the final salary, your pension is related to it, for goodness sake. And we dropped from a pretty healthy final salary to well under a quarter as my husband had not worked in the health service for 40 years, the years transferred from the university were devalued and we worked abroad for 10 years - nothing from those years. We were a few years behind his brother and cousins and it was already a bit dodgier for lifetime jobs by then - the rest of them spent nearly 40 years in the civil service and are on pensions that are more reminiscent of our salaries :wink: but we have had a rich dollop of experiences we wouldn't have missed for the world. And we are about 20 years younger mentally than they are!!!! :roll: :D

BTW - what's this rubbish today about public sector pay rising faster than the private sector? NHS pay has been frozen on and off for ages and was never above 2.5% in your wildest dreams. And the rubbish men deserve their money - given their basic pay and the job they do! :steam: (I need Chris's Gaah!)

Eileen