Wednesday 24 December 2014

A Christmas Carol

Christmas is a time to spend with family. There are two groups of people who are in my thoughts at Christmas, those who are struggling to get by and those who have to work on Christmas Day.

Donations to foodbanks increase before Christmas. The students I teach asked if they could have a Christmas party in the lunch hour before our last lecture of the term and I asked them if they would like to donate to a food bank instead and they made me quite proud by bringing in 4 bags of food. I thought about the people who would be receiving this food. Christmas must be a difficult time to be struggling financially, particularly for families with young children. Benefit sanctions and delays do not stop at Christmas.

My eldest daughter is in a drama group. This year she was in A Christmas Carol with Spotlight CTP. It is difficult not to make comparisons with Dickensian times. Scrooge asks "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" A Conservative MP, after voting for the bedroom tax might ask "Are there no foodbanks? Are there no zero-hours contracts?"

There are also jobs that still have to be done on Christmas Day; firefighters, midwives, nurses, care workers, prison officers and the Police will be working while most of us are tucking into our turkey. They do vital work all year round, sacrificing time with their families to keep our families safe and healthy.

Recently I recorded a song, which for me, strikes a chord at Christmas: Winter Song written by Alan Hull is a reminder to spare a thought for those who are less fortunate than ourselves at this time of year...


Merry Christmas.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Beautiful song. There was a woman selling big issue in our village today...Most people avoided her in their rush which is sad in an ex mining village.