This year the indoor critic and I will celebrate what I believe is our Sapphire Anniversary?
Forty Five years and counting.
Way back in 1968 I spent an afternoon trawling the antique and second hand shops in Manchester's Shudehill area, to try to find an affordable wedding ring.
My guide was my younger sister who steered me away from Ratners and H Samuels and Hire Purchase towards a ring of burnished gold which I could afford to buy with the money I had in my pocket and still have enough left for our bus fare home.
We found a 22 carat gold ring for £5, arguably the best £5 I have ever spent as it is still on the finger I placed it on forty five years ago and now appears to be wearing better than either of us.
During our forty five years we have seen significant changes in what has been called the welfare state.
When our first child was born there was no Child Benefit, that arrived with the second child, but against that education and health care were free at the point of need, including higher education, and as a young clergy family with four children, we qualified for free school meals.
In 1968 Harold Wilson was Prime Minister and over the period we have seen Nine subsequent Prime Ministers.
The only one I have any affection for was Harold Wilson whose legacy was the Open University.
But between that visionary initiative and the war in Iraq, we had the three day week, the Miner's Strike, Thatcherism, the Lottery introduced by John Major, devolution, civil partnerships, the loss of child benefit data and a banking crisis.
Now we have a coalition and yesterday it was defended.
Vote blue go green? Or vote blue get lost?
For most people the test of the success or failure of a government is whether they feel physically safe, financially secure and can look to the future with some degree of confidence.
Certainly when I bought that 22 Carat ring in Manchester 45 years ago, I felt reasonably safe in my home City and whilst I was not financially secure, I seem to recall that the Five Pound was in my possession following a stint working in Kendal Milne's in a holiday job in Manchester, I also was advised that the job I was entering as a clergyman in the Church of England was both permanent and secure, that would certainly not be the case today.
Indeed it seems that no job can be viewed as either permanent or secure.
And now of course I cannot look to the future with much confidence. Sure I receive a state pension together with an occupational pension, and generally the month and the money tend to come to an end roughly in sync with each other.
But the indoor critic has a life limiting condition and will increasingly need care, especially if she finds herself on her own. The Dilnott Enquiry suggested a £35k top limit on care, before the Government picked up the costs. Now the Chancellor is suggesting £75K, the effect of which means that a large majority of people will still have to sell their homes to pay for care, an outcome which Dilnott was trying to avoid.
But if £75k doesn't seem a lot to you then its easy to assume that it is not a lot to other people.
Reading the names on the Roll Call of Prime Ministers is pretty disheartening. Looking at what little has been achieved, despite the rhetoric of causes of crime, or an end to boom and bust or making work pay the only sensible conclusion any observer can come to is that what we have witnessed in the past forty five years is the failure of politics.
From the open university to open war on the poorest in society to open bonus season for bankers it has been downhill all the way.
From a promising young couple with a future we have become somewhat more anxious not only for ourselves and our future but for children and grandchildren.
Out there, in the dark, at the edge of the camp fire glow, the forest is full of danger and wild animals ready to attack and bite, I can hear their growling as I type.
Between now and November I have to try and find something Sapphire, worried that sapphire is blue I checked again to discover that a red sapphire is specified for a forty fifth anniversary.
Vote blue go red, or should that be Ed to make ten?
Forty Five years and counting.
Way back in 1968 I spent an afternoon trawling the antique and second hand shops in Manchester's Shudehill area, to try to find an affordable wedding ring.
My guide was my younger sister who steered me away from Ratners and H Samuels and Hire Purchase towards a ring of burnished gold which I could afford to buy with the money I had in my pocket and still have enough left for our bus fare home.
We found a 22 carat gold ring for £5, arguably the best £5 I have ever spent as it is still on the finger I placed it on forty five years ago and now appears to be wearing better than either of us.
During our forty five years we have seen significant changes in what has been called the welfare state.
When our first child was born there was no Child Benefit, that arrived with the second child, but against that education and health care were free at the point of need, including higher education, and as a young clergy family with four children, we qualified for free school meals.
In 1968 Harold Wilson was Prime Minister and over the period we have seen Nine subsequent Prime Ministers.
The only one I have any affection for was Harold Wilson whose legacy was the Open University.
But between that visionary initiative and the war in Iraq, we had the three day week, the Miner's Strike, Thatcherism, the Lottery introduced by John Major, devolution, civil partnerships, the loss of child benefit data and a banking crisis.
Now we have a coalition and yesterday it was defended.
Vote blue go green? Or vote blue get lost?
For most people the test of the success or failure of a government is whether they feel physically safe, financially secure and can look to the future with some degree of confidence.
Certainly when I bought that 22 Carat ring in Manchester 45 years ago, I felt reasonably safe in my home City and whilst I was not financially secure, I seem to recall that the Five Pound was in my possession following a stint working in Kendal Milne's in a holiday job in Manchester, I also was advised that the job I was entering as a clergyman in the Church of England was both permanent and secure, that would certainly not be the case today.
Indeed it seems that no job can be viewed as either permanent or secure.
And now of course I cannot look to the future with much confidence. Sure I receive a state pension together with an occupational pension, and generally the month and the money tend to come to an end roughly in sync with each other.
But the indoor critic has a life limiting condition and will increasingly need care, especially if she finds herself on her own. The Dilnott Enquiry suggested a £35k top limit on care, before the Government picked up the costs. Now the Chancellor is suggesting £75K, the effect of which means that a large majority of people will still have to sell their homes to pay for care, an outcome which Dilnott was trying to avoid.
But if £75k doesn't seem a lot to you then its easy to assume that it is not a lot to other people.
Reading the names on the Roll Call of Prime Ministers is pretty disheartening. Looking at what little has been achieved, despite the rhetoric of causes of crime, or an end to boom and bust or making work pay the only sensible conclusion any observer can come to is that what we have witnessed in the past forty five years is the failure of politics.
From the open university to open war on the poorest in society to open bonus season for bankers it has been downhill all the way.
From a promising young couple with a future we have become somewhat more anxious not only for ourselves and our future but for children and grandchildren.
Out there, in the dark, at the edge of the camp fire glow, the forest is full of danger and wild animals ready to attack and bite, I can hear their growling as I type.
Between now and November I have to try and find something Sapphire, worried that sapphire is blue I checked again to discover that a red sapphire is specified for a forty fifth anniversary.
Vote blue go red, or should that be Ed to make ten?
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