UTOPIAN DREAM

The bungalow letting's ended on Saturday, September 4th, 1982, I had one full day to get the place ship shape, before starting the TOPS NDT course at West Bromwich. I may have been unemployed, but I certainly knew how to live a hectic life on occasion. It was the third year in which I had let the bungalow, and it was to be the last, for it was at about this time that Karen's attendance allowance started to be paid, which represented twice what I could earn by letting the bungalow. It was to make a big difference to our standard of living. According to the DHSS, attendance allowance was compensation for the handicapped person not being able to earn a living. As far as we were concerned, these additional payments brought us up to a standard of living, that we and all other unemployed should have been on in the first case. After all, it was governments that manipulated economies and put people out of work in their millions. Governments that create unemployment, should be more than prepared to hand out substantial compensation to those people whose lives had gone to the wall. Although I was pleased with the awarding of AA, I was in no mood to shake anyone's hand. From then on we started to live but the damage to my body and mind had already been done. I was to later realise that no amount of money could possibly compensate for what I had gone through. No amount of money could compensate for not having a job. I of course, had a job, that of looking after Karen, but it was not recognized as such by the state.

I left Karen and Fluff with the in-laws, then travelled down to West Bromwich on a coach. I booked in at the YMCA as prearranged. The next day, Monday, I reported to the college. The course was without doubt, ideal. I did not have to hunt around for text books, as none were required. There was plenty of practical. More practical work than lectures. There was no written homework, since such time was spent memorizing everything needed for the final exams, which fortunately were few. I got on great with everyone, both lecturers and students. One such student I made friends with, was Allan from Handsworth, Birmingham. Above all there were no problems with the accommodation. The Young Men's Christian Association was a modern, clean and quiet establishment. An ideal environment in which to study. The only problem I had, was the aching pains in my stomach and back. They came on in the morning just as class began. They eventually got so bad that I would double up with pain, unable to man the ultrasound equipment. I had not sought help from a doctor for about twenty years, and then only for an earache which persisted for days. I therefore reluctantly went to see one.

The first doctor I saw was a Dr.Jones. Oh no, not a Welshman, I thought. I walked into his surgery and there before me was one of the biggest black men I had ever seen. He prescribed Tranxene, a drug which lowered my inhibitions and made me feel very tired in the mornings, so much so that I had great difficulty in getting out of bed. I also believe that it impaired my memory. One night whilst lying in bed I saw a ghostly apparition approaching me. I was half out of bed, getting ready to take it on, when it suddenly vanished. That was it. As far as I was concerned, these capsules in aluminium foil would have to go straight into the bin. Unfortunately my stomach pains were very real, calling for another visit to the doctors' surgery. When I reached the health centre I decided to see another doctor. Whilst waiting to see him, this little old dear came out of Dr.Jones' surgery clutching a box of mother's little helpers. Maybe it cured most ailments, but it did not cure mine.

The doctor I saw next was older, paler and wiser. He diagnosed traumatic dyspepsia, a diagnosis that turned out to be correct, give or take a stomach ulcer or two. Getting rid of the pain by taking a mouthful of chalky white liquid each morning, was easy enough. In fact the simplicity of it all made me feel a right idiot, for not having seen a doctor about it years before. Getting rid of the problem completely was to prove far more difficult. I had already had the problem, on and off for four years, and would probably have to allow for it for the rest of my life. Various forms of drug treatment were to be employed. Dyspepsia, where high levels of digestive acid attacked the stomach lining resulting in painful peptic ulcers, was a very common ailment, caused by the stressful society which the advanced nations had created for themselves.

With my dyspepsia now under control, I shook the cobwebs and tranquillizers out of my brain and set about the training course. The non-destructive testing of metal castings, rolled plate and welded metal joints, in search of cracks, laminations, porosity, side weld fusions and the like, proved very interesting. Despite my brain being laid up for so long, I found the principles of ultrasonic sound waves, x-ray and gamma-ray radiography, electro-magnetism and ultra violet dyes, not too difficult to understand. We visited various industrial concerns in order to get a smattering of industrial experience. I found the course most enjoyable. It provided me with an urgently needed sense of purpose.

On Friday, December 17th, I returned to Holyhead for the Christmas cheer, On December 28th, not having found much of it thus far, Karen and I went to Birmingham, leaving Fluff with my in-laws. We consumed plenty of Christmas spirit in the posh Midland Hotel with my friends, Allan and his wife Pat, and Jackie , a former barmaid at Bogarts, with her husband Phil. We all had a good time, returning to Allan's home that afternoon for more drinks. Karen and I returned to the sumptuous Midland Hotel later that evening, to meet our friends from London, Jill and her husband lan. The drinking continued, and as usual it went, down Karen's throat like water. She was four sheets to the wind, when suddenly without warning she spewed up over the carpet, I made apologies to our friends, then beat a hasty retreat to New Street Station, from where we caught a train to Northamptonshire. I was most anxious during this journey, as I did not have a paper bag with me.

I returned to college on January 4th, 1983. My parents agreed to look after Karen until my course finished on the fourteenth. During this period my mother and Karen enjoyed themselves immensely, by consuming the booze kept in my stepfather's drinks cabinet, each evening. On Saturday, January 8th, I took Karen to see the boat show at Earls Court, London, during which time we had a longer meeting with Jill and lan. At the end of my course I passed all my ASNT (American Society for Non-destructive Testing) exams, then returned to Northamptonshire.

During the short time we stayed at my parents home I received a telephone call from Helen, informing me that Fluff had been involved in an accident. She had been hit by a car in the drive way of the old folks' home next door, then two more cars had gone over her, before some children playing nearby picked her up and took her to Helen. Evidently Fluff had used up a considerable portion of her quota of nine lives. I was deeply concerned by what she told me, but I decided not to tell Karen, as I did not want her to worry, for I knew that she loved Fluff as her own baby. The next day we made the long journey back to my in-laws home.

Fluff looked very bad, lying on the rug in front of the fire. She appeared to have lost the will to live. My in-laws had taken her to a vet who said there was nothing he could do. I did not know the full extent of her injuries. There were no external signs, so an x-ray was called for, if only to allay my own fears. My in-laws took us to a vet in Caernarfon, the nearest place with such facilities. There Fluff was x-rayed. The x-ray indicated that she had a dislocated hip, but fortunately no other injuries. I was greatly relieved and so was Karen, when the vet told us that given a couple of months the ligaments would re-establish themselves, provided Fluff took it easy.

Fluff of course did not understand the good news, and therefore looked at death's door. We took her back to Sunny Dale, and there tried to find a way of bringing her back to life. She would not eat, no matter what tasty morsels were put in front of her. I was afraid she would succumb to hunger and thirst. Was it really an accident or did she try to kill herself, thinking that we had deserted her? We gave her all the affection she had missed whilst we had been away, but it did not seem to have any effect. Even her clockwork mouse and the transparent plastic balls she used to kick around the lounge, failed to produce a response. Karen kept biting her lip in anxiety. I knew that if Fluff died I would get the blame, as it was I who had separated Karen from Fluff in the first place. I knew that something drastic needed to be done, as Fluff lay there on the rug in front of the electric fire, which we kept on all day and night. Finally, I found an ear drop dispenser in the bathroom cabinet, which I used to force milk into Fluff's mouth. Fortunately, from the action of her tongue, I could tell she was drinking most of it. She was not going to die of thirst, of that I was certain. I kept up this treatment on bended knee for day after day. It seemed like an eternity. Then one day, as we were watching TV, and without any coaxing from us, Fluff got to her feet and stumbled to the kitchen to eat some of her food. All eyes peered to see how much she would eat. It was just two tiny mouthfuls, before stumbling back to her place near the hearth. It was a beginning. She had shown that she wanted to live, after we had shown her that we did not want her to die.

It was to be many months before Fluff was her normal self. There were setbacks when she jumped around too much, but eventually all signs of the accident disappeared. From then on, whenever we left Gwalchmai, we deposited Fluff with Barbara at the village cattery, where she was well looked after.

Fluff was a tortoiseshell cat, which had been neutered during one of our visits to my parent's place. Since she had never had kittens, it was sometime before she forgave me and other cats for such butchery. She would often chase other cats and dogs off her territory, although she got on well with Sooty, the black cat from the smallholding next door, occupied by Karen's friend, Sonia. Fluff wore a red collar and name tag, with her address and name engraved upon it. She hated the damn thing at first, but gradually accepted it as the price one pays for a good home. She spent her days hunting in the garden. Anything that moved was fair game. Shrews, lizards, mice and birds were her main diet, although she did catch one mole. Fortunately I never had trouble with moles in my garden, as I assume the loose sandy soil would not support their tunnels, not to mention the rock. Fluff also loved chasing the damsonflies, and sat for hours watching the golden orfe, with her eyes fixed on them and her tail swishing from side to side. She never caught one, at least not whilst I was there.

On one occasion I remember smelling something odd in the lounge. I thought Fluff had mucked somewhere. I gingerly went around the room on all fours, until eventually I found a dead bird rotting away behind the lounge curtain. On another occasion I saw her leap onto a mouse, which she then gave to Sooty to take home. On another occasion she gave a similar unappreciated gift to Helen. How nice!

At night, Fluff slept in her own wicker basket in the kitchen, although occasionally she would fail to react to Karen's incessant calling from the front door. Fortunately her nights out on the tiles were few, as Karen would invariable prod me as we lay in bed together.

"Go and call her," Karen would say.

"You go and call her, it's your cat," I would reply.

"I already have. She won't take any notice of me," she would say.

Now if there is one thing I hate, it is standing at the front door step in my pyjamas, calling out some ridiculous name whilst getting frozen half to death, knowing full well that out there in the darkness there are a pair of eyes looking at me, thinking 'look at that stupid twit'. And all because you want to get a decent night's sleep.

Fluff led the life of Reilly. She only had to jingle her name tag and Karen would drop her fibre tipped pens all over the settee, and dash off to open the front door for her. As she came in she would case the joint for a second or two, have something to eat in the kitchen, then have a lie down by the fire. She would lie more on her back than on her side, for some reason. Occasionally as I lay sprawled across the settee, she would jump up and sit on my chest, and expect a bit of fussing as she licked the salt laden sweat off my hands. Sometimes when I had failed to shut the kitchen door properly, she would break out and come to bed with us. Fluff gave us an immense amount of pleasure, and no doubt helped me feel more at ease, at times. Her importance to Karen and I cannot be overemphasized, for our isolation from friends and the stress which we were under, ensured that Fluff became the centre of attention and affection within our small group.

Watching Karen look after Fluff, I wondered whether she could do the same with children. I was concerned with the possibility that during a fit she would drop the baby. She never did that with Fluff though, as she picked her up saying, "Ah bechan." At that time I had enough responsibilities and worries. No doubt as our problems became resolved, the chances for my wife to experience motherhood would have come along. Unfortunately that moment never arrived.

After completing the course in non-destructive testing, I sent out numerous resumes to various NDT companies, but I did not receive a favourable response. Times had changed greatly since my NDT interview in Blackpool. Even NDT companies were going bust. In order to get employment in NDT, it was necessary to get higher qualifications in the subject, but I could not get them without experience. It was a catch twenty-two situation, I wrote a detailed letter to the MSC in Preston, as follows:

The reply to this letter was brief and to the point. I was told that I could not go on two TOPS courses within a period of two years. This was a rule I had done my damnedest to ignore, in my desperate attempt to get meaningful well paid employment. The above letter exposes many of the problems that existed with job training courses at this time. The numerous examining bodies such as ASNT, CSWIP, ERS, CEGB, C&G, etc., often devoted to a particular industry, duplicated training requirements, time and expense. Often courses were of inadequate length, producing either too low a qualification, or too little practical experience, or both. In the two years I had heard about NDT, the job situation had changed markedly. Supply of NDT technicians now exceeded demand, partly due to the decline in the size of British manufacturing industry, resulting in less demand for the service, and the growing number of NDT technicians produced by the army of redundant workers from British Steel. As a result, government money and my money had been wasted. It had cost me the equivalent of letting my bungalow for a season. Shortly before I went to West Bromwich for the TOPS NDT course, I was offered a place on a BTEC HND in Instrumentation & Process Control at a London polytechnic. This was a year long course. I turned it down because my questions concerning text books and accommodation went unanswered, and also, because I had spent so much money on NDT, I simply did not want to see that money and effort wasted.

On or around Tuesday, January 17th, 1983, I registered at my local UBO again. On this occasion a new member of staff was present, a young woman. I again mentioned the predicament of having to bring my wife along each time I had to sign on. She told me to write to the manager of the UBO at Holyhead and ask for his permission to sign on by post. Evidently the minions, or should it be morons, at Llangefni were subordinate to him. It had taken two years for someone in that UB0 to give me that little piece of advice. I wrote to the manager and he promptly wrote back, and from that day on I got my neighbour, Gwilym Owen, the builder of the estate, to sign an unemployment benefit form every two weeks, stating that I had not worked during that period. This practice continued until April 1983 when the book of forms ran out. I then went to the UBO and asked one of the old fogies behind the counter for a new booklet.

"Why do you sign on by post from Gwalchmai, no one else from there does?" he asked.

"Because I have to look after my wife who is mentally handicapped," I replied, refraining from showing the feeling of anger that his question had aroused in me.

"In that case," he replied, "You should be paid by DHSS vouchers, which you cash in at the post office. Go and see them."

I went around next door to the DHSS offices, never dreaming that I would get anywhere, but sure enough they almost fell over themselves giving me the service that I should have received two years before. I got the distinct impression that my solicitor's perseverance was finally making its mark.

In February 1983, I gave up all ideas of ever working again, and believe me it hurt. I did not like the idea of being a reject from society, and I felt inflamed at times towards the attitude of working people to my resigned state.

"Why don't you go into computers, and why don't you do this, and so on,,,," was what they would say.

I found that the older people were, the more they failed to understand. At the turn of the century one could walk onto a ship and sign up for a job, provided you were fit enough. In my time, to go into the navigation department of the British merchant navy, you were required to do a four year apprenticeship, since lengthened to five, then pass the following exams; lifeboatman's, efficient deck hand, first aid, fire fighting, radar observers, then second mates certificate. That made you a third officer. To get promoted to captain, you had to pass your mates, masters and extra masters certificate. This in effect was a form of re-certification of competence, something which should exist in all professions. In NDT, qualifications only remained valid for about three years.

Despite having done an apprenticeship in the merchant navy, I could not even get a job as a seaman, because to do that I would have had to apply to become a member of a union. No union would be prepared to take on members when many of its existing number were on the dole, due to the shrinking British merchant fleet. In 1975 the British merchant fleet consisted of 1600 ships employing 81,500 people. Ten years later, the fleet had shrunk to 640 ships employing 33,700 people. In the same period world wide 394 oil tankers totalling thirty-three million tons deadweight, were scrapped. The demise of the British merchant fleet was brought about through a variety of reasons:

There was a tendency to increase efficiency by building larger more mechanized ships. As far as oil tankers were concerned, the opening up of oil and gas fields nearer to the source of demand, such as the Alaskan North Slope and the North Sea, coupled with the building of long pipelines from Libya and Siberia to Western Europe, meant that less of these products would be transported by sea. The re-opening and deepening of the Suez Canal meant for supertankers, a trip to the breakers yard, as they were still too large to go through it. Shorter sea routes and quicker turn arounds in port, meant that less ships were needed to transport the same tonnage of cargo. Crew sizes were also reduced to recoup the benefits of automated engine rooms. Competitiveness was a major factor in the decline of the British merchant fleet. In Britain, training was often more thorough and hence more expensive than that of other nations, whilst the British government refused to give financial support to this branch of Britain's service industry, to the same extent as foreign governments did theirs. The merchant navies of the world did not receive the same degree of protectionism as that afforded to airlines, unfortunately.

Reductions of fifty per cent in manning levels of major manufacturing industries in the UK from 1975 to 1985 were not unusual, as a result of automation brought on by increasingly cut throat competition within the global economy. As manning levels went down, so qualification demands went up. It had cost me about six hundred pounds in fees and expenses for my courses at West Bromwich, prior to my NDT / TOPS course. This was however nothing compared to what many people spent. Some spent tens of thousands of pounds in obtaining a commercial pilots licence for instance.

Is it morally and even legally right to keep millions of highly competent and often highly qualified people on the dole, where their bodies and minds become sick through worry? Surely it is a violation of common decency, and more importantly of human rights. It is sad that a nation that accepted new technology so readily, often with the help of government research grants, could find it so difficult to embrace the social solutions which high technology created. But British society at this time was one where the social rule book had been thrown away. The 'I'm all right Jack' mentality had been transferred from the shop floor to the gaffer's office in the boardroom and Whitehall. In circumstances like that, individuals fell victim, as I was to realise in the years ahead.

About a year after leaving Tinto the remaining contractors got the push. After that it was the permanent employees turn. Numbers fell from fourteen hundred to eight hundred and fifty in six years. Efficiency improved, but falling demand and cut throat international competition ensured that more redundancies, or even complete closure, remained just around the corner. In March 1983 one of my former work colleagues took over the tenancy of my local, the Gwalchmai Hotel, which involved a considerable personal investment on his part. He stuck at it for about three years, but increased unemployment in the village produced falling profits and rising violence, particularly in the pub itself. The following Easter I amazed myself by helping to get my friend Allan a job. I had read, probably in the local newspaper, that a vacancy for a diver existed at a nearby single buoyed mooring (SBM) terminal. I had kept in touch with Allan since our NDT course together. He was a North Sea diver and electrician, and yet still found it difficult to get work. He got the job on the SBM and stayed with it until its cost cutting closure in Easter 1987, about a week after he moved into his new home in Birmingham. I think the moral to this story is, do not buy a home near the start of a financial year, as Allan and I did. Most 'workers' would no doubt have a tale or two to tell younger generations about these hard times, but mine was to turn out to be far more dramatic than most.

At the end of April 1983, housewives non-contributory invalidity pension (HNCIP) was finally awarded to my wife. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel as far as our financial problems were concerned, as a result of which I started to feel more at ease. The following month Karen and I went into Bangor and bought a new colour television set with teletext, as a long overdue replacement for the junk we already had. We also bought a VHS video recorder, music centre, and a Sinclair Spectrum 48k home computer, which was the most popular model in the UK at that time. These luxuries would make our monastic existence more bearable I thought. I had seriously considered taking Karen on holiday abroad, but I was afraid of the DHSS finding out and stopping our benefit, like they did when I went on my two week NDT course. I also felt that nothing less than three months under the tropical sun would have a sufficient therapeutic affect on me. We therefore never went on holiday. Holidays did not come naturally to me, as I had not been on one for at least fifteen years. We therefore stayed at home.

A month later we had Shell cavity wall insulation fitted, which together with an off-peak 'economy seven' electricity meter wired to the radiators, made a marked difference during the winter months. I had wanted electric storage heaters but could not afford them, having decided that alternatives were too expensive as we had no chimney nor gas main. Anyway, with electric radiators, the breeze block walls retain the heat. In the harsh winter months, it use to get cold and damp in the bungalow. I had wanted to fit heat retentive tinted glass as a form of double glazing but could not afford it. Still, it costs nothing to dream. I should have fitted extra insulation in the loft, and for the water tank, which would have been better spent than on the video recorder, which we hardly ever used. At this time I also bought Karen a small colour television set on which she could watch her infernal soap operas, in the kitchen, whilst I watched the teletext TV, or vice versa. The small television also proved ideal for the home computer. The main causes of marriage break up in the UK at this time, were television, children and money. We had solved all three by having two TV's, a baby that did not scream, and as for money, I took all financial decisions, although I did notice on occasion Karen discreetly slipping a bar of chocolate into the supermarket trolley.

I had bought the teletext TV because I had difficulty in getting Karen to read anything, other than television programme details in the newspapers. Teletext would be an excellent way of improving her reading, I thought. I was proved right. It improved her outlook on life as she read the newsreels in addition to the television schedules. I also improved her reading through the educational tapes I had bought for the computer. I was not sure whether Karen's mind would work fast enough to play the computer games adequately, as the only activity she did quickly was eat. I was a good cook. On the computer however, she was to prove adept at both games and educational programmes, which she relished.

I suppose I really bought the games for my own satisfaction. I desperately needed something to cheer me up in the evenings, and especially during those long winter months when it was impossible to work on the garden. I was bored stiff with the mindless rubbish on the tube, so the computer games were a welcome relief. Karen would watch me play them, until eventually her inquisitiveness overcame her shyness, whereupon she decided to have a go for herself. I would explain to her how the simple games worked, and after loading each game for her, I would then leave her to it. I Did not want to stand over her in case I put her off.

To get real enjoyment out of computer games, it is best to share the excitement with a friend. Whilst I was working away on the garden, Karen would play the computer games with her friend Sonia, a teenage school girl. She was probably the only close friend we had in the village. It was only later, when I read the statement she had made to the police, that I realised how much I had underestimated her intelligence and maturity. It turned out that I never really knew her. I was too wrapped up in my own problems to consider expending energy making close friendships. My inner world of anxiety and dreams was the only world I really lived in. No one really understood me at this time, not even myself, for there was another being slowly taking over. So slowly in fact that I have not the vaguest idea exactly when the symptoms began.

Karen's progress on the computer amazed me. Her brain seemed to come alive at last, whilst the exuberance she displayed told me that the investment had been really worth it. Her favourite games were Hungry Horace, who went around eating the flowers in the park to the annoyance of the chasing guards, and Slippery Sid, a snake that gets longer and longer as it eats frogs and magic mushrooms. I did not reach the ultimate score in that game, as the snake would get so large that I would run out of space in which to manoeuvre, causing it to devour itself. It never occurred to me to get a pet python or tarantula with which to deter Helen's visits.

I got an immense amount of enjoyment out of those games and so did my wife, if not more so. I spent a great deal of time with her on the educational tapes, which improved her reading substantially. I also used the software in an attempt to improve her behaviour. In this I would construct ten sentences say, leaving out a key word. The key word would be hidden amongst a list of words.

For example:

'I must not pull ______ out of the towels.

The correct word is in the list;

worms, soap, thread, toothpaste.

Whether Karen's behaviour improved by using this method I am uncertain. One thing is certain though, Helen objected to this form of 'mind control,' probably because she thought I was going to try it out on her next. By the way, the answer to the above puzzle is 'thread.' If you got it wrong then you have not been paying attention, so you should read this manuscript from the beginning again.

Shortly after we had bought our array of electronic entertainment, we visited the outlaws, whereupon Karen gleefully told her mother everything. Her mother tried to appear disinterested. Upon her next visit to our home I was watching 'Songs of Praise' on our super teletext colour television set, Karen went to the front door to welcome in Helen, who was with Gillian and her children. Helen told Karen to show Gillian and her children the golden orfe in the fish pond. Once they were out of earshot Helen walked into the living room, sitting on the edge of an easy chair with her back to the super TV. She then proceeded to read me the riot act.

"You're not looking after that girl. Her clothes are in a terrible state, and you're not feeding her right,,,,,,," and on, and on it went.

I have never known someone to talk so long on such a simple subject. I kept my eyes on the television screen, turning up the volume with the remote control. I wished the control would work on Helen. I was filled with loathing for her, which had accumulated over the years. I just could not bring myself to argue with her. I considered myself too much of a gentleman to argue, but there was more to it than that.

"You're not listening to me are you?" she asked.

I did not reply, I was sorely tempted to hit her, but violence was against my nature. If I had hit her or simply entered into an argument with her, then it was likely that Karen would side with her mother, since her mother held a strong dominant influence over her, if not all of us. Fortunately the verbal abuse came to an end as soon as the children came in from the garden.

Although Helen thought I was not listening, in reality it was impossible not to. What she said affected me just as it did on all other occasions. I would later sit with a vacant expression and wonder what to do. Her spite showed no sign of subsiding. There was no answer to the problem short of moving to the other end of the world. My problems with the DHSS dragged on month after month, just as I thought conclusion was in sight. I do not know which I hated most, my in-laws or the DHSS. Admittedly my problems with the DHSS were caused by my in-laws, but I could see no justification for them to drag out the situation year after year. I did not dare tell the DHSS that my in-laws had deliberately refused to tell them where Karen and I lived. If I had, then I was afraid that they would wash their hands of the whole affair by telling me to get the missing allowances from Karen's parents. I knew that such a scenario would be like getting blood out of Dracula.

During the time we lived in Gwalchmai my wife was examined by doctors sent by the DHSS. This occurred on four occasions, including a claim for mobility allowance which was not awarded as my wife could walk. The dangers of a mentally handicapped person walking along twisting country lanes, occupied by large lorries, was not within the scope of the DHSS guide lines. The countless appeals for benefit and backdated allowances, dragged on through three departments of the DHSS at Norcross near Blackpool. It was my wife's legal right to these allowances that I felt was being obstructed. I was determined that no one should take advantage of my wife's inability to remember and understand how to claim for the backdated benefits, which she rightfully deserved. The DHSS however, looked at the matter differently. Although it was obvious that my wife's condition had remained unchanged since her GP, Dr.St.John first applied for attendance allowance on her behalf, the DHSS would only consider a long ago written notification from me to my local DHSS office as an indication of the new starting date for my wife's benefits. The DHSS therefore were not representing the wishes of a mentally handicapped person, but the Scrooge mentality of the treasury.

The problem, which I thought would be sorted out within a month, dragged on for years through countless investigations, requesting more information and meetings. I found myself pacing up and down in the lounge, unable to decide how the whole mess, created by my in-laws, could ever be sorted out quickly. I would only stop pacing when I became exhausted. My mind however, would continue its ceaseless search for an answer. At the end of the day, as I lay in bed, my mind would continue that eternal quest for a solution. Lying there, I could hear it thinking. It was unnerving. It sounded the way our home computer did when a programme was being loaded into it, only in this case it was like four software programmes all being loaded at once. I had never experienced anything like it before. I felt that I was loosing control of my own mind. It was most frightening, and yet it sounded so ridiculous that I could not possibly tell anyone about it. At this stage it never occurred to me to see a doctor.

One only had to read the letters to and from the DHSS at this time, in order to understand why I became mentally ill. It does not make easy reading. To understand the system from scratch was even worse.

Then in October 1982 I wrote to my solicitor:

I must admit that there are parts of this letter that make me smile. I cannot recall the DHSS doing anything within fourteen days, and as for the last paragraph, there is no way that I would give an inch in any future dealings with them. What I failed to understand during my trials and tribulations with the DHSS was why, having put my wife's national insurance number on each benefit application form, they had apparently failed to check whether there was any previous record of her illness related claims, thereby obviating the existence of this bureaucratic jungle in which we were all enmeshed at God knows what cost to the tax payer. I mean, they would not keep that information to themselves, would they? Seven weeks later I received the following reply from the Adran Techyd a Nawdd Cymdeithasol (Department of Health and Social Security to you and me), via my solicitor:

The compulsory home insurance mentioned above refers to the mortgage insurance on the home. It did not cover home contents insurance, which I continued paying, nor life insurance which I eventually stopped.

Also included with this letter was a detailed breakdown of our entitlement on form A124, which reads as follows:

At this time I was also receiving erratic payments of attendance allowance, which was at the rate of seventeen pounds fifty per week. I could not understand why we did not have an allowance book, as it was very stressful not knowing why we were being treated this way.

The reference in the DHSS letter to April 1982, regarding the backdating of attendance allowance, was not the full story however, since I wrote to my local DHSS one week after putting in my formal application for AA, asking them to backdate it, as mentioned earlier in this manuscript. The application form not only carried my wife's national insurance number but also a reference to her EEG test carried out at Dudley Road Hospital, Birmingham in December 79. I find it incomprehensible that they did not check their records at this time, which would have brought to light earlier payments of AA, causing them to realise that my wife needed AA for life. Throughout my dealings with the DHSS, I got the impression that they were more concerned with working within the laws of the Social Security Act 1975 and the Social Security (claims & payments) Regulations 1979 - Brown Book, than the laws of common sense. They were not applying the act in the same spirit as when the welfare state was first approved by members of parliament.

Backdating of AA to January 1981 was finally approved, being based on a document I had signed at the DHSS office in Northamptonshire, whilst I was staying with my parents. Had I received the same care and attention at Llangefni as I received in Northamptonshire, then I am certain that many of my problems would not have arisen. I got the impression that the further you lived from London, the less professional was the treatment towards the unemployed.

My letter of appeal for backdated attendance allowance, made exactly one year after my original request for backdating of AA, was as follows;

As stated earlier, my wife was in fact staying with her parents, whilst I stayed with mine. Had I told the DHSS the truth, the affair would have become even more complicated. Fortunately for me, I kept diaries containing my movements. Anyone who did not would find such an appeal hard going, if not impossible. I wrote many letters like these to numerous government departments, failing to understand why it was that our case could not be treated locally. Often I would receive letters requesting information, and replying, without understanding why the request had been made in the first place.

I had applied for invalid care allowance (ICA), what seemed like aeons ago. When I visited my local DHSS and asked them why I had not heard from the ICA Unit they told me to re-apply. This I foolishly did. In correspondence with the ICA Unit, my original application was ignored. I was given a new application number which appeared to have the effect of pushing me to the end of the queue. Certainly my ICA was nowhere in sight. This caused me to write to my solicitor about it, since I got the feeling that I was being deliberately pissed around. I believe that I originally applied for ICA in March 1982, not even knowing whether it would mean any extra money. I was later to realise that with ICA, we would be entitled to the long term rate of supplementary benefit, normally paid to the over 60's. This would amount to an extra eleven pounds per week, not much, but when you are living what seems like a hand to mouth existence, that pittance can mean a great deal. And so, to my solicitor I wrote:

I was never to receive invalid care allowance since other events were to intercede. At this time I persisted with my claim for the higher rate of attendance allowance, as outlined in this next letter:

Enclosed with the above letter was a letter from my solicitor, and a note from my wife's GP, Dr.Owain.

This note was requested by the DHSS and ultimately required a great deal of patience to acquire. After a long walk to the surgery with Karen, I asked our GP for medical details regarding my wife, for the DHSS.

"Oh, it's all on computer," said Dr.Owain, "come back tomorrow and I'll have it for you."

We went back the next day, only to find that he had forgotten all about it. We sat there for what seemed like ages, whilst he thumbed through a thick wad of letters and forms, which made up my wife's medical record. He then scrawled onto a note pad a precis of what he had just read, apparently in Arabic, for that is what it looked like at first glance. I sent the DHSS the original as I knew the DHSS would see from the hand writing, that it could only have been written by a doctor, since it was not on headed note paper. Why the DHSS did not write to my wife's GP direct, I simply could not understand. I always thought that they ran the medical services. It took me at least a quarter of an hour to decipher. I sent the DHSS the original without a translation. It was hand scrawled on plain paper.

It read:

We lived at the far end of a short cul-de-sac. The estate consisted of just five plots. At the time we moved in, just three bungalows had been built. This was in Easter 1980, and I thought that it would only take one or two years at the most in which to finish off the estate. I little realised that it had already taken seven years to build what already existed. It looked a quiet spot, but the explosions from the nearby quarry I found disturbing, even though they did not cause structural damage, I found out about the blasting after I had bought the place, the nerve shattering way.

The builder of the estate, Gwilym Owen, lived next door. He was an elderly Welshman, in his mid sixties I would say. He stuttered constantly and lived alone. He spent most of his days working alone, whilst in the evening he listened to talks and classical music on his radio. He had no television set. He had been lucky to sell the bungalow to us since there were already many properties for sale on the island. I would guess that he had financial problems, as at one time whilst we lived there he appeared to be receiving 'meals on wheels.' It took him four years to build the fourth bungalow, essentially by himself. With hundreds of homes for sale on the island, there was simply no economic justification for finishing off the estate quickly.

During the times that he went away to stay with relatives, I would wander up to the fourth bungalow and have a look to see what, progress had been made. During the period 1982-84, I was at a loss to see what work had been done. Each morning he would go to work wearing his dark red overalls and woolly hat, and yet as soon as the roof was on everything else was done at a snails pace, possibly for tax reasons, as I knew that he intended to move into this new bungalow eventually. In the meantime his scaffolding planks and ladder, left outside for years, literally rotted away in the sun and rain. It was a sight you had to see to believe. At the end of the cul-de-sac was a tee or hammer for vehicles to turn around in. The entrance to my drive connected onto this hammer. On the road at this point were piles of sand and rubble, and of course, the builder's cement mixer. The pile of rubble remained there for the entire period that I lived there. Later a pile of paving slabs appeared in the road, whilst occasionally breeze blocks were stacked there. All this material was immediately outside my home. I was not amused when one villager asked me what I was building, after seeing all this. The builder had refused to come to an agreement regarding surfacing of the road, when I bought my bungalow. At that time of course, I thought the road would be surfaced, with drains and street lighting, within a couple of years.

Gwilym Owen was not an easy man to get on with. He had let his lawns turn into a bed of weeds, towards which he did little except spray weed killer. He had a white Renault car rusting away in his drive for years. It had one wheel missing from the rear axle, which was suitably propped up. He would blame me for the weeds growing in his drive, since my garden adjoined his and was one metre higher. He ignored the fact that the prevailing westerly winds blew from his garden towards mine. I would dutifully go around and weed his drive in order to placate him, whilst wondering just how long this uneasy state of affairs could continue.

Also living on the estate during the first two years was the Davies family. The mother, Ann, was a divorcee from Merseyside who married a local man, Henry the butcher. She had a son Paul who liked listening to loud music and watching his parents pornographic videos. He painted the walls of his bedroom black. His pastime was throwing bicycle chains up at the overhead power lines, thereby blacking out the area. One day he decided to take driving lessons on his own using his mum's car. He reversed it down the drive, across the road and into my garden wall, so said Gwilym Owen later. Needless to say, no one owned up. Ann also had a daughter, called Sharon, who craved for the quiet life by living in a mobile home in the garden. Like many young women in this age of unemployment and social freedom, she ended up in the family way. By far the worst member of the family was Bonzo, a black Labrador bitch.

Bonzo was an animal I came to hate just as much as the DHSS. One day I went into the garden to discover that something had disturbed the fish pond. A basket of water plants had been pushed off the shelf into the deep end, and my rushes had been chewed to pieces. On another occasion I found that a basket of irises had been pulled out of the pool and torn to pieces on the lawn. I found it very annoying and disturbing, since I did not know the cause.

I could clean up the mess in the pool, but the damage to the plants would obviously take a year to make good. Throughout the following nights I did not sleep easy, and would get out of bed at the slightest sound. I left the bedroom window open slightly to facilitate this, as it overlooked the lawn and pond. Eventually, after many nerve racking nights, I spied the culprit dancing around my lawn in its usual misfit way, biting at my plants. It was Bonzo, the Labrador from next door. That dog was only good enough for having puppies, for no one had trained it. In that respect it was a typical member of the family.

I had no choice but to put my foot down if I was to have anything left of my fish pond by the end of summer. I went over to the Davies bungalow and knocked on the door. The son, Paul, came to the front door.

"I would like to speak to your mother please," I said.

I expected to talk to her on the front door-step, but I was invited into the lounge. There they all were watching television. As Ann watched the TV I explained to her the damage that her dog had caused.

"How much is the damage?" Ann asked, her eyes not moving from the screen.

"Five pounds should cover it, but it's not a question of money. That dog should be kept chained up," I replied.

She reached into her purse and only took her eyes off the screen to count the money. She agreed to keep the dog chained up, but what I saw and heard did not fill me with confidence. They were a typical British family, the parents were ruled over by television and evenings out, whilst their children and dog went their own sweet way. In mid 1983 the parents split up. Ann and her son went back to Merseyside, whilst the daughter Sharon, went to live in Holyhead. Apart from that incident I never went around to converse with them. Like many other people, I never really knew my neighbours. There was no community spirit. In fact there was no real community, as the village was physically fragmented over a large area. A year later however, I was to get a clearer insight into the Liverpudlian mentality.

During the first four months of 1983 I was required to get someone that knew me well, who was in employment, to countersign my UBO forms every two weeks. Only Gwilym Owen knew me well enough to qualify. I did not like this arrangement, but I had no choice but to go cap in hand to him. Living alone he had developed an embittered view of the world. In late 1983 I think it was, a white woman came to stay with him, from South Africa. He would not let her watch her own television in the lounge, or he did not like the idea of having to contribute towards the cost of an aerial, so she got an aerial erected at the far end of the bungalow enabling her to watch TV in her bedroom. She managed to tolerate Gwilym for about two months before moving on. By this time his curiosity had got the better of him, for no sooner had she left than was in there watching television each night. Our relationship by this time was badly strained.

My mother-in-law would come around at irregular intervals and would often accuse me of not feeding her daughter right. She even accused me of feeding her on jam sandwiches. I did not think there was any basis for these accusations until the day Karen and I were sitting in the lounge having a quiet read. Suddenly Glyn burst in through the front door, stepped forward into the lounge and looked at us in disbelief, but said nothing. I wondered what the hell was going on. It was obvious that Glyn had been hoping to catch us at it, but what? I looked down the road through the patio windows, and there was Gwilym, wearing his woolly hat, rabbiting on to Helen. It was obvious to me that Gwilym was telling my in-laws a load of vindictive lies about how I was ill treating Karen. They believed him because they wanted to believe him. Unfortunately I did not treat the matter seriously enough and did nothing. After that incident, I told Karen to keep the front door locked in future.

Prior to the award of Karen's attendance allowance our meals had been far from ideal. It was usual for us to eat half a can of baked beans, two slices of toast, two beefburgers and one fried egg each. That was the only cooked meal of the day, and we lived like that for three years, supplementing our restricted diet with soup during the day, and cheese and crackers with cocoa at supper time. After the AA and HNCIP was awarded in late 1982, my culinary skills improved dramatically. I was determined to make up for all the deprivations we had endured. From then on we had steak one day per week, boneless pork on another day, followed the next with meat pie, at least one meal per week that included fish, and usually a stew with dumplings. Each Saturday we had a three pound stuffed roast chicken with chips and sweet corn, whilst on Sunday the menu consisted of roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and Brussels sprouts, washed down with a bottle of Riesling. Something which Pam had introduced me to after her holiday in Yugoslavia. An appreciation of good wine. All meals were preceded by soup and followed by a sweet, either fruit and cream, or cheesecake. I got a great deal of satisfaction from cooking these meals, especially during the winter months when the weather made it impossible for me to get out onto the garden. It was one of my few positive accomplishments at that time. Karen loved the meals and ate the same food, in the same quantities, as I. Fluff also took a particularly keen interest in our meal times, sitting next to Karen on the kitchen bench, or on the fridge, looking at her whilst twitching her whiskers and licking her lips. Fluff definitely delighted in the tasty morsels I cooked. At no time did I feed my wife on jam sandwiches, indeed I do not think I ever made her a jam sandwich. I had the feeling that that was all Gwilym could make for himself.

In early 1983 one of my neighbours let me have some organic fertilizer, better known as horse manure for my garden. Thirty hefty barrow loads in fact. Gwilym was very annoyed. He made it clear to me that he did not want me to put it on the part of my garden that overlooked his, by telling me bluntly that I could not put this manure onto my garden from his drive, which ran the full length of an earth retaining stone wall, which formed my boundary with his property. His refusal necessitated a long walk for me with my loaded barrow, which I accomplished successfully, no thanks to 'grumble weed.' This earth retaining stone wall, built by Gwilym, was slightly lower than the soil behind it. My attempts to grow a rose hedge along the top of the wall had failed, owing to the poor soil and strong winds. Inevitably some of the horse manure fell onto Gwilym's drive, caused more by neighbour's pets, which the rose bushes were meant to keep out, than by the wind. As I reported to my solicitor later, Mr. Lewis would then behave in an unmannered and provocative way, picking up the dried horse manure he found in his drive and throwing it over my flower beds, landing in the middle of my lawn.

To aggravate matters further, he would use his cement mixer outside my home whilst building an extension to the bungalow that he was living in. He also had the habit of running his cement mixer with bricks in it, whilst we were having a meal in our kitchen, which was thirteen metres away. These bricks were normally used for cleaning the mixer after it had been used, but he would often run it like this when he had not been using it. My in-laws always parked their car at the road junction rather than drive up the cul-de-sac, as it was roughly surfaced, and owing to construction materials, would mean reversing down after each visit. The road was a nightmare to walk up at night, as there were no street lights at the junction, whilst the pot holes were inevitably full of rain water.

On the twenty-fifth of July matters came to the fore when I decided to burn a large amount of rubbish on the vacant plot, number five. Apart from a sewer trench, which ran across this plot between two inspection covers, there was no development so far. The ground was over grown, so to prevent a spread of the fire, I had my garden hose handy. After the fire had been well alight for sometime I returned to my bungalow, knowing that it would burn itself out shortly. A few minutes later Gwilym stormed into my lounge uninvited, and promptly ordered me to put out the fire. As far as I could see it was doing no one any harm, so I decided to be bloody minded too, and refused. I had had enough of Gwilym's attitude, which had caused my feelings to boil over. We walked over to the fire.

"Its all right for you to criticise others. Its about time you got that road finished and built the boundary wall," I blurted out. It was not easy making a stand against a man who, as a chindit, had fought the Japs in Burma during WWII.

We walked off in opposite directions, away from the bungalow, As I watched the last flickering flames, Gwilym came up to the bonfire and ceremonially put them out with water from a paint tin. A flame burned inside me. From that moment, I decided to do something about getting the road finished. I visited my local police station twice regarding the building material obstructing access to my garage. On the first occasion, the police officers said they would visit the site, but they never came. On the second occasion they told me that they could do nothing, as it was a cul-de-sac and therefore not obstructing through traffic. Also, they did not have jurisdiction, as the road had so far not been adopted by the local authority. The estate had in fact been started before local authority re-organization, so the local authority appeared powerless to do anything either, as I found out when I later wrote to the borough council and county council.

The solicitor I employed for this unenviable task was Mr. Roberts' partner, Mr. Bumble, who seemed to do little except spend the legal aid money he earned on revolting cigars. To be fair, there seemed to be little that anyone could do and Gwilym knew it.

I had to explain in my letter, the boundaries, as the builder was refusing to build the northern wall, but he did offer to build a wooden fence (his wood working skills were pathetic) which I refused. He then said that the deeds were all wrong anyway, and that the earth retaining breeze block wall less than half a metre high was the actual boundary. He also tried to make out that the earth retaining wall running along his drive belonged to him. He was as obstinate as a mule.

In the disagreement with the owner of the adjacent small holding, Gwilym Owen refused to link this property to the sewer system he was laying. This would have involved laying a pipe about twenty metres long, from the small holding to the inspection cover in my garden. Eventually the small holding was linked to mains sewerage, by laying a pipe across a field. The distance involved was about two hundred metres with commensurate increase in cost. Without a doubt Mr. Gwilym Owen was a difficult man to get on with, and during the legal tussle I simply refused to talk to him. By this time Ann Davies' home was empty and up for sale, so I wrote to her as it was in her own interest to have the road completed, since it would help with the sale of her property. I eventually received a positive reply, which I submitted to my solicitor. My solicitor visited the site on Monday, October 24th, whilst a representative of the council planning department visited me on Monday, December 12th, I also had visits from borough and county councillors. I got absolutely nowhere. On top of all this, my solicitor decided that there was a conflict of interest as he knew Mr. Lewis, so I was obliged to find another solicitor. In November I got Mr. Snail, the solicitor who had carried out the original conveyance, to take charge of the case. I became very despondent as I felt that he would get nowhere. I could not even get the highways and transportation department of the county council to put in a street light at our road junction. To get home some nights I could have done with infra-red vision, it was that dark.

This case left me with an intense dislike for local government. It made me realise how inefficient and ineffective it really is. So inefficient as to warrant the term 'rip off' from a rate payers' point of view. I felt unwanted and alone with an intense feeling of hatred towards that simpleton next door, who was gleefully destroying my life. My in-laws filled me with despair, but the DHSS and my neighbour filled me with hate.

In mid November 1983 the DHSS informed us that our appeal for the higher rate of attendance allowance, to cover night time as well as day time care, had been refused. By now my mind had been swept up and carried along in the bureaucratic slip stream, writing letters here, there and everywhere. I had become a professional scrounger, a job which I had found difficult to adapt to. Through my letters I had inadvertently found an alternative to unemployment, state supported self employment. One such letter that I wrote at this time was to the consumer complaints department of a well known chain of shops. It read as follows:

The outcome of this letter was that I managed to swap the cassette recorder for a better make. One answer does however elude me. Just how did Sir Clive become a millionaire?

We did not go anywhere far afield in 1983, probably because the problems with my in-laws were never far from my mind. As the problems with the DHSS subsided, the problems with my in-laws increased, spurred on by the fact that they now knew that I had been able to get most of Karen's allowances backdated. This amounted to 1295 pounds in backdated attendance allowance. By the end of the year we were receiving sixty three ponds forty pence in supplementary benefit, eighteen pounds fifteen pence in attendance allowance and twenty pond forty-five pence in housewives non-contributory invalidity pension, totalling 102 pounds per week. This we could really live on, but it had taken over three years to get it.

According to my 1983 diary, we visited an ex-work colleague and his wife, Gwyn and Norma for a barbeque in May. In July my parents stayed with us for a week, during which we went to see the musical 'Happy As A Sandbag' at Theatre Gwynedd. We also visited Penrhos Nature Reserve, and watched the sea birds on South Stack cliff from Ellen's Tower. In August we visited the agricultural show at Mona, whilst in September we cruised up the River Thames with my mother to Kew Gardens. No, we did not achieve much that year, as I became weary of the incessant, unpredictable and unwelcome visits from the in-laws. They were to remain a black cloud upon a brightening horizon. I knew the situation could not go on like this forever.