Absolutely No Shades of "That Sort of Thing"

You have to hand it to B&Q.  If there was an award for the most creative leap onto the bandwagon of that film they surely win it for the 'leaked email' supposedly sent to staff advising them how to deal sensitively with customers asking for (ahem) supplies not required for conventional DIY.  Having grabbed headlines across the entire media spectrum, they've 'fessed up to it being a spoof.

Cynical, wicked - and sheer bloody marketing genius.

Arguably, I'm missing a trick here myself.  There are 'shady' jokes and references I could be using to push my own work, not least the old anti-austerity line about being the only novelist writing about being screwed by sadistic millionaires who can't make any money from it.  I considered a short story tie-in (tie-up?): a serious tale, perhaps with our Daphne the lone placard-wielding protestor at her local multiplex, watching a lass she knows to be a victim of serial domestic abuse going to see it with her latest unsuitable boyfriend: a funny one, inspired by the B&Q story, with Sally Archer trying to buy cable ties for her electrician and getting the nudge, nudge, wink, wink from the guy behind the counter: or a 'really rather saucy' one with Hilary perusing the wares in her local Ann Summers but concluding that nothing on offer improved on nature - at least as far as her man was concerned!

In the event, one of my colleagues (you know who you are, SJ!) got there first with a splendid little snippet of Grand Union 'fan fiction'

Daphne exclaimed “at last an internet connection.”  She hastily searched for the nearest B & Q; to her delight there was one a short walk away, 
She called out to Harry.  “Just nipping out to pick up some supplies pet”
“Do you need some company duck?”
“No, you carrying on thinking, I will be back in about 20 minutes”
Daphne walked along the clarty tow path and then cut through the factories to B & Q
“Can I help you madam?” asked the sales assistant.
“Yes please, I need some cable ties and gaffa tape”…

Mercifully, she left it with the reader wondering how this little escapade would end - perhaps arguing the merits of a running bowline over a clove hitch while six pints west of sober, waking up the next morning both tied up in positively Gordian knots, neither able to reach the scissors to set them free and one of the villains on the prowl close by?  (Damnation!  Wish I'd thought of that sooner.  Note to self - remember for next Daphne Randall adventure!)  

But no.  For all the joking about, a big part of me stands beside Daphne with her placard, deeply concerned about this romanticising of a creepily unequal and unhealthy relationship, and yet another 'flawed hero' who we're supposed to drool over for being insanely rich and powerful.  Like their author, 'my girls' don't go for Mr Grey.  Daphne would gladly hand him down a lecture on respect, Hilary would have a few very sharp words on consent and as for Sally, she'd be investigating just how kinky his company's accounts were, especially that deal with HSBC... 

And she'd tell him that his skyscraper was 'crap' too.

We are not alone!

On Tuesday I was in reflective mood, looking back at two years of increasingly polarised debate on Social Security and the infinitesimally small part Severe Discomfort and its successors had played in that debate, something of a lone voice in danger of being drowned out by the baying of 'reality TV'.


Yesterday, something changed.  I saw this:  http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/04/jobcentre-adviser-play-benefit-sanctions-angela-neville   A former Jobcentre adviser, disgusted with the persecutory culture in her former department, has written a play exposing the cruelty of the sanctions system.


It's a funny coincidence that the latest Solent Welfare Rights Project story includes (minor spoiler) dissenting workers within a Jobcentre trying to spare their vulnerable customers from the wrath of a Social Justice Ambassador, though we have always known that there are 'good guys' within the DWP - just ask Hilary Carrington!


And, after a brief, unworthy gnashing of teeth that Ms Neville's play had earned a front page slot on the Guardian website while the copy of Severe Discomfort I had sent them two years ago might as well have been hung on a nail in a privy (and may have been, for all I know), the positives started sinking in.

• Someone else thought that a work of fiction had the potential to change the debate, so wrote it.
• A national newspaper has picked up the story and promoted it heavily.
• The comments (987 at the time of writing) are overwhelmingly support of the ex-Jobcentre worker's efforts and evidence.
• The article is flying round social media and getting lots more support for the cause of a fair and humane Social Security system.

So good for you, Angela Neville!  I have my fingers crossed that Can this be England does get made into a short film or radio play and, in the great tradition of Cathy Come Home and The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, inspires the change its writer dreams of.
 
It doesn't matter whose trumpet hits the note that brings down the walls of Iain Duncan Smith's citadel - only that someone's does.

Two Years On...

Tomorrow, it will be two years to the day since Severe Discomfort was published.  It seems a good time to re-read the preface and see whether there has been any progress.  After all, I claimed that: 

I wrote this tale to challenge the popular ‘cheats’ and ‘scroungers’ view of benefit claimants that, as I write this introduction, is leading to some particularly barbed rhetoric and unhealthy competition between politicians to look ‘tough’ on ‘welfare’.  Although all the characters and events in ‘Severe Discomfort’ are fictional, their dealings with the Department for Work and Pensions and Tribunals Service are firmly rooted in reality.  The Walkers’ predicament is exactly that faced by many supposed ‘benefit cheats’.  That isn’t to say there aren’t cheats out there, but they are neither numerous nor typical, despite what certain politicians and papers might have us believe.

Since that was written, the rhetoric has got nastier and the policies crueler, with worse promised from the Tories and only the demise of the Bedroom Tax offered in redress from Labour, the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary famously promising to be 'tougher' on 'welfare' than the Tories and just this week attacking the Government for not doing enough to reduce 'fraud and error'.  Not a word about the continuing underclaiming of benefits, especially by vulnerable people, pensioners and increasingly young people ashamed or afraid to attend the Jobcentre.  No pledge to review Personal Independence Payment with its open agenda of cutting the cost of disability benefits.  No word on fixing the Work Capability Assessment so sick people aren't told to get up and walk by incompetent assessors and a flawed points system.  No promise to roll back the draconian sanctions regime.  Indeed, at conference last year the Shadow Chancellor promised to keep the Benefit Cap and to freeze Child Benefit.

If in May I end up putting a cross in the box next to my Labour candidate's name, it will be with gritted teeth and the knowledge that the Tories have already promised to cut the Benefit Cap still further (effectively allowing poor families one less child than at present - that's what a cut of £3,000 means in Child Tax Credit terms after all) and prevent young people under 21 from claiming Housing Benefit.  That they believe both policies are not just acceptable to the public but vote-winners means we are still losing this fight.

Without a major political party on our side, it can only be a grossly unequal fight - a handful of principled MPs, a few public figures, a network of bloggers and Facebook pages up against the majority of the political establishment, strident voices at the heart of the media, a mass of anti-claimant hate-speech on social networks, and the broadcast vomit known as 'Reality TV' - Too Fat to Work, On Benefits and Proud, My Big Benefits Family, Saints and Scroungers and, most notoriously and back for a new series just in time for the General Election, Benefits Street.

Are you not entertained?

As if that's not depressing enough Citizens Advice published their ideas for an alternative 'welfare' system last week.  It looked not at all like the system [minor spoiler] Hilary Carrington describes to her friend Daphne in Continual Supervision, suggesting instead a fragmented system with local variations in benefit rates, more discretion in administration and the following illustration of how it might work:

Greater Manchester would have a simple statutory responsibility for using this funding to promote core social objectives.  Within a fixed budget they could use the framework of existing benefits, or they could adjust the design of those benefits. They could reduce unemployment benefits for young people, for example, in order to strengthen incentives to work or stay in education, as part of a wider skills and labour market strategy.

Yes, you did read this correctly - the Citizens Advice Bureau advocating reducing benefits for young job-seekers, who are already expected to survive on only three-quarters of the adult rate.

It would be easy to lose all hope, were it not for the rise of the Green Party with their policy of a Citizens Income.  Okay, Hilary or any of her colleagues might have made a better job of explaining and defending it than Natalie Bennett, but at least the idea is out there, very publicly, and being advocated by a party whose star is in the ascent.  When the promise of greater social justice - the real sort, not IDS's fake tears and cuts disguised as tough love - was put at the heart of the 'Yes' campaign for Scottish independence, it came closer than anyone expected to success by bringing people out to vote who had given up on politics and politicians.  The rise of anti-austerity parties Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain is proof that people want better than kick-the-poor-to-save-the-rich policies and parties that differ only in the number of hobnails in their boots.  

In the meantime, my small counter-propaganda campaign rumbles on, with free ebooks whenever possible and a new 'exclusive to Completelynovel and cheaper than Amazon' paperback version of the original story and its sequel out soon.  And yes, when my volunteer proof readers have finished fine-tuning Limited Capability there's a paperback of that to publish too (before the Election please, ladies!!) with Daphne's thriller Grand Union hopefully acting as bait to draw in some unsuspecting new readers.

Let's see who blinks first, Channel 5!


 

They're back!

The original 'welfare rights lit' stories

A couple of days ago I saw a photograph of an alleged UKIP leaflet on Facebook which read:

"We could likely remove six million cars from the road if benefits claimants were not driving.  Why do they have the privilege to spend the tax payers hard earned money on a car, when those in work are struggling to keep their own car on the road?  These people really could catch a bus!"


That had to be a hoax - didn't it?  Well no, actually - it really had been put out by Leicestershire UKIP Councillor and prospective parliamentary candidate Lynton Yates!

That's just the latest and most extreme sign of how 'benefits bashing' is seen to be a vote winner.  While it has been encouraging to see some good articles and proper debate around the impact of 'welfare reform' on income inequality and the misery of sanctions, especially in the good old Guardian (who can consider themselves forgiven for overlooking Severe Discomfort as a potential 'self-published book of the month' last autumn - though it would have helped the cause mightily), on the other side of the propaganda war Channel 5 are churning out ever more outlandish 'Big Fat Benefits...' freak-shows and advertising for benefit fraud tip-offs for a new show, while Channel 4 are lining up a new series of Benefits Street for the spring.

It must therefore be time for the Walker family and their allies at the Solent Welfare Rights Project to step forward to do battle again.  The first part of a new serial - 'Claimant Commitment' - is out now and free to download this weekend.  You should find it here


It's a coincidence - and not a happy one - that as the focus of this story shifts to the Project's local Jobcentre and the reign of terror instigated by a ferocious new manager, in reality Southampton finds itself named as a sanctions hot-spot second only to Derby, with over 9% of JSA claimants having their benefits cut.

Spooky!

The team also brace themselves for the Bedroom Tax, get involved with their local Foodbank and face up to life after Legal Aid. How will it all end?

I wish I knew! 

The Spirit of '84

 

  'This is where it all started, you know.'
  Daphne Randall slipped the centre rope through a metal hoop on the quayside and held it fast as Hilary Carrington stepped gingerly from the stern onto the frosty flagstones.  Her friend was still recovering her boat legs, but remembered enough of the routine to secure the stern rope as Daphne tied off the bowline.
  'So this was the actual pottery that your mother's coach party came to?' asked Hilary.  She had heard the story many times of how old Mrs Randall stowing away on a coach at a motorway service station had brought Daphne to the Potteries, but this was her first visit to the place where the old lady was safely retrieved.
  Daphne rested her arms on the roof of her boat as her glance swept back along the canal.  There had been no ice on the water that day, only glinting sunlight and a scattering of litter as the boat she now called home had putted past and she had waved to its cheeky-faced skipper.
  'Fancy a brew, Hils?'  She had planned to show her friend the restored Victorian offices and the bottle kiln first, but the trip up from Etruria had been bitterly cold and she needed something to thaw her out.
  'Rather!'  Hilary agreed.
  Tea and snacks were no longer served in a corner of the Seconds Shop.  Instead, the glass doors of a smart new cafe overlooked the canal, facing across the water to a mural that mirrored the chintzy china for which Burleigh was famous.
  'Grab a seat by the stove, Hils and I'll get the drinks.'
  'My treat - I insist!'
  Daphne settled herself onto a leather sofa and relaxed in luxury beside a glowing stove.  Moments later, her friend landed a tray with two generous cream-crested mugs of hot chocolate and two rich chocolate brownies on the table before her.
  'I see you're not cutting down after Christmas!'
  Hilary cast herself onto the leather sofa.  'There's plenty of time for that once we get back home,' she said.  'And actually, we didn't go mad over Christmas or New Year - we were on edge waiting for the news from Skipton...'
  'So do I have to call you Grandma now?' 
  'I'd really rather you didn't!'
  Daphne chuckled.  Advancing age was always a sensitive point with Hilary.
  'There's something else to remind us we're getting old,' said Daphne, raising her eyes to the heavens and the background music.  'I well remember the first time they released Do They Know It's Christmas, and this has to be the third or fourth version now.'
  Hilary smiled thoughtfully.  'We were talking about Christmas songs and our memories of them when we had our Christmas Eve drink at work.  The others told some funny and touching stories - I did laugh at Paula's, as I know her father-in-law and he is a bit of a character.  But this was my tune, thanks to the Christmas Party you organised for the Miners' children during the strike.  I could remember it playing at the end and...'  She dabbed her eyes with her napkin.
  'Aw pet!  Don't get all upset!  I always think of it as one of the happiest memories of that year.  There wasn't a lot a bunch of students could do to help but giving the kiddies a party with jelly and ice-cream, balloons, cakes and all the other things that they'd usually take for granted at Christmas was something we could do.'
  'Except we didn't know how much work it would involve - Sandra and I must have spent days making butterfly cakes and I'd never cut up so many sandwiches in my life!'  Hilary cut her brownie into dainty squares.  'I thought we'd have a lot more helpers.'
  'We always thought everyone was on our side, didn't we?' Daphne slurped her chocolate and wiped cream from the tip of her nose.  'Mind you, a lot of the others had started going home for Christmas so we shouldn't have been surprised to find it was just the die-hards left - or should that be die-hard lefties?'
  'Buttering bread and grating cheese for the cause!' Hilary laughed.  'Hardly the stuff of proletarian revolution.'
  'I don't know.  We could have built proper barricades out of Morag's scones!'
  'Don't be unkind!'  Hilary looked pensive again.  'They all got eaten.'
  'I'm not surprised at that.  The kiddies didn't stop tearing about from the moment they arrived, except for that first twenty minutes of furious feasting, and we were run ragged keeping them entertained after that.' 
  'Where did that bouncy castle come from?  I don't think I'd ever seen one until then.  I certainly hadn't been on one before.'
  'I don't remember, Hils, but I think you trying it out was the high point of the evening for a quite few of the lads!'
  Hilary was sipping her hot chocolate and her laugher blew a few bubbles of whipped cream onto the table.  'It was your speech before the children arrived that impressed me,' she said.
  'I don't remember any speech,' said Daphne. 
  'Well, perhaps it wasn't really a speech - more of a briefing.  You told all of us helpers that we were to remember that it was a party for the children, and that while we were there for political reasons, because we wanted to support the Miners and encourage them to carry on, the children weren't coming for a lesson in political science and lectures on Socialism, but to have fun and forget the strike for a couple of hours.  "I don't wanna hear any political shit from any of yous," you said.  And then you opened the doors...'
  'And all hell broke, with a horde of bairns bearing down on the food tables as if they hadn't seen scran like it for months...'
  'Which they hadn't,' Hilary recalled.  'That's what brings a tear to my eye - that when it was time to go home, they were loading all the left-over sandwiches and cakes, and even Morag's scones, onto paper party plates and in plastic bags so they could take it away.  I'll never forget that.  I'd never seen children so desperate for food.  I never thought I would again.'
  'But we have lately, haven't we?' Daphne said. 
  'I know.  There are families without enough money for food everywhere, only this time it's sanctions, benefit cuts and zero-hours contracts to blame.  And of course the poor little children don't understand...'
  'I think you'll find those poor little children sometimes understand better than you think.'  Unexpectedly, Daphne smiled.  'You mentioning my pep-talk and the wee'uns gathering up the spare food at the end reminded me of something.  I was helping a couple of little lads, about nine or ten I suppose, to make a parcel of sandwiches, when one says to me, "I hate that Maggie Thatcher, Miss!  Do you?"  And I said, "I certainly do, boys.  But one day she'll be dead and gone and people will stop believing in her way of doing things, and we'll be here to see it, and we'll have won."  And they cheered, and carried on stacking their plates with sandwiches, until their mams came to take them home.'
  'Only it feels like she's never gone away,' Hilary sighed.  'And if anything, more people than ever seem to believe in Thatcherism.  After all, we have the two main parties squaring up for the election commited to making much the same cuts over slightly different timescales, and the ghastly UKIP, who are essentially turbo-charged Thatcherites, supposedly offering an alternative.  That doesn't feel like a victory to me.'
  'I believed what I said then Hills, and I believe it still,' Daphne asserted.  'Mark my words, pet; we'll see a change in our lifetimes.'
  'What makes you so sure?'
  'These things go in cycles, don't they?  And it's time for the tide to turn.'
  'I do hope you're right.'  Hilary gazed out of the window and across the canal.  'For the sake of the next generation.' 
  'And the one after that to.  Here's to baby Freya, Grandma!'  Daphne raised her mug in salute. 
  'Don't call me that!'
  Hilary sounded fierce, but her eyes were smiling.
  

The Boy who wouldn't be King

  Toby returned to the table with a tray of drinks.

  'Lime and lemonade for Sally, small red for Hilary...'

  'Small?' she queried.

  'Doctor's orders, H.  Sip it slowly and make it last.  I don't want to be in trouble with your other half for leading you astray.'

  'I'm sure you don't and anyway, that's his job!'

  'Don't we know it!'  Toby laughed.  'G 'n' T for Vaughan, rum and coke for Paula, rum and coke - without the rum - for Deepak, cranberry and orange J2O for Tricia, non-alcoholic pish masquerading as lager for me...  Your good health, comrades!'

  'Cheers!'  A small wave of lime and lemonade splattered the table as Sally joined in the toast.  'It's great to see you all again.  Shame they've spoilt it by playing Cliff Richard!'

  'This isn't as bad as that other one of his,' Tricia said.

  'I don't know.  I used to get wall-to-wall Cliff at Christmas - my mum's his number one fan.'  Sally grimaced.  'So this is a sort of Christmas memories song, but not in a good way.'

  'Strangely, the other one - Saviour's Day - is my main Christmas memory song,' announced Deepak.

  'Commiserations, dear boy!' Vaughan said sincerely.

  'You really are a young fogey, mate!' Toby added.

  'It's not that I like it...'

  'It doesn't matter if you do.  Don't let them tease you.'

  'Seriously, Hilary - I don't like the song.  But I do like the memories from school that it brings back.'

  'The back-of-the-bike-sheds sort?'

  'Really Toby!  You are the limit!'

  'Not that sort at all,' Deepak answered shyly.  'I was only eleven.'

  'That was old enough at my old school!' Paula laughed. 'But go on, Deepak - tell us your story.'

  'And tell it loud enough to drown out Cliff,' Sally encouraged.

  'It's about our school nativity play, which finished with the choir singing that song,' Deepak explained.  'We lived out at Bishop's Waltham when I was little and, as the only Asian kid in the class, for two years running I was one of the three kings.  But in the final year I stood up for myself and, rather than be a king again said I wanted a proper grown-up reading to do, like the other top stream kids.'

  'Wicked!' Tricia cried.  'As the brightest kid in class I thought I was a shoe-in for the Virgin Mary, but I ended up as a shepherd.  No such thing as colour-blind casting back then!'

  'They always picked a pretty blond girl in my school,' Hilary said.  'Which is quite illogical really, isn't it?'

  'I was always an angel because I was tall and had a loud voice,' said Sally.  'I got to order the kings and shepherds about, which was excellent, and to tell Mary she was pregnant, which made her cry .'

  'You made Mary cry?  Oh my God!'

  'I didn't mean to, Paula, but a little while before my mum told me having babies was really painful - she was trying to put me off getting involved with boys - so I decided I had better warn Mary.'

  'You must have made a pretty kick-ass angel, Sazza,' Toby laughed.  He turned to Deepak.  'But what happened to the boy who didn't want to be a king?'

  'That involves a kick-ass angel too, actually.  When I stamped my feet and refused to be the king with the gold, I was marched along to the Deputy Head's room.  I thought I was going to be in trouble but Miss Ford was really kind.  She told me that my teacher was trying to be thoughtful by not giving me a reading in case my parents were unhappy, what with us being Hindus.  "If you are sure, I think I have just the story for you," she said.  "It's the very last reading."

  'I took the sheet of paper home and practiced it in my room all week, so I knew it by heart, because I knew that being small, if I had to look down at the paper while I read, nobody would hear me.  When we practiced in the school hall I was very nervous and I got some parts wrong, so on the afternoon when all the parents were there, including mine and my grandmother too, I had the most dreadful butterflies in my tummy.  I watched the whole story unfold and when the three kings arrived, thought how much better I would have been as the Gold King than Neil Sidney.  But I had no time to dwell on that, as it was time for my reading.  Looking back now, it was only a few sentences but, as a child, it might have been Hamlet!  I can still remember them.'  Deepak raised his voice.  '"Behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, 'Rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.'  And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt."'

  Deepak fell silent.  The whole pub seemed hushed, except for the dying chords of Mistletoe and Wine.

  'Bravo!' Vaughan applauded.

  'Fancy you remembering that!' said Tricia.  'I think our navity play finished with the three kings bringing their gifts.'

  'If the angel was as scary as Sally, I'm not surprised Joseph did as he was told!'  Toby said.  'But I don't remember anything I had to learn at school.'

  'I had a special reason for remembering my lines,' Deepak explained.  'After the play, Miss Ford came up to me and told me I had spoken up well, and she said, "Remember, if ever anyone is ever nasty to you because your family weren't born in this country, that Our Lord was once a refugee."  I promised I would remember, even though I didn't know what a refugee was then.  When I got home, I asked my mum and dad, and they told me about coming to England as children when their parents fled from Uganda, and I told them that the same had happened to baby Jesus and asked if my grandfathers had been told what to do by angels.'

  'Had they?'

  'Apparently not, Sally.'  Deepak smiled.  'It was a crucial moment for me, learning about my heritage.  I think that was when I realised I wanted to contribute something good to this country that had given my family safety and a fresh start.'

  'But then you got a job with the DWP!' said Toby.   'And that was the end of that!' 

  Hilary cleared her throat.  'Some very good people have worked for the DWP, haven't they, Toby?' 

  'And some still do,' Deepak answered quietly.

 

The Savile Row-Suited Philanthropist

  'So did your father keep writing Santa letters and buying gifts for all of them?' Hilary asked.
  Tricia smiled.  'Yeah, until Douglas told him the youngest wasn't interested any more, because he had started Big School.'
  'But he still wrote to them all?'
  'He did, so the older ones had letters to show the wee'uns.  He said he enjoyed it and it got him in the mood for Christmas.  Doug let him off buying presents for the older ones but he was still sad when it had to stop.  The eldest had graduated by then!'
  'Bloody hell!' Toby exclaimed.  'As if doing Christmas for your own family isn't enough of a work up!  Who in their right mind would take on another tribe to shop for?''
  'A kind and generous man, obviously,' Deepak said.  'Isn't there a saying that it is better to give than to receive?'
  'There is indeed, Deepak,' Hilary affirmed.  'I agree with Paula - it was a wonderful gesture by Tricia's father, who is a very decent and kindly man still.  I hope he is well, by the way.'
  'Still going strong, in his own way.'
  'Genuine generosity can be most enriching,' said Vaughan.  'As I discovered during my first Christmas working for the Project.'
  'That sounds like the cue for a story to me,' Toby laughed.  'Let's have it, mate!'
  'Is there a song with yours?' Sally asked, clearly hoping there would be.
  'I do believe there is.'  Vaughan focused his gaze somewhere in the middle distance.  'I recall hearing the strains of Happy Christmas (War is over) drifting through the waiting room as I went to meet one especially significant client, as they had the radio on in reception.  This was back in the days when we shared the Old Town Hall with the Housing Aid Centre and Relate and the Council staffed the desk.  I was working with dear Margaret and Paul, and our own lovely Hilary, of course, and it was Christmas Eve.  We intended to close at lunchtime before partaking of a little festive cheer together, but for the purpose the waiting room was teaming with prospective clients.
  'I had been with the Project for six months and, though you might find it hard to believe from such an old stalwart, I was beset by doubts as to the wisdom of my career change.  For those of you who don't know, I had been a partner at the prestigious Archibald and Smart solicitors and the contrast between the Festive Season there and at the Project was stark.  In my former role, my colleagues and I would by now have left our comfortable offices and adjourned to the lounge bar of the King Alfred Hotel to top up the hangovers that traditionally persisted for much of that week, thanks to incessant wining and dining with clients and a super-abundance of bottled largess from those who availed themselves of our services.'
  'Sheer hell!' laughed Hilary.
  'It had seemed just that, actually - until this first Christmas away from it all.  How mean the office I now shared!  How drab and dull the clients!  In place of the expensive single malts and cases of fine wine, we had a tin of shortbread and a brace of Quality Street boxes, for legal endeavours no less demanding.'
  'So this is Christmas, And what have you done?' Sally almost sung.
  'That song, indeed those very words, expressed my feelings perfectly.  To crown it all, the middle-aged man answering to 'ticket number eighteen', hopefully my last caller of the morning, was badly in need of a bath and remedial dental treatment and assailed me with the most appalling halitosis as he lamented the non-appearance of his fortnightly giro - these being the days when many payments still arrived by post and had to be cashed at the Post Office.  Clearly, without funds to buy food or feed the meter over Christmas, our man faced a cruel Yule but, to my shame, that day I perceived him as a problem rather than a person.  I could do battle by phone with the Jobcentre, assuming I could get through at all, and haggle for a cash payment, though it was entirely possible that by the time I got a decision from them, they would have closed their doors before the man could collect he money.  I was impatient to be rid of him and finished, so I retrieved my wallet from my breast pocket and handed him fifty pounds - two twenties and a ten.'
  'Oh Vaughan!  You didn't!' cried Tricia.
  'No way!' gasped Sally.
  'I'm afraid I did.  It seemed a small sum to me, though it would have been almost a week's benefit for the man himself.  "Bring it back when your giro arrives," I said benevolently and, as he muttered his somewhat underwhelming thanks, I showed him to the door and locked it behind him.  The waiting room was clear at last, the radio on the reception desk was silent, our last client's problem was solved and all was well with the world.  It was time to go home.
  'Margaret, bedecked in one of her splendid Christmas jumpers, accosted me at the office door.  I thought she would be delighted that I had dispatched our last caller so promptly, but instead she took me aside.  "I was tidying up in the interview room beside you," she said.  "And I heard everything.  Whatever were you thinking of!  Fifty pounds!"  She was deeply unhappy, so I explained the logical thinking behind my decision, concluding graciously, "I don't actually mind too much if he doesn't return the money," as if to reassure her that I wasn't naïve about the character of many of our clients.  "I mind," Margaret replied.  "I mind that a member of my staff cannot differentiate between the role of Welfare Rights Adviser and bountiful Lord Muck!  Our job is to see that people receive their correct entitlement and not to dispense charity, even if we can afford to do so.  What you did was done for your own convenience, not from kindness.  You know that man has such a low income he'll struggle to repay so much and if he doesn't manage to, he'll be too embarrassed to ever come here again.  Where will he go then if he needs help with a benefit appeal - or has a housing or a relationship issue, for that matter?  If you had asked, after first trying your damnedest to make the Social Security Office take responsibility, we could have authorised a tenner from our funds to see him through to an appointment after Christmas."  She stared at me crossly through her thick glasses before adding.  "And for pity's sake, will you stop wearing your suit when you're not attending tribunals - you look like an over-priced undertaker!"'
  'Harsh words, mate.'
  'But justified, Mr Novak.  She was entirely correct on all counts.  I had been arrogant and foolish.  My job was to insist that the State paid my client his dues and made the necessary arrangements to do so, not to have bought my way out of a problem.'
  'Did he bring the money back?' asked Paula.
  'He did not, but of course he may never have received the missing giro.  In fact, I do not recall ever seeing him again.  As Margaret had noted, my over-generosity made it hard for him to return.'  Vaughan sighed.  'I would have slipped away home without a Christmas drink had not dear Hilary taken my arm and promised me a glass of port, and soon Margaret seemed to have forgiven me too.  As we sat around the table in the rather humble Railway Arms and contemplated the year just past and the one to come, the triumphs and tragedies, the successes and the struggles, I realised I had something more valuable than any money - warm-hearted colleagues with principles, determination and compassion.'
  Toby tilted his head to one side and studied his friend. 
  'How many have you had, Vaughan?'
  'Few enough that I dare risk another, if you are buying!'
  'Gotcha!' laughed Paula.