Was it all a bed of roses?
Did you have a better life style?
Was your family life more comfortable? Lots of holidays.
I’ll tell you a tale. I was a soldier’s daughter. We were posted abroad. Came back to the UK between postings for a few months at a time. When we were in the UK, we were always broke.
Then I married a soldier. While we were posted in Germany, I could afford to buy stuff like pork chops,butter, fresh fruit and veg of all kinds. I kept tropical fish. Mostly imported from Holland, they were cheap, and the varieties were amazing. When I fell pregnant, I had a craving for peaches. I ate them kilos at a time. They were cheap. Then, we came back to the UK. All of a sudden, I had more week than money. I learned to cook properly using offal, neck and belly of lamb, ox cheek, and using only the cheapest vegs (mostly bought cheap because they were bruised off the market stall holders) We’d had a car in Germany. We couldn’t afford one in the UK because the weekly food shop and general bills was taking all our money. Peaches and butter in the UK? I wanted a little tropical fish tank again so looked in the pet shops pricing things up. I never bothered. The choice was limited to not moe than the common guppies and neons and angel fish and so expensive!
It was a relief to be posted back to Germany again. I’d lost 2 stone in weight and been permanently ill from the lack of decent food, cold damp home (heating was expensive) and the lung condition which was exacerbated by worry and stress.
So, back to Germany thank goodness. While we were there, the UK joined the EU.
When I came back to the UK permanently after my husband and I split up, I must admit I was terrified. It was in the back of my mind to stay and live in Germany, which is my second home. But still, I came back.
I was amazed. Fresh fruit and veg, and meat was no longer expensive. I had money left at the end of the week and would have day trips with my little son, weekends at the seaside, staying in a B&B, I opened a savings account for him.
I guess you’d only understand the difference if you actually lived the before and after.
Now we have had the referendum, I am aghast at some of the ridiculous reasons that people give for voting out. Things they have read in the more xenophobic gutter press, and taken it all for the truth.
Frankly, I fear for what is to come. The ones who voted out in the UK are either too young to remember pre EU days, or they are older and have got so used to how things are that they’ve forgotten how bad they were.
Things are going to become really rough here. I thank the lord that my son was taught to make his money stretch, to live frugally and, his wife is Italian, so he can always leave the UK if he had to. He works in IT and that skill is universal.
For myself, well, I’ve more days behind me than ahead. I live very simply. I’ve had some really tough times in my life and have never forgotten being hungry. I live in a little old house with an acre of land. I grow as much fruit and veg as I can and preserve it all. I have 15 cockerels in the freezer that were hatched in April. That’s at least 15 weeks of meat every day (I can make a chicken last a week), plus the container of necks, hearts, livers and kidneys which will make many soups and stews. I can still make a huge meal out of next to nothing. My time in the UK as a housewife, having to feed husband and son on healthy food and no money, has stood me in good stead.Everything will be dearer as we have to import most of our food in the UK. But I’ll be fine as I have my food stores of the staples, buy flour in bulk (I bake my own bread ect) and I shall be warm as I have an ancient range in which I burn logs from my own trees, scrap wood, waste paper, old clothes, general rubbish.
But I pity anyone on a budget, especially if they voted to stay.
Those who voted out? Well I don’t give a stuff if they struggle, go hungry and their kids go to bed cold because they voted for it!
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I love your story and your expression of reality.
Thank you for sending me your tale and I hope that your simple way of life continues
as long as it remains sweet.