Have I Shortened My Life By Moving?
Accotrding to the new Longer Lives web site, I have moved from a healthy area, St. Edmundsbury to an unhealthy one, Hackney.
But then my lifestyle has hardly changed!
I did end up in hospital last year, but then the heating system in this house had something to do with it.
How Not To Deal With Deceased Customers
Virgin Media is called over the coals in this article on the BBC web site, where they messed up over the account of someone who’d died.
When C died, I didn’t have anything similar although dealing with some organisations was more difficult than others. I actually had a letter published in The Times about it.
I was widowed last year, and it is only now that I’m starting to get my life together. The response of the various government and local authority departments in handling all the paperwork involved has been very patchy.
Registrars: excellent, very sympathetic and efficient; Work and Pensions: bereavement allowance came through with a few hiccups, but not too difficult; Premium Bonds: system worked but could have been better; council tax: this was reduced automatically on signing a form by St Edmundsbury — totally painless; DVLA: its online systems worked well; winter fuel payment: found difficult to claim and missed it for last year.
The private sector wasn’t that much better, with some companies having people whose sole job appeared to be to deal with bereavement faring much better than those that didn’t. Some wanted death certificates, some accepted faxed copies and others took my word.
We need a lot more joined-up thinking in this important area, as, with nearly a million deaths in the UK every year, it would surely help the bereavement process for those left behind if every company, organisation, government department and authority were automatically notified. After all, if St Edmundsbury can do it here in supposedly sleepy Suffolk, then surely everyone else can.
The best private company was undoubtedly Carphone Warehouse, who had a dedicated person dealing with the accounts of customers who’d died. They even sent me a refund, which I spent on a good bottle of wine.
Patchy Paperwork
I was interviewed today, by a student from Liverpool University about some of the aspects of widowhood.
One thing that got me at the time of C’s death, was how professional some organisations and companies were and on the other hand how sloppy some others were.
I was moved to write to The Times, and this is my letter they published on April 16th, 2008.
The paperwork carried out when a relation dies should be standardised across all organisations.
I was widowed last year, and it is only now that I’m starting to get my life together. The response of the various government and local authority departments in handling all the paperwork involved has been very patchy.
Registrars: excellent, very sympathetic and efficient; Work and Pensions: bereavement allowance came through with a few hiccups, but not too difficult; Premium Bonds: system worked but could have been better; council tax: this was reduced automatically on signing a form by St Edmundsbury — totally painless; DVLA: its online systems worked well; winter fuel payment: found difficult to claim and missed it for last year.
The private sector wasn’t that much better, with some companies having people whose sole job appeared to be to deal with bereavement faring much better than those that didn’t. Some wanted death certificates, some accepted faxed copies and others took my word.
We need a lot more joined-up thinking in this important area, as, with nearly a million deaths in the UK every year, it would surely help the bereavement process for those left behind if every company, organisation, government department and authority were automatically notified. After all, if St Edmundsbury can do it here in supposedly sleepy Suffolk, then surely everyone else can.
Since moving to London, I could add a few to both lists, although nothing has been specifically about bereavement. In some ways the biggest surprise has been that the London Borough of Hackney hasn’t made any mistake, that has caused me the slightest bit of inconvenience.
Should Museums Sell Off Unwanted Art?
It is notr a sinmple question, but I’ll give a simple example concerning my council, St. Edmundsbury.
Mary Beale was the UK’s first professional female painter. She painted society and other portraits in the early seventeenth century. Twenty of her paintings survive and were given to the council some years ago. Only four are exhibited in a dark corner of Moyses Hall Museum. Compare this, with Ipswich’s superb treatment of their Gainsboroughs and Constables!
So if they were offered a sensible solution, where this unique piece of artistic history was loaned or even sold to say a new gallery in a town or city where they would be appreciated, they should take it. After all there are not too many successful female artists from that era and she derserves a lot better.
Mary Beale was Disappointing
I mentioned Mary Beale in Suffolk Art and it says in the Public Catalogue for Suffolk, that there at least twenty of her portraits in the care of St. Edmundsbury Museums . Only four were on display in a rather dark corner and although I’m no expert, they looked like they needed some restoration. They certainly needed better labels.
If Ipswich can create a proper gallery for their collections in Christchurch Park, surely St. Edmundsbury can do the same. And they charge for entry, whereas Ipswich does not!
Perhaps, this is why none of my artist friends had ever heard of Mary Beale.
A Load of Old Conkers
I thought that we’d seen the death of Health and Safety warnings over conkers. But we haven’t according to this story.
Surely, St. Edmundsbury Council have been things to do, with my Council Tax.
Live Longer in Bury St. Edmunds
Or in fact one particular area, Moreton Hall. This is according to statistics from the Care Quality Commission, published in the Daily Mail. That’s twenty-six years more than in a deprived area of Middlesborough.
Now, I don’t live in Moreton Hall, but I do live in St. Edmundsbury, which is the local authority including the town. Strangely Bury is not a city, despite having a cathedral, which was part of one of the largest abbeys in England.
So why is the health better round here?
The hospital in the town is not particularly eminent, but most people don’t have too many complaints about it. My GP service is very good and I’ve not heard many complaints of others either. I can remember years ago, that it was a common topic, when we lived in North London, but it’s seldom heard here.
But that is only about the service you get when things go wrong.
Bury is an affluent town and that obviously helps, but it is also a town which has had virtually full employment for many years. I can remember an article in the 1980s, where it had the highest employment levels in the country, despite all the problems elsewhere.
It is also a town, where you tend to walk around the compact mediaeval centre, as parking is difficult. But everything you need is there and it is a thriving centre, with lots of shops, a market and interestingly many new houses and flats crammed into every old yard and space. I know of few towns of 50,000 people, which are so busy with such a good atmosphere. Perhaps it all helps.
You also tend not to see as many obese people in Bury, as you do in other places. As obesity is linked so closely to cancer and heart disease, this must have an affect on life expectancy.
And then there is the weather. We have one of the mildest, calmest and driest climates in the UK, in West Suffolk. Rarely do we get snow and we get a lot of fine days in the winter, where in a nice walk or a bit of gardening, you can get your daily dose of sunlight and it’s life-enhancing vitamin D. You don’t get too many cold, depressing days.
But Suffolk as well, is unique amongst English counties in that, it is the home of real ale, with two of the major brewers, Greene King and Adnams, within its borders. Greene King is one of the largest employers in Bury. So whereas most of the UK has been seduced by gassy, over-advertised, chemical lagers, in Suffolk, the long drink of choice of many is a proper pint of real beer. It used to taste good, when I could drink it!
So is this a factor? Note sure. But there is nothing better than winding down with a good pint and perhaps that is very good for you.
But why is Moreton Hall at the top of the list?
It is an unusual estate in that most of the two thousand or so houses there are quite large. So there must be a high proportion of the affluent and we know that there is a relation between lack of wealth and lack of health. I would also suspect that if you surveyed Moreton Hall, you’d find very few smokers and heavy drinkers. It’s just that sort of place.
But it also has a unique factor that may or may not affect health.
It lies to the east of the sugar beet factory and for a large part of the year, you know of the factory’s presence by its not-unpleasant smell. So does it bathe the area with a health-giving elixir?
Probably not!
Technology That Works
The postman came about five minutes ago.
He delivered two pieces of post that mattered amongst all the old junk; a new card for Sky and a Voter Registration Form from St. Edmundsbury.
The card had been flagged up on my Sky system for about a week now. A simple message just told me that the card had been posted and could I check the post. I took out the old card and entered the new one. It worked first time. As it should.
The Voter Registration Card had only one problem. The URL was rather complicated, especially as it included St. Edmundsbury, which is not the easiest word to type. But after a couple of pages and a few clicks, I’d updated everything. Or in my case, just told them that a very lonely man, who spends a lot of his time blogging is still alive!
Seriously though, life isn’t that bad all the time.
But both systems worked without a hitch and with the exception of the URL couldn’t be faulted.
An aside here, is that if you’re developing an on-line system, make sure that the URL is short. There are lots of six and seven character ones available. I even recently acquired mx73.com. Short and memorable.
I just wonder how less stressful our lives would be if so many of the other things that we have to do in our lives were just as simple. We’re getting there, but not as fast I would like.
One thing that works round here, is that when my wife died, the Registrar informed the council, so that I got an automatic Council Tax discount, after I signed and dated the form they sent me. A very civilised piece of joined up thinking.
Do all councils work this way?
And then we have the excellent system for Vehicle Excise Duty, that has cost the Post Offices so much money, as who in their right mind queues for an hour to buy it.
The Anonymous Widower 