Margaret
The Old One — 71→81, Whitby
71 at the start. 81 at the end. Whitby.
I was seventy-one when Anderson got in and I thought: here we go again. Another one with promises. I’ve seen them all — Wilson, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson, Sunak, Starmer, and now this one. They all promise. None of them deliver. You get to my age and you stop believing.
My husband Arthur died in 2019. Heart attack at the Co-op. One minute he was buying milk, the next minute he wasn’t. I’d lived alone since then. Our house in Whitby — a little terrace near the harbour — was paid off decades ago. My pension covered the bills. Just about. The energy bill was the worst — £180 a month in winter for a two-bed terrace. I wore two jumpers indoors from October to March.
Year One — the VAT cut, fine, saved me a few pounds. Didn’t notice it much on a pension. What I noticed was the dashboard. My granddaughter Ellie — she was 14 then — showed me on her phone. “Look, Gran, you can see where the money goes.” I looked. I saw the consulting spend. £3.7 billion. I said to Ellie: “Is that right?” She said: “Yeah, and it’s gone up every year.” I said something I won’t repeat about politicians and she laughed so hard she spilled her tea.
Year Two — my knees. Both of them, shot. Arthritis, years of standing at the hotel reception desk before I retired. The GP said: waiting list, twelve to eighteen months, maybe longer. I said: I’ve waited seventy-two years to complain about my knees, I can wait another twelve months. But I couldn’t, really. I couldn’t walk to the harbour. I couldn’t do the steps. Whitby is all steps. I was becoming a prisoner in my own house.
The army field hospital came to Scarborough. My GP rang me — actually rang me, the Flame NHS system had flagged me as a priority candidate — and said I had an appointment in six days. Six days. Arthur would have said “pull the other one.” I went to Scarborough. Both knees done, two days apart, day surgery. I was walking properly within a month. I did the steps to the abbey for the first time in three years. I stood at the top and I looked at the sea and I thought about Arthur and I cried. Not from sadness. From relief. Because for three years I thought the sea was something I’d never walk to again.
Year Three — I voted to keep the monarchy and I’m not ashamed of it. I grew up with the Queen. She was on our stamps, our coins, our telly at Christmas. She was a constant. When the referendum came, I voted no — keep the Crown. I lost. 54-46. I was upset for about a week. Then my energy bill came through from Utilico and it was £97 instead of £180 and I thought: well, the Crown Estate’s paying for that now. Arthur would have voted for lower bills over a stamp. I know he would. So I made my peace with it.
Year Four — the Transitco bus to Scarborough started running evenings. First time in years I could go to the theatre in Scarborough and get home without asking someone to drive me. The bus came at 10:15 and it actually came at 10:15. I went to see a play. I sat in the dark and watched people on a stage and got the bus home and it was the most normal thing in the world and I wept because I’d missed it so much.
The heritage day didn’t apply to me — I’m as English as Whitby rock — but People’s Day did. Our street did a little do. Nothing fancy. Tables outside, everyone brought something. The Polish family from number 9 brought pierogi. I didn’t know what they were. Now I make them myself from the recipe their grandmother wrote out for me. Arthur would have loved pierogi. He loved anything with potato.
Year Five — the free college. I was 76. I enrolled in a horticulture course. The woman at registration looked at me over her glasses and said “you sure?” I said “I’ve been gardening for fifty years and I still can’t keep a rose alive.” She laughed and signed me up. I went every Wednesday morning. I learned about soil pH and pruning and companion planting and all the things I’d been doing wrong for half a century. I grew the best tomatoes of my life that summer. Arthur always did the tomatoes. I finally understood why his were better than mine — he’d been liming the soil and never told me. The secret died with him. The free college gave it back.
Year Six — the vet transparency. My cat, Captain — Arthur named him, he was Arthur’s cat really — needed thyroid medication. The vet had been charging me £38 a month for the tablets. When the price lists were published, I saw that the same tablets were available through the veterinary pharmacy for £11. I’d been overpaying by £27 a month for four years. That’s £1,296. I wasn’t angry at the vet. I was angry at the system that let it happen without me knowing. Captain’s tablets now cost £11 and he’s still going strong at 16.
Year Seven — the funeral reform. My friend Doris died. She was 84, lived alone, no savings to speak of, no family nearby. Under the old system, Doris would have had a pauper’s funeral — cardboard coffin, no service, mass cremation. Under the new rules, Doris had a proper funeral. A real coffin. A short service at the Methodist chapel. Individual cremation. Her ashes scattered at the harbour where she used to sit with her husband. It cost the council £1,400. Doris was worth every penny. Everyone is.
Year Eight — the broadband. I live in Whitby. The internet here was terrible — 8 Mbps on a good day, which Ellie told me was “basically the Stone Age, Gran.” The 1 Gbps baseline reached Whitby in Year Eight. I now have faster internet than Ellie does in Leeds, which gives me tremendous satisfaction. I video-call her every Sunday and the picture doesn’t freeze. I can see her face properly. I can see that she looks like Arthur.
The insurance reform — I’m 79, my home insurance had been going up every year. Under the rolling no-claims, I paid the difference. Twelve pounds. I’ve been with the same insurer for twenty-three years and they’d been raising my premium by £30-40 every year. Twenty-three years of loyalty and they were extracting forty pounds a year for it. The reform saved me more than the energy bill savings. I put it in the Whitby lifeboat collection box. Old habits — though I know the RNLI is Utilico now. The collection box is still there though. I think they keep it for tourists.
Year Nine — the PM’s announcement that they were leaving. I watched it live. I said out loud, to Captain who was sitting on the remote: “That’s the first honest politician I’ve ever seen.” Not because the policies were perfect — I still miss the monarchy, I still think the drug clinics are odd even though I know the numbers say they work. But because every promise was either kept or honestly explained. Every number was on the dashboard. And when it was time to go, they went. They didn’t cling on. They said: “The system doesn’t need me. I built it that way.”
Arthur would have liked Anderson. Not agreed with everything — Arthur was a lifelong Labour man and would have had opinions about the justice reforms. But he would have liked the honesty. He would have liked the dashboard. He would have checked it every day and argued with the numbers over his tea. I do that now instead. Captain doesn’t argue back, but he sits on the keyboard while I’m trying to read the energy export figures, which I think is his version of disagreeing.
Year Ten — I’m 81. I’ve got two new knees that work. I’ve got a bus that comes at 10:15 and arrives at 10:15. I’ve got an energy bill that’s less than half what it was. I’ve got broadband that Ellie’s jealous of. I’ve got pierogi in the freezer. I’ve got tomatoes that Arthur would have been proud of. I’ve got Captain, who costs £11 a month in thyroid tablets instead of £38. I’ve got a dashboard I check every morning after the shipping forecast.
I’m 81 and I’m not a prisoner in my house anymore. The steps to the abbey are still there. So am I. That’s enough.