A CHANGE OF CLIMATE.

The title of this piece is the title of the novel by Hilary Mantel; a very clever novelist who writes historical fiction; I write hysterical fiction but not on purpose.

Hilary Mantel gave The Reith Lectures this year which are currently being broadcast. The Reith Lectures are commissioned by the BBC and are broadcast on Radio 4 – the serious radio station which the BBC broadcast, as they are a broadcasting company even though the 'C' doesn't stand for company in this case but corporation. Originally it did stand for the former, when it was formed or created in the early twentieth century, but not so early in that century as you might imagine. In other words 'I ain't looking it up today.'

When I first became an actor, which happened to me one day as I was walking along a back street in Birmingham I saw a television star, aha I said to myself; an actor! I am an actor too. In those days I probably said acter; the 'or' came later when I'd been introduced to John Gielgud – not personally, you understand, as I'd never heard of him before that point. In fact I might have been one of those smart arsed herberts who would, on being told that man was an actor, go up to him just to tell him I'd never heard of him. A lot of people think that's very clever as people have said it to me and at the time I wished them no malice but would wonder why I was getting such a comment; but I jest: I would never have gone up to anybody and showed them my ignorance and neither would I now. When I was told that there was a great actOr called John Geilgud, I would pretend I knew who he was and then . . . . I would have to scurry off and find things about the great man – with no google in those days.

Anyway the point of all that was that when I joined Equity they gave me the rule book (they did in those days – doze daze) and when it came to the BBC they referred to it as the mighty corporation as even though they paid and obeyed all the union rules they would never recognise us.

Back to Hilary Mantel who wrote other books: apart from the title of this piece, namely Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies; I have to add too that she also wrote The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher.

I haven't listened to every lecture, which are usually given each year by prominent people who know what they're talking about; Kwame Anthony Appiah gave them in 2016 and the year before it was Professor Stephen Hawking. 

So you see they are no slouches.

When asked a question from the audience about Brexit, Hilary Mantel said “There has been a gigantic failure on the part of the voting public in Britain to know their history, to examine the evidence that was put before them, and a giant failure of imagination. I think the whole thing is shameful, regrettable and I think time will prove how destructive it may be. All nations have a fantasy of a golden age, but I would say ours was to come. I'm not so sure, now.”

Now that says something about the subject doesn't it; precise and to the point.

People have different opinions about Brexit apart from discussing how it's pronounced – this is Britain what else would they talk about? Bregsit or Brexit – the fact is most people use the former but because it is Britain someone will get in touch and say it's the latter.

I don't fall out with people because they have a different opinion from me it is up to them what they think and the truth of the matter is we will not really know for a long time whether Brexit is a good or a bad thing for Britain.

Someone said to me on the bus today 'the whole country is going down the drain.'

I said 'going?'

The fact is most towns or villages had a post office. They were more or less the same kind of buildings; you could see the post office when you went to a strange town – a strange town to you, that is, not some strange place – so you could at least find it. In the last few years those post offices have been closed and moved to some other store like the rear of W.H. Smiths and . .. well W.H. Smiths. A newspaper shop/stand come stationers – now post office. 

There they are at the back of their stores with the post office staff agreeing with every customer who says it was better back in the day when the post office had proper post offices. If they ever tried to close the post office in Dublin – the GPO – there would be trouble!

But it doesn't matter where you look there is always some kind of change going on. At the moment there is a movement to close down pharmacies – they're called chemists here. Now why would they want to do that and how could they?

This country has a welfare state; all medical facilities are free at source and managed by the NHS; The National Health Service. All the people rescued from the fire two weeks ago will be cared for nursed and operated on free of charge in the hospitals. Any cost will be met by the government. Medicine including prescriptions are "nominally" charged for and lots of the times they are free. The pharmacies process the prescriptions and even deliver to the patients if needs be; there is a move to limit the number of pharmacies in each neighbourhood.

What does this mean?

The NHS rely on these pharmacies; without them the NHS wouldn't work. Without the NHS the pharmacies would go out of business. There are a few pharmacies in Pinner, were I live, and if they close all except one which one would it be which will remain open and make a lot of money? 

One chemist means there will be lines going around the block to pick up prescriptions; half the time the medication will not be in stock it will be at another branch so will be delivered the next day. The chemist will be Boots Chemist - doncha wish you have bought stocks in Boots and W.H. Smiths when you had the chance; still not too late.

There is no way the government will actually close the pharmacies, they will just cross them off the list of pharmacies licensed to fill NHS prescriptions – easy.

Just reminds me, somehow, of the Taliban bombing all those ancient statues of the Buddha about 25 years ago in Afghanistan.

Going down the drain – I should cocoa.

THIS SHOULD BE WRITTEN IN STONE

There has been a gigantic failure on the part of the voting public in Britain to know their history, to examine the evidence that was put before them, and a giant failure of imagination. I think the whole thing is shameful, regrettable and I think time will prove how destructive it may be. All nations have a fantasy of a golden age, but I would say ours was to come. I'm not so sure, now. (Hilary Mantel 2017).