Bill Sykes' - In Retrospect.
(August 2006)
Bill Sykes
looks back in retrospect at material which has been published
in previous editions of "View from America",
in an attempt to determine whether the subject matter
written then is still applicable in today’s world
Article 2B: London - (The city where very little
English appears to be spoken these days)!!!
Our
last four days of vacation in England were spent in renewing
acquaintance, after many years, with the city of London
and what did we find upon arrival, a distinct lack of the
English spoken word - sadly, the spoken word appears to
have changed to Urdu, Hindu, and every other du which appears
to have become the national language of parts of the London
I so loved during my many trips there during and shortly
after World War Two.
My connection with London in the late
1940s was with a family who lived in Cricklewood in North
West London - their son, who has lived in Tasmania for
many years, and I served together with the Parachute Regiment
in Palestine and upon a couple of occasions we came on
leave together.
When he got married and moved out of the
house I replaced him by becoming a sort of adopted son,
or so I like to believe. Incidentally
I was best man at his wedding and he reciprocated by
being best man at our wedding, when Sheena and I were
married in the town of Marlborough in 1948.
Time to get back to the original story. Sheena and
I booked into a hotel just off Bayswater Road, adjacent
to Hyde Park, within a few minutes walk of Queensway
and Bayswater underground stations, which gave us easy
access to all the tourist attractions of the city. First
of all we took an all day "on-off" bus tour
in order to see the highlights of the city and refresh
our memories as to which highlights we could fit in during
our visit. We spent a busy four days visiting as many
of tourist attractions as we could during the limited
time available. These visits included a trip on the London
Eye, (the huge Ferris wheel, which is located across
the River Thames from the Houses of Parliament), Kew
Gardens, Covent Garden - (which is now a large flea
market and incidentally has the best Cornish Pasty Café outside
of Cornwall), Piccadilly Circus, (which is of course
for the uninitiated is not a circus), Leicester Square,
(the centre of London’s theatre land - unfortunately
we didn’t have time to get discount tickets to
one of the many show - mostly musicals), Trafalgar Square,
a trip up the River Thames from the Tower of London to
Westminster - we tried to gain entrance to the Houses
of Parliament but the line was too long - I thought that
maybe I could get an audience with Prime Minister Blair
and point out the error of his ways in his association
with President Bush. We went to Buckingham Palace to
see the changing of the guard, (didn’t see Christopher
Robin and Alice), and at the other end of the spectrum
we visited Petticoat Lane on the afternoon of Sunday
the 20th June and this is where the caption: "The
city where very little English appears to be spoken"
comes into play. The Cockney barrow boys who used to
throng Petticoat Lane and entertain the crowds with
their humorous and many times outrageous banter, have
been replaced by Cockney Pakistanis, Cockney Hindus,
and other various nationalities who now appear to represent
the Cockney population, but it would certainly surprise
me if any of the current members of the so called current
Cockney populous were born within the sound of Bow Bells.
Observations on current day Britain by an ex-Brit
outsider.
I make these observations with great
care after talking to a number of British citizens
and reading what I believe you call the broadsheets
and the gutter press, in order for me to provide a
respectable view of life in Britain and explain as
accurately as I can how the British people feel on
the subjects of the cost of living, taxation, and other
facets of life in UK, and whether they think that the
welfare giveaway programs, currently available to
immigrants and asylum seekers, are fair to the original
born and bred British citizens.
More about potential problems that could be associated
with allowing mass immigration into UK in a later paragraph.
In a discussion with one learned gentleman I broached
the subject of the problems of the mass migration of
lower income people from Eastern Europe, Pakistan, India,
China, and other far away places into Britain. He informed
me that it was a good thing as many of the British systems
such as hospitals, transportation, etc, require cheap
labour and would not be able to function without hiring
such labour.
So, is that what the current immigration
influx is really all about, the usage of cheap labour
in order to fill lower echelon jobs that the British
people disdain to be associated with. Your comments are
sought on this very important subject matter, as it is
vital for me to get your inputs in order to ensure the
accuracy of my observations.
We found the UK to be very expensive, especially London,
and don’t know how the British people manage to
survive financially, as they appear to pay as much in
UK Pounds for most purchases as we pay in US Dollars
for the same items - but there again wages, unemployment
and welfare benefits, must be considerably higher than
I imagined as even the people on welfare and unemployment
seem to be able to afford to take two vacations abroad
each year.
It would appear that in the UK you don’t necessarily have to have
a back-up savings account, as we in the United States do, in order to take
care of medical or other emergencies that can literally bankrupt you and your
family overnight, and so we suspect that in the UK, as the money comes in from
whatever source it is spent with expediency under the reason or excuse that
it is better to have spent the money that is available and possibly go broke
than have the government take it away in taxes.
Which brings me to the next subject, taxes. Correct me
if I’m wrong but in talking to people living in
UK I find that there is a strong belief that the middle
class are a rapidly disappearing breed as they are being
taxed out of existence.
On the other side of the coin, houses are still selling
at premium prices in Britain and people are still securing
large mortgages to purchase homes in say the region of
up to and beyond the 400,000 UK Pound price range, which
appeared to us to be way overpriced as are many of the
properties in certain parts of the United States.
The bubble of course will eventually burst when "negative
equity" appears on the scene, (i.e. when the home
owner’s existing mortgage exceeds the depreciated
resale value of the property), or when housing become
totally unaffordable and first time buyers are priced
out of the market - a situation which in our opinion
has already been reached in many parts of the UK.
You
can only stretch the bubble so far before it eventually
bursts.
Disclaimer:
Some of the information gathered for this news letter has
been gleaned from British and International media sources,
(including the Internet), and as such is quoted as accurately
as possible. I try to obtain confirmation on each subject
from several outlets, so the text is a mixture of composite
news items and personal comments and therefore the reader
must make his/her own judgement as to the reliability and
degree of accuracy of the subjects discussed.
Note: To view the complete Summer 2004 Edition of "View
from America" please click HERE.
We
welcome feedback about any of the contents of these articles.
Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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