Twenty four years ago, for the price of a modest caravan, my first wife and I were able to buy a small house in deepest France as a "life project" following a diagnosis that she had developed breast cancer. It has been a refuge, a place to think and to unwind, while making firm friends and being able to spend quality time as a family. Following her death, it continued to act in this way, enabling balance to be restored, through the "green gym" of conservation style gardening, walking and personal time, in quiet surroundings and extremely fresh air.

My thoughts after a recent visit...

We are fast reaching a stage where Brexit either falls down or becomes a cliff edge reality. Having recently spent time in France, talking with English and French friends, it is clear that the uncertainty is causing significant stresses. I was minded to go back to something that I wrote a 18 months ago; a series of speculative thoughts that were a sort of prediction. I am worried that many have already started to come to pass; not Project Fear, as much as realistic and reflective.

 A Little Bit of Futurology

In addition, since my recent visit, we decided to write to our MP, who, sadly, has chosen to align herself with the self-styled European research Group, so we are not hopeful of any positive response.

​Dear.....,
We are writing to you, as constituents, to seek some guarantees that the original promises made by Brexit supporters will be realised; effectively that we would have the same unrestricted opportunities as we have enjoyed as full members of the EU.
This leads to a number of questions, for which we would hope you are able to provide answers.
As owners of a holiday home in France, we want to know whether we will still be able to enjoy the ease of access that has hitherto been the case. We have friends and family who have chosen to retire in France and Spain, who may require support at short notice.
·         will visas be needed and will they be country specific or Europe wide?
·         will our driving licences still be valid, and will car insurance and breakdown cover be maintained on the same terms?
·         will any support for health care be available as per the current EHIC arrangements?
·         will we need to take out additional personal and health insurance?
·         will credit and debit cards function as now?
·         we have been able to take house insurance through a UK provider; will this continue?
·         will there be restrictions on items that can be taken into or brought back from the EU?
·         will we be able to use our UK mobile phones, benefitting from current roaming freedoms?
 
Concerning our family members and friends living in the EU.
·         can they remain resident in their own properties?
·         will their pensions still be paid direct into EU banks?
·         will their pensions continue to be index linked?
·         exchange rate change has already devalued pensions (and travel funds) by around 20%. 
·         will they continue to receive reciprocal health arrangements?
We have a further concern that our son in law, a Spanish citizen, living and working in the UK for five years, will be guaranteed the right to remain indefinitely and be entitled to health and social benefits. If not, will our daughter have the right to emigrate and reside in Spain?
On the wider implications of Brexit,
·         can you guarantee continuous supply of food, medicines, fuel and ease of transport?
·         many industries rely on a source of available labour. Can you guarantee that restrictions on labour movement will not impact on provision across many areas, eg NHS, social care, hospitality, agriculture and fishing, construction, academia, heritage industry (museums and galleries)?
·         an ageing population, described as baby boomers, coupled with a falling birth rate, will exacerbate any workforce shortage.
·         Mark Carney suggested that house values could fall, by up to 30%. As parents of children just embarked on the housing ladder, such a fall could wipe out their personal capital and potentially put them into negative equity. Will the Government seek to safeguard personal security?
Many deprived areas have benefitted from EU funding in different forms. Farming has benefited from CAP funding, which has supported the maintenance of a proportion of food production and the environment. Can you guarantee that such funding will continue?
Our food production has fallen to approximately 40% of need, meaning that we are reliant on imports for a greater proportion. The suggestion that we will need to stockpile food in the event of a no-deal Brexit has echoes of war-related rationing, of which I have a memory, which, in peacetime, would seem to be a dereliction of duty by the Government.
Having listened to and read the arguments over the past 30 months, our concerns about the impact of Brexit have not been assuaged in any way; in fact, the worries have grown. Lives will be impacted significantly, for an indeterminate period.
The whole of our adult lives has coincided with EU membership.
We have seen significant improvements across a wide swathe of experiences, enhancing our lives and giving opportunities not available to earlier generations, not least the ease of travel and access to EU countries. We would wish our grandchildren to enjoy the same benefits, as well as to enjoy the peace that has derived from the cooperative venture that emerged from the second world war.  
We look forward to a full response.

From summer 2019, I have planned to retire and have always hoped that this will mean the potential for extended stays in the house; I have to really polish up my French somehow. But, in the current uncertainty, none of that can be planned, nor guaranteed to become a reality, in the short or longer term.

We just don't know...

In an earlier blog I looked at my childhood from the point of view of my locality and the distances that I could explore as a child under eight.

When I was eight, as a family, we emigrated to Australia as “£10 Poms”, based on my father being a State Registered Nurse. For my parents, who had lived through WW2, father as an army medical orderly and mother in a munition’s factory, the idea of a new life was enticing. As children we had no idea of what to expect, apart from being told that it meant being able to play outside a great deal, as there would be lots of sunshine.
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So, we sold up in the UK, packed everything from one life and headed off on the train to London to catch the boat train to Southampton. Now living a few miles from Southampton, we often pass the railway gate into the port where we caught the P&O ship Oriana for the five and a half week ocean voyage to Australia, via the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, Colombo, then Perth, where we disembarked for the extensive train ride to Adelaide, to pick up another boat that took us to Sydney, and another train journey to Brisbane. Here we were billeted in a transit camp, a holding place from which a job was sought, followed by house purchase, meaning that we ended up living in a suburb called Zillmere, in Beams Road, which was an area that has since been extensively remodelled.
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However, it did offer the outside life that we were promised. At that time the walk from home to school took us across open fields to Boondall Primary; the barefoot walk often meaning a bit of a hop and skip to avoid the snakes that crossed our paths. Boondall Primary meant that I learned to play cricket, on a concrete strip and Aussie rules football, both played barefoot. You learned to be a bit nimble on your feet.

Weekends and holidays offered extended opportunities to walk to the local creek, with our fishing tackle, a mix of a rod and line together with a number of coke bottle lines. This was a local affectation, with the line wound around the coke bottle, twirled around the head and the weight taking the line out into the creek. Catfish and eels were regular catches. A small picnic allowed us to stay out a bit longer than perhaps we should have in the days before easy contact through children having their own phones. Suffice to say that none of us wore a watch either. I do remember a very angry, or worried, mother hitting me after I arrive home late.

Best friend John’s dad had a chicken farm along the road. The alternative to fishing was snake hunting, with the family Jack Russell and a forked stick, sitting in the mulberry tree picking and eating mulberries, with inevitable stained clothes, or climbing the banana trees to cut a bunch of bananas.

It did become the idyllic place to grow up, but it was to change again, with parents deciding that we were returning to the UK, but with an extended timescale, not telling us of the plans. Once the house was sold, we moved to the coast, to Shorncliffe, a very short walk from the pier and the shark-fenced beach. The pier meant much more fishing, often into the evening, with frequent hauls meaning that we were well fed on fish for days. Sharks of different types were also often hooked, resulting in a bit of a tussle. Shorncliffe School changed the Aussie Rules to Rugby League, and swimming at the Sandgate swimming pool.

Neither school has left a detailed imprint on my learning, apart from the sport and the copperplate writing done at Boondall with old-fashioned nib pens.
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Memories are of being outdoors, exciting my life-long interest in nature in all it’s forms, with a particular interest in insect life which led to an unrequited wish to become an entomologist. Seeing a manta ray leap from the water while fishing on a short pier beside the fishermen’s cooperative on Nundah Creek will stay forever, as will the memory of cockroach races along Shorncliffe Pier. 
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Homesickness eventually overtook my mother, which drew our four year stay to an end, with another six-week trip back to the UK, the reverse of the original. I think it’s probably true to say that, through the eyes of a child the excitement of the cruise foreshadowed the break up of my parent’s marriage on our return and their eventual hard-fought divorce. That 54-year-old memory is seared into my mind, dulling my memories of my teenage years. The few black and white photos that have survived the travelling and inevitable distribution across family members show shadowed smiles, perhaps based on an awareness of inevitable change.

All part of life’s rich developmental experiences...developing resilience that would be useful later in life.

As a result, I learned, at a young age, how to explore, to be safe and self-reliant, but also to be fully aware of my surroundings, orientated and secure, attributes that I learned to use more especially during my later teens.
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