more class writing...... rewriting a classic tale




So the three grown-up children went their different ways – one to University, one travelling the world, and one to work in the local cinema.  Their mother warned them; whatever you do beware of the big bad wolf that is debt.  But they just laughed at her and said ‘We’ll be alright, we can make ourselves safe from debt’
The first son had a student loan for his fees and maintenance but it wasn’t enough for rent on accommodation in London. His nice bank offered him a student loan and said ‘don’t worry we’ll hardly charge you any interest’ but at the end of the degree, he couldn’t get a job and the bank said ‘you’re not a student now, so we can charge you much more interest’, and his Job Seekers Allowance wouldn’t even cover the interest on his debt.  He had to move in with his second brother.
The second son travelled the word taking part-time jobs labouring or farming wherever he went, but then in Goa he got appendicitis and had surgery and had to be flown back to the UK having paid for the hotel he recuperated in and the flight back on a credit card. When he returned he got a room in a mate’s house and paid the rent on the same credit card, ‘yes, you can move in too’ he said to the first son. But no-one would employ someone with no work record who ‘d just been gallivanting around the world, or a recent student with no work experience,  and the credit-card was maxed out, and they couldn’t pay the rent so they both moved in with the third brother.
The third brother worked at the Odeon– he worked lots of hours, but it was only minimum wage and he never built up any savings. He met a girl and moved into a flat with her and she had a baby and they struggled to get by on his small income, and Family credit and Housing Benefit.  They took out a Social Fund loan when the baby was born to buy a cot and a buggy but the repayments ate up all their benefits. The government changed the rules so that Housing Benefit didn’t cover all the rent on the flat which now had three brothers and a wife and a baby living it. So they got behind

with the rent, and the landlord said, I could get more money from working people and evicted them. And they all had to move back in with Mum.
Mum rang the banks and the Debt Advisory Service and arranged for them to all pay off their debts a bit at a time, and she shouted at the people at the Bank for letting the sons borrow so much money they couldn’t repay.  Fortunately she had been sensible and not lived beyond her means or bought things she couldn’t afford, and house prices had risen dramatically and she had a Bank of England base rate tracker mortgage so was doing OK in the recession and was able to let all the sons and the wife and the baby live with her.  But she never let them hear the end of it……

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the morning of 17th July 2007 I was particularly happy. Summer Term had just ended so I had 6 weeks of holiday from my Teaching Assistant job ahead, my husband was coming back from a 3 week research visit to Australia on Friday and my first grandchild was due in August. Life seemed very good – I was listening to Women's Hour, and my 16 year old son was asleep as usual upstairs. I felt a need to rush to the downstairs toilet and whilst sitting there fell forward with agonising and unexpected pain. I recall trying to shout my son's name but being able to do so only weakly. After what seemed like hours, he arrived sleepily at the toilet door and asked what was wrong. I replied 'this is the worst pain since childbirth' (already acknowledged in my family as the gold standard for pain after two 3 day labours!) and he said' better ring an ambulance then'……I recall a paramedic trying to open the toilet door to get to me, and then... I awoke 8 days later in Intensi
Read more

Starting to write

I want to write but I don't know yet how to self-start so I'm using the blog as an imaginary teacher telling me that I have to produce some writing each day. I don't need it to be read but it would be a bonus. My first attempt is from a writing class where the participants were given a tomato - I've ended it too quickly I think with a rather woman's magazine story last line but I'm not sure where to go with it now - expand it to a normal short story length or not? Tomatoes She crossed tomatoes off her shopping list with an aching heart. He’d always loved them. As a baby, she’d pushed him down to the shops, her bag was too full and she’s rested the tomatoes in their plastic container on his lap as he seemed to be asleep. It was a long weary walk back up the hill to the house, and she was thinking of other things, so it wasn’t until she looked down at him as she opened the gate, that she realised they’d all gone – he had steadily and quietly eaten his way thro
Read more

Short story course 2014

The Right Place Thom wasn’t one for moving unnecessarily, so sitting on the porch in the sun came easily to him. Which is how he came to be in just the right place at the right time. The stranger came up the street slowly, staring at each house intently as if trying to trigger some long-lost memory. It took him a good ten minutes to reach Thom’s porch which gave Thom long enough to get his story straight. The man was only about thirty, well-dressed, educated-looking, with an air of enthusiasm that Thom has left long behind. As he approached the porch, the stranger smiled and held out his hand.             “James Roberts” Thom chewed his tobacco slowly, nodded and reached forward to clasp the proffered hand.             ‘I’m looking for my family- they moved here in ’27, to Main Street, Hammond. I’m hoping to find someone who remembers them”             “Roberts” said Thom slowly, as if in deep thought and remembrance.             “Mary and John”, adde
Read more