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……

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