Good old NHS

Monday morning is when my cleaner comes...and we usually cover a variety of subjects over coffee....
This morning we went down memory lane, inspired by the wonderful  opening night of the Olympics...She is not as old as me.....not many are! But I brought to mind the time after the war when rationing was still in place and families were struggling to survive the post war hardships..
Many families were then still split up....I lived with my granny and we could be easily described as a dysfunctional family who often did not have enough to eat and could not  afford a doctor if we got ill.
 I recalled my first years in grammar school when my uniform was scoffed at by the fee paying girls who were not kind to someone from the back streets..
Only my determination to get an education carried me through.
Going back after the war to live with my mum and  my dad when he was demobbed was not a happy time at all.
Food was hard to come by and we ate a lot of rabbit pies and sheep's head broths, all of which were free sources of protein. I recall being left in queues for hours whilst mum did the rest of the shops.
My dad found it hard to get work and was often drunk and I found it impossible to accept that this stranger could order me about and hit me if I answered back!
It was a time of readjustment and for most it was emotionally draining and not the happy experience people might think...
We coped as best we could.  Watching the birth of the NHS back then  was simply wonderful....and important to us all..I was proud of the sequence in Danny Boyles extravaganza and pray that we will still have it in the years to come...
That  some people have been carping about the sequence and describing it as left wing is simply very disheartening....It is far from perfect in its present state....please don't let it go any further in the attempt to privatise it!