The Plane Spotter

Think about the little things that give you pleasure. Away from the graft, the grind, the bills, the ills. Those moments you enjoy with your friends, your partner, or on your own, that take the edge off for a bit.

For some it’s karaoke down at the Grapes on a Saturday night. For others it’s watching the birds flitting and fluttering in and around the feeders. (Ours gets a visit from an Eurasian Jay most evenings and I’m genuinely pleased to see it.) There is stability to be found in the routine and mundane, and we all need that from time to time.

For a client I have been speaking to this week, (let’s call him Alf), his favourite waste of time is spent at the airport viewing park, plane spotting. It’s the sound of thunderous engines powering up, or thrusters powering down; it’s the insignia on the tail, the livery, the model, the flight number, the aircraft registration, the air traffic controller on the handheld radio, the wind direction, the sheer wonder of how it all gets off the ground, the contemplation of where the passengers are going or where they’ve been; all of it.

And he needs this, because he’s having it tough right now. He’s got a sick-note. A Tory might allege that he is part of the ‘sick-note culture’, a construct of a dying political party, thrashing around, firing out scathing soundbites and utterly ludicrous proposals in the hopes that they will appeal to someone, anyone. Alf would have a thing or to say about that, if they cared to ask.

Alf is getting on for 60, and he’s worked all his life, latterly on the bin trucks, where employment was secure enough, and he did his job, like so many of us do, assuming we will keep going on till we finally retire and then head off for the sunset in a campervan, or something.

But that all changed for Alf when he started inexplicably falling over, and blacking out. It took a while, but the doctors found something untoward; a cancer of the blood. Slow-growing and not life-ending at this stage, thankfully, but certainly life-limiting. And that’s when Alf got a sick-note and started having treatment.

The days of running behind the bin-truck were over — the employer wasn’t able to offer a suitable safe alternative, so Alf went ‘on the sick’. He drew his monthly occupational pension of £390, and immediately pays out £92 in service charges, so that leaves him with just £300 per month to live on and pay the bills. It’s a pittance, really. (If you’re going to get mad, get mad at the fella who spends £42million on private jets to globetrot in an age where you can chat on Zoom for next to nothing. Foreign Secretary? So what?)

Alf claimed Universal Credit, but none was forthcoming as there was an overpayment to reclaim from the dim and distant, and his income was ‘too high’, £390 — a king’s ransom indeed.

But with the claim, came the claimant commitment — to look for work, despite being employed. Alf found himself in a difficult spot, between the proverbial rock — his employer, who said he was too ill to work, and the DWP, who told him to find work (despite not actually paying him anything). And then, after providing them with a copy of the sick-note, he was put forward for an assessment, which will determine if he has limited capability for work, or limited capability for work-related activity. One may insert a piece of tracing paper between the two.

Someone at the job centre suggested that he could consider working in an office. Alf accepts he would need to retrain because he hasn’t got a clue what working in an office entails. He doesn’t do computers, he tells me, he’s not very good with emails, but text messages are OK. But then he ponders what would happen if he did indeed retrain and applied for a job in an office, and there were two other candidates in their 20s or 30s, or even 40s. would he get the job? What do you think?

He thinks there may be other possibilities — there’s a shortage of drivers, and so he is learning to drive. If the blackouts can be controlled, then he thinks this prospect has legs (or wheels I suppose) — he just needs to pass his test first. I’m not so sure myself, but apparently, employers are ‘desperate’ for drivers, so he thinks he might be in with a chance.

While he remains in this no-mans-land of employment and sickness, only able to cover the most basic of living costs, despite 40 years working almost non-stop, he is fortunate enough to have some friends who take him to the airport every now and again. He can’t go on his own, in case he falls, but they look after him and keep him upright, and he gets to enjoy the planes coming in and going out. It’s the thing; the corona of light around the darkness; the moments of pleasure to be found in the most displeasing of circumstances.

And so, as someone who has worked for most of their adult life, nothing fills me with more terror than the prospect of getting ill. I am only too aware that there is very little help and support in the form of a social safety net for me if I fall. I see it every single day. It’s truly terrifying.

I have a mental-health-threatening life event on the horizon (the big D), and it’s getting larger, more ominous and less blurry as it draws closer. I’ve been travelling parallel to it for a few years, fully aware that some day our paths would converge, but quite happy to put it off. I don’t want to face it now but I have to, and that means I have to communicate with the person who spent 20 years telling me what a waste of space I was, who sometimes used violence to communicate frustration and disappointment, who shouted in my face the day my mother died to inform me he was feeling ill himself and demand my sympathetic attention. All of these moments resurface and I have to remind myself that I’ve moved on since then, that I don’t need to walk with these shadows anymore, but the memories are stirred up like silt in the bottom of a bucket of dirty water and it will be some time before they settle again.

Divorce, like ill-health, is another ‘thing’ that can destabilise and induce vertigo in the most routine of lives. At this stage, as a concept, it’s as meaningless as the marriage was, we’ve been separate entities for years, but the financial closure may be difficult. Will I have to sell the house? What are the chances of being able to afford another if I do? Will I get another mortgage till death do us part?— me and the bank that is. What about pensions? My ex is the master of hiding assets — cash in boxes in unknown places and ‘x’ marks the spot, I kid you not.

Whatever happens, the single most important thing I absolutely must hold on to is my health, although this implies I have a choice in the matter and I’m afraid, like Alf and JD and thousands of others, I do not. I must keep working, eat healthily and keep myself distracted, with walks and karaoke, with Eurasian Jays and crime documentaries on Netflix, with campaigning and straining for justice for my clients, and all those who find the safety net wanting, when they need it — just as I may one day need it myself.

I’m not immune to ill health though – none of us are unfortunately. No matter how virtuous you are (and I’m not) the ills don’t care a jot.

There is no sick-note culture, of course, but there absolutely is a hostile culture of scapegoating the sick and vulnerable. It’s a distraction tactic in my opinion — don’t look at us, with our profligate corruption, scandal and incompetence and, frankly, stupid ideas — look at those people who are really ill, because with illness comes vulnerability and a lack of wherewithal to fight, and if enough Tories say it, and the Mail and the Telegraph join in, and the very well-off start to feel uneasy about how much of their taxes are being spent on ensuring people have enough money to live on while they wait 18 months for an operation on the NHS…well, we’re back to gathering the pitchforks and the flags and pretending that St George actually did slay a dragon and shat on the poor, because that’s what we’re all about these days apparently.

But enough of that, my mental health is on a war-footing and I need some of those little things that take us away from the daily graft and the grind, and the bills and the ills. Alf will go to the viewing park and, some day soon I hope, he will get a decision from the DWP which may make life easier or harder, depending on the current set of targets they have. If they make the wrong decision, he won’t be fighting alone, but he will fight. I’ll make sure of it.