CHARITIES

[Angelo]

Please don't get me wrong, I give when and if I can,. But as a pensioner I have limited resourses as I am sure most of us have.
Recently on our local TV station we were being told how our money was being spent on children in need. Up to this point I had been an enthusiastic contributor. However the article showed a group of still at school single mothers with their children. It proceeded to show how they were helping them get the education they obviously spurned when still at school an paying for their education and child care. So the conclusion was , we are supporting unmarried teenage mothers ! This is not what I thought the charity was for. After all isn't the State doing that already with our taxes ?
Later on the One Show, as a result of Edwina Curry challenging a statement that there were starving people in the UK, they reported on a family, who looked far from starving were keeping a large Dog at the cost of £15 per week in food alone, & some Budgies. The lady ? was quite adamant that she needed food hand out parcels to survive. I would presume that as she appeared single with 2 children she would be claiming CSA working or not. Funnily enough they didn't seem to be able to get any of the Starving on to represent this assumption !
I am loath to agree with Mz Curry and believe she is not right in her assumption,but I would concur that the BBC were not looking in the right place or hard enough. Try Pensioners ?
I am wondering if I should support some of these charaties with  contributions ?
Am I being disingenuous ? Over to my peers for your thoughts.

[Dottie1943]

I also watched this programme Angelo and like yourself was found to be agreeing with Edwina Currey, I loved the way she confronted that young woman with the dog, I am an animal lover and have two dogs and two budgies, however, if I ever got to the stage where I had no money to put food on my table then the animals would have to go without a doubt.

The BEEB's researchers never did their jobs well enough that's for sure, or maybe they did and really wanted to show up those people who are getting these benefits that really do not need them!

[Angelo]

What worries me about them doing this is that there are those out ther who are genuinely in need.There is a small town just  north of Dartmoor in Devon where there have been serious job losses. Young famalies there have been in the position of genuine need. Why could they have not used these. If only for the sake of ballance .  The result of this kind of manipulation of news is that they are tarred with the same brush as those who are just taking advantage.

[Dottie1943]

The News Men are always going to be like this Angelo.

Many years ago when Roy lost his sight in one eye, we went to Moorfields and saw a consultant who was being filmed by the BBC for a programme they were doing about diabetes, the Consultant asked if we minded if they filmed us, we agreed because we felt really annoyed at the previous hospital who were prepared to let Roy lose his eyesight without trying to save it!

Anyway, to cut a very long story short, the Consultant saved Roy's eyesight and even today he still has sight in that eye, but after about filming for about 10-12 hours at the hospital and our home, they called us to say they would not be using Roy as a subject, reason given, "It is a success story, and we were looking for the stories that were not" when the programme was eventually aired they showed a small baby, a young teenage boy and a man all of which lost their sight and in one case life!

Entertainment?? I don't think so.

[Oldtimer]

The press do not look at needy cases unless they can create Headlines
sensationalism?
When you dig beneath the facade of print they don't like the real nitty gritty.
Its more important that a banker as swindle a million people then a million people on the bread line. (If that was the case)
There are people who cannot manage their money. Benefits Hit by deep cuts.Christmas will be a telling time this year for the under privileged.
A women in the local newspaper wrote that when sh was younger they had to tip the furniture upside down to see if any money they had missed fell out.
When we where young I lived in a mining village we where poor but we
as kids didn't realise it we where all in the same boat?
We all helped each other,Hand me downs,spare food,and camaraderie.

[Dottie1943]

OldTimer

When you and I were kids they never had the benefits that they do today, yet we were still happy and fed well, your parents, like mine more than likely made your gifts from bits of wood, wool for jumpers which was more than likely your mums cardigan previously, clothes that were hand me downs or bought very cheaply from second hand shops.

Today, sadly, children want and expect computer games, TVs, computers etc and their parents are just as bad because so do they! I heard a young woman in a shop the other day moaning about how much Christmas is costing her, she had gold on every finger, her ears you could hardly see because she had numerous earrings in them, her neck was adorned with a gold necklace that said LOVE and her child's pram was top of the range.  Oh sorry one ring was missing that was the wedding band!  What shop was I in, John Lewis not the cheapest place to be shopping if you are short of cash!

[Angelo]

Ah yes, most of us were in the same position when we were young, but back to the juist, Do we want to contribute our hard earned but megre pension money to Unmarried mothers,and people who say they are starving but dont know themeaning of tha condition ??

[Oldtimer]

Forget Edwina Curry and her sound bites and newspaper that look for Grunge to boost their circulation.I don't suppose Edwina will see many under privaliged people in her street?
There really are people who are having a tough time and its the phonies that make it difficult to want to spot them.
We have Five grand kids and we will not by them digital toys etc.
We buy them books and cloths  not always the most popular Gifts
but we persevere.Though I am afraid we will not have the same sort of money to spend this year.
The World is full of alsorts of people and it is very difficult seeing tremendouse life styles rich celebrities and Footballers to understand that there are underprivilaged people in our great country  and the more these cuts go on the more there will be.

[Oldtimer]

Dottie
Do you remmember hand made rugs from cut up clothes?

[Dottie1943]

We never had one but I have seen them and believe it or not they are worth a lot of money these days

[bromers]

Cold winter nights with the radio on no T.V , me and my Gran used to make rugs. She was also a great knitter and my arms used to ache from holding the wool while she wound it into balls. Oh happy days

[granny bee]

TV adverts brainwash the masses into believing celebrity lifestyle should be the ultimate aim - poverty is in the mind of the beholder - when you can't afford the latest games, computers etc shown on TV for the kids then you start to consider yourself poor When our girls were little the cardboard packaging often provided more entertainment than the present inside!!

[Oldtimer]

The card board boxes fired their imagination far mor than any digital toy?
When I was a nipper I would play for hours with nothing but my Imagination.

[Rita Postlethwaite]

Ah yes, Oldtimer and Bromers! I have fond memories of sharing these two activities with my Grandma! I would agree that it is typical of the media in general to create "a story" rather than looking at the main issues.  I was both moved and incensed by last nights showing of a tiny seven year old who has spent her whole life in pain due to brittle bone disease and who has to rely on charity to provide her with the type of wheelchair to give her even a reasonably quality of life. So much for the compassion of the powers that be and also the people who decide who is "deserving"  and who is not.

[Angelo]

Yes Rita, an example of a worthwhile cause,It also begs the question " why in the 21st century does the poor little girl have to rely on charity "? It realy shows the priorities that those who rule have. It apears not to be the following, the  Young, Dissadvantaged children & the Old.