It occurred to me that readers of the internationally famous International Times may be wondering what has been happening since I was last given the honour, almost a year ago, of gracing its pages with my Diary. The approach of this year’s local elections, bringing with them as they do memories of the elections this time last year, has prompted me to put on record some of the horrors of the intervening months and, I fear, also the certain horrors of the months to come.
Readers may recall that at last year’s local elections both my wife and I stood for election (myself for re-election) to the Parish Council, yours truly relying on my sterling performance as the Advanced Round-the-clock Security Executive (ARSE) for GASSE – “Go Away! Stay Somewhere Else!” – the local organisation formed in response to the then government’s plans to ship unwanted foreigners into our village so they could live in our village hall. My wife supported the opposing faction, a faction led mainly by the youth of the area, and which went by the silly name of CASHEW (“Come and Sleep Here – Everyone’s Welcome”). Unsurprisingly, there was some domestic tension in the Henderson household. Things, as the song goes, could only get worse. And they did.
As my diary entry of May 24th last year noted – and which readers of the time will no doubt recall – the CASHEW nuts carried the day, and I was out on my ear, in more ways than one. My wife, who several months earlier had dallied romantically and, I am sad to say, too intimately with a former colleague from Stowmarket called Jan, informed me that she found living under the same roof as me – and I quote – “inconvenient”.
I shall be brief. How come, I ask you, how come I was the one who had to move out of the house? I have no answer for that, except to say that I’ve always thought I was too nice. Anyway, we are separated, and our respective legal advisors are as we speak still making money out of us as we fail to agree the terms of our separation. My wife wants a divorce, but the only grounds she has are, as far as I can see and as I am arguing, that she doesn’t like me much any more. I, on the other hand, am not against a divorce as such, but I want the house. Who, I ask, paid most of the mortgage? Who did all the decorating? Who tended the garden? Who supplied the kitchen with fresh vegetables from the allotment? Who, basically, did bloody everything except hold coffee mornings for the local gossiping wives and spend money we didn’t have at John Lewis?
At the moment I am living in a granny flat above the garage at the house of friends in a nearby village, while my wife, who is Chair of the Parish Council, is presumably mustering her forces to support whoever she and her cronies think will further their interests in the upcoming local authority elections. I am staying well out of it. My temporary landlords are Geoff Johnstone, who I’ve known for years through work and with whom I used to play squash once a week before my knees gave up, and his wife Jeanette, who for reasons of her own and of which I know nothing has never cared much for my wife. They are a decent pair, and I’m very grateful to them for their hospitality. And from what I hear, my wife has not made a lot of new friends in her time on the Parish Council. I gather that her penchant for being a bit bossy has come to the fore and rubbed a few people up the wrong way. I cannot say I am surprised, or that I care all that much.
It is, as I hear people say repeatedly on Radio 4 news programmes at the moment, a changed world. Not only are my domestic arrangements upheaved, but we have a Labour government, which doesn’t seem very different from the other lot if you want my honest opinion, and then there is that dreadful bloke in the USA whose name I cannot even bring myself to write. The hoo-hah over the illegals with which GASSE was so engaged this time last year seems to have taken a bit of a back seat compared to economics, the cost of living crisis, a couple of ongoing wars, and general all-round dismay. In short, it is all a bit rubbish.
I do not know if I can take much interest in the upcoming local elections with all of this other malarkey going on. I am not looking forward much to the future. The wrangles with my wife are depressing, and watching my bank balance dwindle while the legal vultures get rich is dispiriting. Perhaps there will be a world war, which would certainly put things in perspective. I spend a lot of time on the allotment, but my wife does not get any of the produce, and nor will she in the future. What I do not need to feed myself goes to the Johnstones and other friends who have taken my side in our domestic dispute. I am no fool. Or am I?
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James Henderson
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