Our Readers Say More Stories
NHS Costs: what are YOU doing to help?
We are constantly being bombarded with details of the financial cuts required to stop standards falling. As we get older we will all rely upon the National Health Service more and more, whether we want to or not. We are told about the very high cost of providing this service and we all fear that some of the inevitable cost will be from the NHS budget.
My point is this. Can we as individuals help? YES we can!
Saving for a rainy day? What's the point?
I use up my saving on pleasure (mainly travel) while I am healthy and interested in life. For many people this can be a frightening prospect and we want to know that we are 'secure', but sometimes savings are only there for those who inherit. Why deny yourself the pleasure of spending some of it?!
"What a mean trick the Government has played upon older people"
What a mean trick the government have played on us when they cut free swimming for young people and the elderly. The savings are negligible but the charge on the National Health could be much higher eventually.
Cheque changes: did retailers or Banks ask the customers what they want?
The 24 bank and building society members of the UK Domestic Cheque Guarantee Card Scheme have announced that the Scheme will close on 30th June 2011, meaning that it will no longer be possible to guarantee a cheque under the Scheme after this date. One MT reader asks, Did retailers or Banks ask the customers what they want?
I survived the Lancastria
Last month, in his memories of Dunkirk, one of our readers recalled seeing the Lancastria shortly after it was bombed in St Nazaire harbour – when several thousand men tragically died. Harry Harding has good cause to remember that terrible day: he was one of the fortunate survivors – just seven of whom still survive - of Britain’s worst maritime disaster. This is Harry’s poignant story.
'People need people': how YOU can help
"Tony Watts laments (People need people) the lack of ‘a means of bringing people together to help each other in a coordinated and purposeful way’.
Befriending schemes offering home visiting and regular telephone calls made by volunteers do exactly this." One MT reader explains how you can get involved.
Where did it all go wrong? I'll tell you!
I can't resist responding to Terry Waite in July’s Mature Times in which he raised many bones of contention by asking - where did it all go wrong?
Elder abuse is often closer to home
I have just seen your May issue and read the leader on financial abuse of older people.
I am a Welfare Benefit Adviser for my county Social Services and, unfortunately, come across financial abuse frequently - mainly by relatives and/or their carers I am sorry to say.
Statins and cholestrol
Re the article on the front page of the June 2010 issue of the Mature Times on the problems associated with statins which made for very interesting reading.
Is it right to keep waving the flag?
In our June edition of Mature Times we covered the Armed Forces Day celebrations - a day to honour those who have served our country over the years. Not all of our readers were impressed. Here are some of the letters and emails we have received - and we would welcome your views on this important issue too.
Why do women get this privilege?
Since women live on average several years longer than men, what was the reasoning behind allowing women to receive their state pension five years earlier?
I remember Dunkirk
"It’s 70 years after the great evacuation of a quarter of a million troops from the beaches of Dunkirk and other nearby beaches by the ‘little ships’. Although a long time has passed, the memories of those of us who experienced this action will never be entirely erased." One MT reader shares his memories...
Were you an " 'Orrible Little Man" ?
By the time National Service ended in 1963, more than 2.2million teenagers had been called up to boost the numbers of regular servicemen. And some 70 of them, now aged in their Seventies and Eighties, have contributed to a new book, You ’orrible Little Man. In it they record their memories — with some 250 photographs — of those days in uniform.
What have computers ever done for us?
A lively correspondence has broken out on the pages of Mature Times with many readers bemoaning the intrusion of computers into our lives.
The spectre of lonely people staring blankly at computer screens, missing out on human contact, has been invoked, as well as countless jobs lost and the dehumanisation of any processes. One reader provides an eloquent response – and we’d like to know where YOU stand on the great debate: what have computers ever done for us?
