Читать книгу The Moral State We’re In - Julia Neuberger - Страница 5

Once upon a time there was an old donkey who had worked for the same owner for many years from being a very young and energetic donkey. One day he saw his master talking to the local butcher and that he was eyeing him up and down. He thought he knew what that meant–that they were going to make him into cat’s meat. He wasn’t having any of that. So that very night he kicked the stable door down and escaped.

Whilst recovering from his exertion in a field full of thistles, which he munched his way through, he thought what to do. He would become a musician in the famous city of Bremen, not too far away. That decided, next morning, with a belly full of the best thistles that ever grew in a cruel farmer’s field, he set out down the Bremen road.

He had not gone very far when he met an old dog lying panting in the road. He asked him what was wrong, for the dog was distressed, with obviously sore paws. The dog replied that he was an elderly dog who had served his master well for eleven years, but, as he got older and more rheumatic, he could not chase and round up the deer as once he had. And so his master was going to have him put down. They both agreed that this was appalling, and then the donkey offered the dog the chance to join him and become a town musician in Bremen along with him.

So they went on together. Soon they tripped over an elderly cat lying in the road with sore paws, her claws split. She was panting. They asked her to tell them her story. She explained she had been a fine fit young cat, a great mouser, and very popular and much loved by her mistress. But now that she was old and tired, and liked to sit and dream by the fire, her mistress thought she was useless and not worth feeding. So she threatened to drown her. The cat heard this and ran away from the house where she had once been so happy. Then she had stopped, thinking that there was no easy way for her to survive. The donkey and the dog were very sympathetic. They said the same thing had happened to them. So they asked her if she would like to join them on the way to Bremen, since with her fine singing voice she could easily become a town musician.

And so they carried on together. As it was nearing nightfall, they saw a cock hopping towards them, making the most terrible noise. They asked the cock what was the matter. He replied that he was getting old and he had heard his master say that he was not much use any more for waking up the farmyard and that a younger cock was needed for the task, as well as for impregnating the hens to ensure they laid enough to make a living for the farmer’s wife. But the worst thing had been hearing his master threaten to cook him up for the soup for Easter Sunday!

The donkey, the dog, and the cat were all very sympathetic. They invited the cock to join them in their journey to Bremen, and then to become a town musician with them. And so he cheered up, and went with them. And they journeyed on till nightfall, when they stopped in a forest and went to sleep, though it was cold and they were very hungry.

But then they saw a light a long way off. The cat cheered up. It must be a house and she could sit warm and snug by the hearth and think her old cat’s thoughts. They decided to go towards the light. When they got there they found a pretty cottage, but it was full of robbers eating a huge meal around the table. They looked at each other. Then the dog jumped on the donkey’s back, the cat on the dog and the cock on the cat, and they looked into the window and made the most terrible noise. The robbers were terrified and ran away into the forest. The animals sat down round the table, had a great meal, and then went to sleep in a cosy cottage that seemed just right for them.

But the robbers began to think they had been silly to run away. They thought it could only have been a group of animals who had found them. So they moved nearer. The chief robber told the younger ones to go into the cottage. All the animals were asleep, and he thought it was safe to attack the sleepers, kill them and take back the cottage–to which, of course, he felt entitled.

But the cat could hear in her sleep, old though she was, and she woke up, and as the robber passed she scratched him viciously with her claws. As he ran from what he thought was a knife, the dog bit into his leg and would not let him go. He wrenched himself away and, as he ran, the donkey lashed out at him with a hoof, and then, for good measure, as he began to get up some speed, the cock swooped down and pecked at his face and ears. He was terrified; the people in the cottage were all armed. The robbers would have to give up and go far far away.

And the animals lived there happily in retirement ever after.*

In the week before Christmas 2003, a case hit the headlines in all the papers entitled variously: ‘Betrayed’, or’ Frozen to death’, or, in The Guardian, ‘Cold and Old’. An elderly husband and wife, who had lived in the same house in London for 63 years, had died at the ages of 89 (of emphysema and hypothermia) and 86 (of a heart attack) respectively. No real surprises here, except their gas supply had been cut off for non-payment of bills. Yet they were not poor. There was £1,400 in cash in their home and a further £19,000 in a building society account.

They were finding it harder and harder to cope, a nightmare that overtakes many older people and is feared by even more. They may not have Alzheimer’s disease, but at the end of their lives they often find it hard to organize things and get their paperwork sorted, to catch up with the bills and the personal administration, and to keep their affairs in order. Two of the commonest causes of winter deaths are, as we know all too well, heart and chest diseases. Yet the excuse used by British Gas for cutting off their gas supply but not alerting the local social services was the Data Protection Act–i.e. on privacy grounds. The Data Protection Act’s Information Commissioner responded immediately by saying that this was a nonsensical excuse, and there is no doubt that some considerable incompetence was involved. Yet the seriousness of the case lies in the fact that two perfectly innocent, old and frail people–hitherto just about coping with the vagaries of life in their own home–died because no one noticed that they were a bit confused.

This chapter discusses how we view older people, whether we treasure them or simply want them to die. It looks at whether older people can control their own deaths, or whether they are liable to be abused and neglected in their last months and days, and at the question of euthanasia and how we ration healthcare.

It also examines the poverty of many older people, and the general neglect they often experience within the health and social care system and asks: is this how we want our parents to be treated? Is this how we want to be treated ourselves? Has our aversion to risk made us mechanistic and unkind? Has government made a mistake in refusing to allow more funding for the care of older people in care homes and nursing homes?

Finally, it looks at the question of how older people have been slow to use their political muscle and whether that might change.