CHAOS !

I took my seven year old grandson Adam to school yesterday, seven going on a teenager.

In the company of adults Adam is generally quiet but with his friends he is bubbly and outgoing. When he and I are alone together he adopts this same attitude with me and I thoroughly enjoy his company.

"You look tired Granddad."

"Yeh Adam I have been up all night."

"Watching the politics ?"

"Yeh."

Adam then went on to discuss the results of the general election.  He knew exactly how many seats the tories had won and how many the labour party had. He kept saying he could not understand why anyone would vote for the green party but then said they had just the one seat anyway.

For a seven year old his knowledge of the election result was amazing.

"So Adam, if you had been old enough to have voted which party would you have voted for ?"

"Conservative of course !"

"So when you are older would you like to be a politician ?"

"NO WAY !"

It is a pity that among the younger generation who could vote there were not more eighteen to twenty-five year olds who did not have the common sense thinking of Adam.  Too many were take in by the fairy story manifesto of The Urban Scruffbag aka Jeremy Corbyn who promised anything and everything he thought people would like with no hope of ever being able to deliver on it.

When I was younger you had to be twenty-one years old to vote. I have always considered that to have been a mistake and feel the age of majority should be returned to twenty-one.  Eighteen year olds do not have enough life experience to be able to vote.  However, there are many adults of all ages who do not have enough life experience to be trusted with our nation's destiny. Perhaps there should be some

kind of intelligence test applied before anyone can vote.  Better still some form of common sense test.  If there were then Adam would pass and be able to vote while Jeremy Corbyn would be disenfranchised.   Our country would not be in the mess it is today following the general election chaos of yesterday.

The chaos and uncertainty we currently face are nothing to that it THE BRIDGE HOUSE has now reached.  William has just killed his first enemy, in an operation to capture a German line three quarters of the British force lost their lives or were injured. William killed five enemy soldiers. AT the time it was considered to be a victory, today we would look upon it and wonder if that were true or not.

In my story I am approaching Christmas 1914.  William will receive a gift, as will every soldier and sailor from Princess Mary, King George V's 17 year old granddaughter.

That gift is still in my family, William was my grandfather.

The box contained tobacco and chocolate. William, like all young men of his generation, smoked but the tobacco is still intact. I will in the story explain why he did not open the packet. The chocolate is gone. William did not eat it, his three young sons ate it when he came home from the war.

William's generation was destroyed by war.  My father's generation was destroyed by war. My generation was spared war but we did grow up with the threat of nuclear annihilation ever present. Things were better for my children in their youth. What of Adam's generation ? 

I often wonder what Adam will do in adult life. He says he will not be a politician.  maths is his strongest subject, I do hope he does not become a boring accountant.  What ever he does and what ever chaos he now finds himself within as our country flounders around after the election result Adam will not have to face that his great-great grandfather William had to.