Selling Up And Getting Out

[tomtom]

I think that most readers will know why people are selling up and moving out of Bedlington - lack of facilities, lack of decent shops and pubs and the general run down appearance of the town - to say nothing of the litter lying around. There are much nicer places to live.

[Vic Patterson]

Are people really selling their houses and moving? where are they going?

The faces of small towns are changing, the big box stores, transportation and communications have all had a part in the change. It's not only Bedlington its everywhere, just look at Blyth, Ashington even Newcastle! I could write a book on Grande Cache and the changes in the years we have been here! not all change is bad though it seams so at the time, look for some positive things change brings.  

[threegee]

Probably a few locals anticipating the rush to leave Salmond's ScotNat Shangi-La and making room  .

 

Most Scots with get up and go will - as usual - keep on going South though, leaving the moaning Wullies behind at haem to breed.  Pity far too many of them are politicos; England would have been an altogether nicer place without any Scottish-bred PMs. And... this is a nation that is always moaning about the English having too much influence in their affairs!

 

Anyway, I can think of many worse places to live than Bedlington, and quite a few of them aren't in the North East. 

[John Fox (foxy)]

I think that most readers will know why people are selling up and moving out of Bedlington - lack of facilities, lack of decent shops and pubs and the general run down appearance of the town - to say nothing of the litter lying around. There are much nicer places to live.

What time is the next Ferry? .   

[threegee]

...

Anyway, I can think of many worse places to live than Bedlington, and quite a few of them aren't in the North East. 

 

One of those places is Labour Controlled Ultra-PC Rotherham!

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28974336

 

At least 1,400 children were sexually exploited, mainly by men of Pakistani heritage, between 1997 and 2013.

The excuse of the highly-paid officials for turning a blind eye to this:  We knew but we didn't dare mention it because we'd be accused of being racist!

 

These were the same loony-left PC officials who snatched loved and cared for black children from a white couple because they admitted to having voted UKIP!

 

Rerun the council elections now Labour party, if you dare!  Even more people are on to your mind manipulation and your evil ways!  The flawed system which put you back in power on significantly less of the poll (41% against 44% for UKIP) won't protect you next time around!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-27546344

 

[Tonyp]

A solution !!! Wansbeck council should twin town with Vilnius , Bucharest or Warsaw that would keep the Eastern Europeans coming,

& maybe stop people leaving! The thing is not many of them would go up to bedlington ...

[Tonyp]

Meant to say stop the Eastern Europeans coming

[Steve]

Bedlington still has a lot to offer, but there are improvements that could be made, also, at least the town isn't full of bookies and charity shops like some I could mention!

 

A lack of facilities is commonplace throughout Labour controlled Northumberland, and yet we have one of the highest council tax bills in the entire country. They even increased our bills this year, instead of freezing the bill and collecting the government funding - they'd rather hit the local people.

 

With the amount of money that NCC fleece from us, our streets should be paved with gold, where the money goes I'd love to know?

[Malcolm Robinson]

So would I Steve!

 

If the services we get are being cut and cut yet the money we pay in goes up and up every year where is the sound economic reasoning?  

 

It has to be disappearing into 'non productive costs' such as salaries!  

[Steve]

So would I Steve!

 

If the services we get are being cut and cut yet the money we pay in goes up and up every year where is the sound economic reasoning?  

 

It has to be disappearing into 'non productive costs' such as salaries!  

Sound ecomomic reasoning is something they wouldn't understand. By their reasoning, if you need to save money, you buy a new headquarters! (Maybe I should buy a mansion and save some money? )

 

These people need to be held to account, you can't make that many bad decisions by accident. They get more money, yet we get less service.

 

Tonyp, instead of twinning with those countries, a better idea would be to send NCC over there.

[Tonyp]

Steve I think you missed my point most of influx of immigrants seem to hit the south east,maybe that's where most of the jobs are

I don't know...what gets me is people in the north east slagging immigration!!! Hand on your heart how many immigrants are there in

Bedlington ... As I said before when I lived there & loved it but I knew I had to get away to get on it didn't matter what qualifications you

Had, to me personally it was jobs for the boys,I.E if your father worked somewhere & there was a vacancy there son or son in law got

The job....At least that's what happened when I lived there...

[Steve]

Steve I think you missed my point most of influx of immigrants seem to hit the south east,maybe that's where most of the jobs are

I don't know...what gets me is people in the north east slagging immigration!!! Hand on your heart how many immigrants are there in

Bedlington ... As I said before when I lived there & loved it but I knew I had to get away to get on it didn't matter what qualifications you

Had, to me personally it was jobs for the boys,I.E if your father worked somewhere & there was a vacancy there son or son in law got

The job....At least that's what happened when I lived there...

 

 

No Tony, I get ya, and you're right, Immigration isn't a problem in Bedlington, but allowed to continue without any controls, we know how it's affected other areas of the UK, but that's another topic.. My point was that if we shipped over NCC to Eastern Europe, we'd save a fortune and see improvement and prosperity return to the area!

 

You're right that qualifications don't matter, especially for NCC higher levels, or for MP's..Certainly there, it's 'jobs for the boys' - has been for a way too long, hence the area is stuck well below national levels.

[Tonyp]

Steve I'm a union man but I would advise everybody who has children wanting to go to university to take advantage

Of the Tory loan scheme before they change the rules because as it stands now ..your kids will never be able to pay it

Back I know this because my kids took advantage of it & they know they will not be able to pay it back.....so thanks

To the Tories my kids got the free education they deserve & urge everybody to do the same....

THEY WILL CHANGE THIS that I do know....

[Steve]

Steve I'm a union man but I would advise everybody who has children wanting to go to university to take advantage

Of the Tory loan scheme before they change the rules because as it stands now ..your kids will never be able to pay it

Back I know this because my kids took advantage of it & they know they will not be able to pay it back.....so thanks

To the Tories my kids got the free education they deserve & urge everybody to do the same....

THEY WILL CHANGE THIS that I do know....

Different rules for North of the border too.. Every kid deserves the chance at a decent education, and shouldn't be out of pocket for pursuing it. Again where all the money goes I have no idea - it seems we get the funding, but then it just vanishes!

 

Personally I'd like to see further education for those capable funded from our high taxes, rather than people worrying how (or if) they'll pay it back.

 

Currently there are a HUGE percentage of kids in the North East leaving school with NO qualifications (I'm certain it's over 30%, - perhaps even double that!) - Something somewhere up here is failing us miserably. These kids are OUR future.

[Tonyp]

Steve know what your saying they say scots get free education,that's true to a certain extent but when they try to get in they usually

get refused due to high demand but you can guarantee 60% of the students are from the rest of the uk or overseas paying fees

Double standards but it looks good in principle...My son is in his final year at Cardiff & said to me he has got quite a few friends from

Scotland studying there..He said to them why you not studying up there they told him no places,people getting there pockets full I'm afraid... Last year I had a discussion with Chuka Umuna while on a delagation in Jersey he didn't give me the answer neither ...

By the way I joined the union not for political gains but to help stop people getting bullied in the workplace which occurs more & more

I'm also very passionate on kids getting a good education I got a motion passed to help kids at uni...

[mercuryg]

Forgive me if this post is a little long winded, for Tony has touched on a couple of points that I would like to comment on. First, I must say kudos for taking up the cudgel and joining the union for the reason you give, a very valid one indeed. More poignant for me is the bit about a good education for kids.

 

I didn't go to university the requisite way - after leaving school - but later in life, about which more later. I was lucky enough, if you want to put it that way, to go to college, get an HND and get a job - a pretty mundane one, but it was a job. I then went on to qualify as an accountant, which gave me a fall back for later (although I subsequently left it off my cv because I hated it so much!) This brings me on to the first point.

 

As a professional copywriter I often help people out; not everyone is a great writer, and that's to be expected, but a couple of years back I was given a broad shock. Within a few days two friends, both around 30 years, were telling me they applied for job after job, but never even got replies. I suggested their cv's may need a little work, and a decent cover letter might be a benefit, and offered to help them out. Both, they told me, had good cv's because they had been created at a Jobcentre (or whatever it's called now) approved day course (compulsory I believe) and 'approved' by the tutor (the same one, as it happens - I may have told this story before, so apologies for repeating myself). What I read when they presented the documents to me was frankly atrocious.revised.doc The attached is the better of the two, and has all personal info removed. Frankly, this cv would go straight in the bin; sad sign of the times it is, but with many applicants for each post the process has to start somewhere. Unfortunately I didn't keep the cover letter; it would have led to the cv itself being discarded before it had a chance. The lad in question is a personable, articulate, bright, hard working guy with a good attitude; yet read that first line - a government approved tutor gave that the OK! Did he actually read it? If this is the level of support jobseekers are getting, it's no wonder they find things difficult. Furthermore, if this is the standard of written English (my friend had a grade B GCSE English language) then there's something very wrong. I'm not advocating perfection, but a little more attention to grammar and no text speak!

 

Now, onto the university bit; I went to Uni in my early thirties as I needed a break from working for various reasons; I chose an arts course, something of interest rather than of particular use career-wise, as I had fall back options. The standard of tuition (when there actually was any) was pathetic. It didn't matter for me - I was doing it for fun - but for the youngsters racking up nine grand a year (and I agree, Tony, they possibly never will pay it back) it was disgusting. I know of many youngsters with good grades in degrees, yet the subjects are pointless: Media Studies, Sociology, History of Art, Music Technology et al; forgive me if I'm inadvertently insulting anyone's university bound children here, but the point I'm trying to make is this: whatever anyone says, the worth of a degree HAS been devalued. Work experience, if one can get it, appeals to employers much more.

 

An example: a friend of mine's daughter, at 16, a local lass, got a job answering the phone and making tea at a solicitors office, after school, for a couple of hours, with longer hours in the holiday period. A year and a bit on, she has a permanent job with them, and they are putting her through a range of courses to further her experience. Lucky? Yes, very, but any one of her friends could have gone out and looked for that job. She did, and she found it.

 

The upshot of all this? Choose a degree that pertains to a valuable career option, or take a few years to work out what you really want to do. And let's please do something to upgrade the standard or the three r's in our schools.

[Tonyp]

I think what your saying about people doing worthless degrees is quite ignorant to say the least,my missus got a degree

In Sociology with honours & she worked ******* hard for it her minor qualifications were 4 a levels in maths,English,psychology,sociology,results all grade A's 8'O,levels not going to mention them by the her decantation was in child protection.10,000 word essay incase you forget,I can't tell you how many underprivileged kids she has helped if you

Come to London. I'm sure you'd like to meet her & the kids she works with then tell her that her degree is worthless.When

My son gets his degree in ART..He wants to emigrate to Australia,he will not get there with gcse in English that is a fact

I'm not going to tell you what A,levels or Gcse's his got the fact is degrees open doors...If you want to do a degree that you enjoy

Then do it it's a qualification that anybody can take off you..by the way my missus speaks fluent French & Latin alright on holiday,

Museums or churches...finally if nobody did history,there wouldn't be a forum but there is cos it's INTRESTING.........

[mercuryg]

I didn't say worthless, Tony, and did apologise in advance for inadvertently insulting anyone for their choice of subject; I used pointless as my term, and perhaps should not have bracketed a broad subject as sociology in that area. I don't know the age of your wife, and wouldn't deign to ask, but would be interested to know when she undertook her university education. The point I was trying to make is that todays education - not just at University level - is letting young people down.

 

You also make a point that I made, about doing a degree that you enjoy. I embarked on an art degree, and your son is doing what he wants; that's entirely admirable, and I wish him well in his endeavours in Australia. Unfortunately, because you, your wife and son (and myself I might add) have done well thanks to our chosen routes, doesn't  mean that all will. There were 35 people on my degree course at Northumbria (History of Modern Art, Design and Film). I kept in touch with ten or twelve. After three years at University, and with good graded, how many of those do you think got jobs within a year of graduation? Three. Only one, I might add, was in a relevant field.

 

The university education system has become diluted; after all, practically every Polytechnic now attains University status. I'm not suggesting we return to the elitist days of old, but that something needs to be done to ensure the youngsters of day - at Uni and before - have a fair crack of the whip. I don't believe they do.

 

Put it this way: I've worked with post A-level students with great grades whose command of English was very, very poor, whose numeracy was practically non-existent, and who were going on to University on the back of those letters on the certificate. A couple prospered, the rest struggled. It's not how it should be.

 

I'm impressed, by the way, with your wife's command of Latin, a language of greater importance than most realise, and while my French is passable, I have enough trouble listening to people in English!

 

To sum up, I'm not being ignorant, I speak from broad experience, and I apologise for offending you.

[Tonyp]

My missus started doing youth work while in her twenties,then her bosses encouraged her to do a degree,she told them you need 4 a,levels to get in she didn't have any.but her boss was very supportive & let her go to college were achieved the 4 required

Then she was accepted into greenwich uni the rest was up to her & she was bringing 2 small children up working 2 jobs & attending

Lectures at uni,when she put her decantation in it was done on a type writer..No help with the computer with spell check or grammar

Thats why I believe the kids are failing modern technology makes them lazy...By the way you didn't offend me just got a little

Annoyed..But then again that's what a forum is all about everyone's opinion counts otherwise there would be no diversity ...

Cathy got her degree when she was 30 she is 53 now better not tell her I told you l.o.l..

[mercuryg]

That's admirable, and I understand why my comments annoyed you. Without knowing everyone's background any remotely, potentially controversial comment is going to get someone's back up, so apologies once again.

 

"Thats why I believe the kids are failing modern technology makes them lazy."

 

Yes! Absolutely; while the digital age has ushered in some very important advances it has also led to a degree of apathy and laziness. I had a conversation recently with a young lady who, having attended an interview to start working for a major pub chain, could not understand why the wanted her to have a basic idea of how to add and subtract.......The problem with spellcheckers, also, is that they are not comprehensive. A large chunk of my work is in proofreading documents that have already been given the green light by Microsoft Word, and yet are indescribably awful. The English language can be contradictory at the worst of times. Another example: a guy I know is redoing his maths and english gcse's right now; he had to ask me what 3 divide by 6 is. he's 32.

[Tonyp]

Really laughing out loud

[Tonyp]

Mercuryg on a lighter note I'm in Bedlington on sunday twice in the last 20 years booked a room at the plough in Ellington on

Hotels.com and the address come up as front street Morpeth can you imaging if you don't know the area & you didn't have a sat nav

Modern tech..lol

[threegee]

Did he actually read it? If this is the level of support jobseekers are getting, it's no wonder they find things difficult. Furthermore, if this is the standard of written English (my friend had a grade B GCSE English language) then there's something very wrong. I'm not advocating perfection, but a little more attention to grammar and no text speak!

 

LOL!  Presumably, these days, there's an app for this?    Apart from being self-contradictory, and illustrating a likely general laziness, there are no dates of the employment history.   Why should I, as a prospective employer, have to extract this information when it should have been clearly presented?  I like to tie this to the references to locate the skeletons in the cupboard - there should have also been a list of available references.  Pretty basic really!

 

Having carried out hundreds of job interviews the one which sticks in my mind is the guy who sloped in and before he'd even sat down asked "What's the money like then?"  Needless to say...

 

If you really have to reduce "job seeking" to a box ticking exercise then you need to hit the boxes!  I'm old school that much prefers someone to come up to me and ask politely for a job.  There was a time - before all the "job protection" crap - when I made a point of always saying "OK, we'll give you a chance. When can you start?".  In a growing enterprise there really is no such thing as "Vacancies"- either you can earn more for the organisation than your keep, or you can't and are more trouble than you are worth.  And, who wants to work for an organisation that is "unfair" to them, or where they are "being carried", anyway?

[Steve]

So we've moved from 'selling up and getting out' to the state of UK education and job seeking.

 

Education in Britain has been dulled down massively in my opinion, the core subjects (which help in all other subjects) seem to have all but disappeared. Agree that technology has made people lazy, and that there are many (I'll not mention then ) 'pointless' courses at all levels. Education needs a HUGE overhaul, teachers need real qualifications, and kids need to be taught 'how to learn' - Maybe I'm just speaking for myself, but I LOVE to learn new things - it's a feel good thing too, something the youth of today seems to sadly not know.

 

Jobcentres etc, it really is just a tick box mentality, around 5 years ago I had reason to visit one for my own personal reasons, I never went back - but I did mail them a letter offering advice and an offer of my services, as the whole experience was SO un-organised it was ridiculous. It made me feel sick that our taxes are spent on these useless places. I've since heard many horror stories of these places..

 

threegee: you're right about all the 'job protection crap' - Red tape has made it dangerous for employers to take a chance on people. I know of at least one employer who employed someone with the above mentioned 'education'/degrees.. They couldn't do the job, didn't have a clue - they may as well have bought their qualifications from ebay. Add to that the fact that the employee was supposedly disabled... His hands were pretty much tied and it cost a fortune to all sort out in the end.

 

Giving someone a chance as you put it, is beneficial both to the employee and the employer, but red tape and crazy HR rules have made it too dangerous.

[Tonyp]

Steve totally agree with qualified teachers to the appropriate level of study how can somebody with certain level qualifications

Teach somebody who's trying to get a higher level of study,my missus boss will not even take on a T.A unless they have a

Minimum gcse English A because in the past her staff have been sadly wanting in the spelling dept,the older ones who haven't

Got one have been told they must sit it as it has been set as the new requirement..by the job centres don't exist you have to apply on

Line at least that's in my area...