Rise and Fall!

Tendring District Council in Essex has been criticised over proposed changes to its Careline service that will see pensioners charged around £26 to be picked up if they have a fall at home…

 

 

Rise, ye old people of England!
Rise!

Advance on your shopping malls and your town squares;
your three lane  highways
your shaded byways!
Advance!

Advance on your mobility scooters
and your unsteady walking sticks
and your zimmer frames with their go-faster stripes!

Advance in your bulging carpet slippers
and your beige cardies
and your wobbly knees!

Pound the grey pavements!

Rise in your millions!

And when you get there,
Fall!

Fall in small dignified heaps
and raucous mountains.

Fall in front of parked cars and delivery lorries
and hurrying politicians and swerving bankers
and all those heroic Christmas shoppers saving our economy…

Fall! Fall! Fall!
Fall for England!

And then,
Stay fell!
Lay there giggling foolishly and waving
and passing sandwiches in plastic boxes and drinking soup from thermoses
and making inappropriate comments about passers by.

Stop the traffic!
Frighten the horses!

And when they come to pick you up
to get you out of the way,
so that the world
can get on with its day..
REFUSE TO PAY!

That’ll teach the bastards!
OYEZ!