Cold Codger

By Tommy Atkins

I am old now. Old and cold. I live in Northumberland, beautiful but cold. Almost as cold as it was in Korea, on the Imjin. Thankfully my heating allowance is not going to be taken away from me. I can sit by the electric fire all wrapped up in blankets and survive the winter, I hope. I can sit and look at pictures of my Mabel, who passed away 5 years ago. The allowance does not stretch to keeping the fire on all day. My mate Clive, younger than me, is not so lucky. He is not very old like me. He is also not disabled. So, there is no heating allowance.

You do not have to be disabled to feel the dampness in your bones, you know. When you are past a certain age, the cold and damp get to you.

I do not understand why Clive’s allowance has been taken from him. My granddaughter Mary, who reads this thing written by two old geezers, says the money is not there because the government threw away a lot of cash during Covid and the rest was stolen.

But I cannot believe that a British Government would…