The Education Ladder

There is something that the Tory Boys who run the government at the moment don’t get about charging people for their tertiary education. And I include Nick Clegg in the definition of “Tory Boys”;  Tony Blair and Miliband minor are  also in the club, since Labour thinks capping fees at £6,000 a year will do the trick!

Back in the sixties there was a significant expansion of higher education; everybody had their first degree paid for by the local education authority (LEA) and there was a means-tested maintenance grant available too, so even less well-off students could go to the university of their choice, whether it was Aberdeen or Exeter or anywhere in between. The reason for this largesse was that the government thought it a good idea for the country to have as many well-educated people as possible.

As time went on, there was further higher education expansion; cynically, I thought that it was just to keep young people off the dole queue, but perhaps the expansion was for the same reason that it had been done in the sixties – in some way better educated people are of greater value to society than poorly educated ones, in some way the nation as a whole benefits. If that’s so, what better thing for a government to do than to make sure that the intellectual, economic and social capital of the nation is increased by the simple expedient of getting them to learn stuff and think a bit?

Now, I can see the argument that says in the past, free higher education was a subsidy to the middle class, and therefore they should be made to pay. I can also see the argument that says people with a degree earn more than people without, and they shouldn’t be getting an advantage paid for by those not similarly advantaged. I see the arguments, and I could shoot holes in both if I wanted, but that’s not the point; neither is it the reason that they want to charge increasing amounts for tertiary education. The reason for this policy is that our Tory Boy politicians are just old fashioned class warriors in cuddly clothing, who have the absolute (and quite erroneous) conviction that cutting public expenditure is the way to deliver happiness to the nation. It’s not their fault – it’s the fault of the silver spoon in their mouths. (If you think this is harsh, you should have read the first draft!)

Why do I care? Well, I wasn’t always middle class; I was brought up poor; very poor. My father (a drinker and a gambler) left home when I was six and my brother was one. Life was a grinding, humiliating struggle, with my Mother trying to live on inadequate benefits. For me, education was the ladder out of poverty, or so it seemed. There was no other ladder on offer, and frankly, being poor was crap (I imagine it hasn’t got better in the 40-odd years since).

I had the luck to be born just at the right time. I was a beneficiary of the golden age of state education in England brought about by the 1944 Butler Education Act and the expansion of the universities in the sixties. I passed the 11+ exam and went to a recently built grammar school that was well equipped and well staffed by teachers who actually seemed to care about the development of the pupils (all boys, by the way; I also went to an all boys primary school, which was unusual even then). I knew university would be  paid for by the LEA, which would also give me a grant for maintenance.

But, it still wasn’t easy to get to the starting line of university.  After I left school (four A-levels, place at my first choice university, grant for the course and maintenance all sorted out), I dithered – university was wonderfully attractive, daunting and something I thought was for others, not for me; I didn’t need much to put me off. Had I had to face the prospect of an unimaginably large debt (whatever the soft options there may have been for paying it back), I would have had an even better excuse for not going. And, in the end I didn’t immediately go to university, I got a job instead.

How could I be so daft? There is a reason for this perverse decision. I want you to understand (what the millionaire Tory Boys never will) that I was the first person in my extended family to seriously face the prospect of higher education (as it happens, my cousin did eventually get herself a really good education and now teaches at a university). No-one that I knew had ever been to university. We were in uncharted waters, and I was the navigator, helmsman, and cargo – and I was 18; there was no-one to steady the ship and put all this into a proper context for me. It was too much, and I bottled it.

And that’s why I care – not because my sons will have debts (they’ll get sorted out by them or by me in the course of time) but because of those children who will not take the opportunity of higher education through fear, uncertainty and doubt, and who certainly don’t need the prospect of a £50,000+ debt to start their working lives with!

There will be lots of young people put off by the debt because they and their families are frightened by the headline figure, and don’t understand the soft options for paying it off. They will be put off, and that’s the point.  They’ll be put off which will mean that their life chances, longevity and health and the well-being of their children will be harmed relative to those who do go on to higher education. And they should, absolutely, go. Think of it this way: if it were a bad idea, rich people wouldn’t do it! 

For Sale: baby shoes; never worn.

Stories have always been very important to me. They are the way we store and transmit knowledge, and more importantly wisdom, understanding and values from one group to another and from one generation to the next. They feed our souls, bring meaning to the arbitrary universe and invoke emotions that connect us one to the other.

My relationship with the written word hasn’t always been an easy one. My mum read to me when I was little – I can remember sitting next to her looking at the pictures in “Robin” or some other pre-school comic. I can still remember some of the stories (like the story of a little lamb being taken in having lost its mother and fed on milk from a bottle shaped, somewhat oddly, like a banana!). Despite having all the right sort of pre-school experiences, when I actually got to school I found it very difficult to learn to read. My difficulties were such that there was some talk of sending me to a “special” school, which meant then as now, to a school for people with learning difficulties.

As it happened, I didn’t go to a special school (or an approved one, before you ask), and I did eventually learn to read, mainly by reading comics. I still didn’t read books, though. When I was about nine or 10  I borrowed a book  from the school library which dutifully sat in the sideboard cupboard for a few weeks. Then for a reason which I can no longer remember, I took it out of the cupboard and read it. I was suddenly captivated! There were others in the same series; I read them. I was off into a world that was exciting and new (for the time: one of the characters in the first book I read, which was science fiction for kids, had a ham radio, which he smuggled onto an orbiting space station; it was as big as a suitcase and he had to have a licence from the General Post Office to operate it! – obviously, mobile phones were never invented in this alternative version of the future). There were characters I liked and identified with, who became my earliest role models, teaching all sorts of values: keep a stiff upper-lip, be courageous, play your part in the team, there is a time when disobedience to authority is right, boys should be adventurous, be on the side of justice and honour, protect the weak, be manly in your dealings with the world, dishonour is worst thing that can happen to a chap, good will always triumph over evil. I learnt those values and learnt them again and again as I progressed through Biggles, William Brown and  Jennings & Derbyshire.

Then came teenage years: all of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Somerset Maugham, E. M. Forster, C. P. Snow (not in the same class, I know, but I loved the “Strangers and Brothers” saga – the story of the life and times of a clever, working class, provincial boy making his way in the world – you can see why it appealed); then later D. H. Lawrence,  James Joyce (I’ve never managed “Ulysses”) and Thomas Hardy. And of course the inevitable science fiction, and now fantasy  – Michael Moorcock and Tolkien (I am actually a child of the sixties remember). And always what drew me back were the stories and the things I learnt about a world that I hoped, wished I could live in, so different from the day to day realities of school and home.

What is one of these “story” things? The nearest I’ve been able to come to a definition is that it is a set of characters in a set of circumstances where something happens that puts their qualities to the test and from which we, the audience, can gain an insight and have our emotions pleasurably tickled along the way; characters, scenario, trigger, test of virtue, insight, emotion.

Hemingway, famously laconic, wrote the six word story that is the title of this blog for a bet. It is a masterpiece of story telling. Does his story fit the model? Try this: characters (parents and an actual or putative baby); scenario (the parents are poor and have gathered things carefully together for the baby, which has been lost); trigger (loss of baby, deteriorating health and need for money); test of virtue (steadfastness to memory of baby versus need for even small amounts of money); insight (unimaginable acts, such as the sale of the shoes are possible if the need is great enough); emotion (sympathy for the plight of the parents; sadness at the loss of the baby; gratitude that our own position is not so bad).

Of course you can fit other details to the same six words, which is one of the reasons why this particular six-word story is a masterpiece. I told Hemingway’s story in a workshop I was facilitating a few days ago, and got a big “Aahh!” from very parent in the room. And that’s the other reason it’s a masterpiece – it grabs you by the emotions and gives them a tug!

Of course, stories don’t just come in books – they are everywhere: plays, poems, films, songs. television programmes, opera, folk-tales, nursery stories and rhymes. And the good ones inform and educate as well as entertain. When a politician or a businessman or a salesman wants to persuade, explain or motivate, he doesn’t expound all the facts and statistics that go to make the actual case, he tells you an anecdote, draws an analogy, produces a metaphor or a hyperbole – he tells you a story and engages your emotions. And there’s no point in trying to argue against the power of the story with reason and booksful of evidence. In the end you can only fight a good story with a better one; facts alone are just not enough.

I have always argued against using stories in place of actual thought about complex issues – they are too powerful to be trusted.  So, I’ve spent most of my life hooked on a story, and at the same time  I have always tried to rely on facts and reasoning. And  I know that it’s the story-tellers who always win the day! Knowing all this it sounds to me that I have been very wilful and misguided all along! Time to throw in the towel and join the winning team. Next time I want to educate, inform or persuade, I won’t  tell them why, how and when – I’ll tell them a story!

Why have a car at all?

Public transport seems expensive, but that’s just because people look at it in the wrong way. I drive an 11 year old BMW 528i sport, and I’ve prepared the table below to try and take the emotion out of this question.

Historical Car Costs
Variables
Petrol	per litre	£1.34
Petrol	per gallon	£5.96
MPG		28
Mileage	per month	729
Expenditure		Per month	Per Mile
Petrol	variable	£155	£0.21
Insurance	fixed	£57	£0.08
Road Tax	fixed	£18	£0.02
Parking	variable	£80	£0.11
Depreciation	fixed	£109	£0.15
Breakdown cover	fixed	£7	£0.01
Maintenance	variable	£125	£0.17
Analysis		Per month	Per Mile
Total Cost		£551	£0.76
Fixed Cost		£191	£0.26
Variable Cost		£360	£0.49

The table shows that, over the four years I’ve owned it, my car has driven an average 729 miles per month.  The car cost £6,750 and I think it’s worth about £1,500 trade in (www.webuyanycar.com says that it’s worth just £600 today!). So the fully loaded cost per month is £551, of which variable costs (maintenance, fuel and parking) come to £360 – or £0.49 per mile. How does that compare to public transport?

My daily commute from Hale to Sheffield (about 40 miles each way) on the train costs £18.70 per day – less if you buy a season ticket – or £0.47 per mile. The local bus costs £2.50 return to the airport - about £0.36 pence per mile.

Broadly, if you were to assume that I’d have the car anyway, from this sample of one, the variable cost of public transport is less than travelling by car, but not significantly so. Of course the utility of my nap and reading (and blogging) is forgotten in this analysis!

What about time? Is that not the major element of “personal utility” to consider? As it happens, it takes longer to drive to Sheffield than to go by train, so the answer there is easy. If I need to go to Liverpool (about the same distance and about the same public transport cost) the answer is also easy – it takes twice as long to go by public transport than to drive (there’s 35 miles of motorway between me an Liverpool, there’s lots of twisty, narrow roads and hills on the way to Sheffield).

If you take into account the fixed costs (like insurance) and the sunk costs (like the depreciation), then the answer changes, but not in a simple way. Sheffield is both quicker and cheaper by train than by car – no brainer. Liverpool is less clear: does the extra £35 cost on the car journey outweigh the extra two hours spent on the round trip? And anyway, is it right to take into account all the costs (even those that are sunk) in the comparison?

The fully loaded costs of travel by public transport (£0.47 per mile) compared to the fully loaded costs of car travel (historically £0.76 per mile) shows a massive cost advantage to public transport. At first sight, that looks  a fair, “apples to apples” comparison. Not so: from my point of view, the only costs that really matter are direct, future and relevant costs. What’s gone has gone. If I’m going to have a car anyway, then the only relevant costs are the variable costs of the journey, which is petrol, wear and tear, parking and the personal utility of driving compared to the train ticket and the personal utility of sitting on a train. That comparison correctly shows that the financial costs of public transport are more or less the same as using a private car. It’s the other “personal utility” items that make the difference. I could only save the fixed costs by giving up the car entirely!

I walk to the station to go to work; Sally has a car and there are almost no occasions when we are both out at different places where we both need a car. Usually with a bit of forethought, even on those few occasions we could organise lifts or drop each other off.  I could  get a taxi or a bus. In fact, I like public transport; you meet people, you can read, or sleep, or, if you get really bored, work! There’s no stress (apart from when the train’s late)  and it’s more healthy – I walk 2 miles a day just to and from the station at the ends of my train to work. So why have a car at all?

The table below shows my estimate of  the costs of keeping my car for another four years:

Car Costs - Future
Variables
Petrol	per litre	£1.34
Petrol	per gallon	£5.96
MPG		28
Mileage	per month	350
Expenditure		Per month	Per Mile
Petrol	variable	£74	£0.21
Insurance	fixed	£57	£0.16
Road Tax	fixed	£18	£0.05
Parking	variable	£5	£0.01
Depreciation	fixed	£31	£0.09
Breakdown cover	fixed	£7	£0.02
Maintenance	variable	£60	£0.17
Analysis		Per month	Per Mile
Total Cost		£252	£0.72
Fixed Cost		£113	£0.32
Variable Cost		£139	£0.40

The fully loaded cost per month will be significantly less in the future, because of reduced mileage these days and the depreciation being less in the future (the cost per mile is also reduced, but not significantly so). I can save £252 per month (as long as I don’t spend it on taxis or extra bus fares) if I give up my car.

So presented with the hard facts of the case, I can see that I could save £252 per month. Hard-headed, emotionless accountant types (who of course never buy anything just because they want it, do they?) would say take the money! But, I’ve always had a car (at least for the last 30-odd years). And I can justify keeping it: it might be the case that I need a car in the future to go to work; and the car is in good nick and I wouldn’t be able to buy one as good for anywhere near its value. But…, and…., and…so on.

You see (and you probably knew this already) when I actually face the decision, I discover that it isn’t about money, it’s about feelimgs – I like driving a silver BMW that goes far too fast; it’s a great car to drive, it goes round corners like it's on rails, the faster you go, the better it seems to like it. It’s stylish and elegant and not as butch and aggressive as the later models, and BMW drivers get a wide berth on the road (which, when you’re a driver of my quality is a good idea for all concerned)!

Who would, given the choice,  swap a really nice, somewhat worn BMW,  for a bus? As it turns out, not me!

The purple Porsche

I had a strange dream last night. I do envy those people who have dreams that make a coherent narrative – the best mine ever do is to give me scenes which could be, given sufficient creativity, merged into a story. In last night’s dream I owned a purple Porsche –  it didn’t look quite right (too angular) but I knew it was one, and it was covered in mud and parked in a railway station car park. In my dream I was going away on holiday, and I was undecided whether to leave the car where it was, or move it. Eventually, I decided to move it and felt comforted for having made the decision – I was clearly anxious about leaving it in the car park for a week. My grandfather was in the dream too, but that’s another story, I imagine.

The dream itself doesn’t matter, what I started thinking about was why was there a Porsche in my dream? I don’t think I’ve ever dreamt of a car before and I don’t think of myself as a petrol-head at all. Is it possible I’ve been mistaken all these years?

Of all the cars in the world, a Porsche is the only one I’ve ever really wanted (“wanted” is too strong, it’s more like “if money were no object, then I would like a Porsche”) …except, of course, for a really elegant 80s Mercedes 500SL cabriolet (you know the one, like Richard Gere had in “American Gigolo”). But an old car wouldn’t really be practical – would it? – a Porsche, purple or otherwise, would, wouldn’t it?

Persuading myself that lovely old cars are practical is a bad habit I’ve indulged for years: the only car that I have ever truly loved was an old Jaguar XJS 3.6 manual coupé, in “bordeaux” (to Jaguar, “burgundy” to the rest of us). So in love was I that I washed it every week, and only ever used just water – no soap. It was 10 years old when I got it (I convinced myself that such a solid piece of engineering was good for at least 200,000 miles), and it had to be practical because I needed it for work every day. I loved everything about it – the huge bonnet; the breathy, low roar of its straight six engine; the way it fitted round me; the idiosyncratic “dials”, the fact the handbrake was on the wrong side, the acceleration and the feeling of wafting along effortlessly at 100 miles an hour. I was besotted and it was, in fact, totally impractical – it needed untold litres of synthetic oil at vast expense and managed about 16 miles to the gallon; I lavished money and time on it and then, just when I had got the last piece of bodywork right, I crashed it on the A5! I was heartbroken: the next day the insurance company came and took it away and wrote it off.

My current car is a 528i BMW Sport; it’s 11 years old and still in very good nick. It was a youngster for me when I got it (only six years old). Fast though, but these days I don’t drive very fast . Better economy than the Jag, about 28 mpg (generally). Still impractical – insurance costs too much, car tax costs too much and these days 28 mpg is just pathetic (and expensive). I spend a lot of money driving a lot of metal around when there’s usually only me in it and rarely more than 2 people.

And these aren’t the only examples of petrol-hedonism in my life – I’m also admitting to a totally impractical left-hand drive Lancia β coupé, possibly the only car ever built that was more trouble than an Alpha Romeo!

Why do I, why does one, why do we, have this desire for cars that we value much more highly in our minds than their intrinsic worth? What is a Porsche anyway apart from a souped-up VW Beetle? Why not have a rock solid Golf instead or a Polo or even a Nissan Micra?; it’s as cute as a cute thing, fun to drive and manages about 50mpg, costs almost nothing to insure and almost no car tax.  In practice, given the speed limit, these cars are of no less intrinsic worth than a Porsche; worth more in fact if you have more luggage than a toothbrush and a change of underwear!

Or better yet (heresy warning!), why have a car at all?

Skiathos–The End

Well, it’s over for another year, I’ve even actually gone back to work.

As it turns out the holiday on Skiathos was just lovely.

We went every day to the beach – a lovely quiet pretty beach, and swam in the sea. The tradition on the beach is that people build little shelters to protect from the wind and the mid-day heat, and then leave them for the next occupants. Our shelter was a real work of civil engineering, with walls and a partial roof. We stayed in there and sunbathed, and it kept us cool (well, cool-ish). Our contribution to the structure was to build a seat in front, which is ideal for sitting and reading, or just sitting and putting your shoes on.

We went out for dinner and lunch everyday, went to do a bit of shopping (we didn’t manage to buy much), and went to the open-air cinema once  - that was it. We still managed to come back entirely spent up, which just shows that it was a great holiday.

 

Skiathos 2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Greece has become very expensive. You only get  about 1 euro to the pound at tourist rates (in fact the rate in Skiathos was better than the rate in the UK), which makes a 25 euro lunch quite expensive – never mind - you’re not paying for the lunch you’re paying for the sunshine! And the sun did shine, all day, every day.

I remember the first time Sally and I went to Greece, in 1979 to Corfu; the holiday was quite expensive (£400 each for a fortnight, before the days of cheap air travel), but it was extremely cheap when you got there.

In those days, everything was less internationalised, so buying food was a bit of an adventure. We got our vegetables and fruit from and old man who seemed to be selling things from his own (very small) house. I never saw him wear anything but a vest. He would offer a slice of tomato for you to try before you bought. (This way of doing things was topped a couple of years later when we went to Crete, where the man selling vegetables insisted in offering glasses of raki whenever I went to buy spuds!)

We went into Corfu town on the bus, still with no Greek, but having worked out that “ΣΤΑΣΙΣ” meant “bus stop”, we were able to get about We saw the place where the Duke of Edinburgh was born and the Corfu cricket pitch. The woman who ran the local bar didn’t speak English at all (now, they all do) so buying things was a bit hit and miss. Fortunately, there was a Londoner of Cypriot descent staying who was able to translate for us in the bar at least. We had a major issue buying meat – which looked altogether too meat-like for our refined western tastes – but we got buy.

I remember the smells and the crickets and how dark it was without street lights. The houses all seemed unfinished (it’s to do with the Greek National Sport – avoiding taxes!). There was an Orthodox monastery on a causeway that you could only visit if you were properly dressed (Sally couldn’t get in in her shorts!); and I remember a small island (which I think is called “Pontikinissi”, which I think means “Mouse Island”) .

And you know what, we had a lovely time then, and we had a lovely time this time, just 32 years later.