Growing Old 25 - The International Christian Centre

Stanley was invited to tea with James and Jenny and their two children.  He rang the door bell that played a happy tune.  James opened the front door and led Stanley into the kitchen.  From the corner of the kitchen some stairs ascended to the first floor.  There wasn't much on the ground floor except the kitchen and the stairs.  Near the front door of the house there was the kitchen sink and near the rear door there were some cupboards and kitchen units.  The deep fat fryer stood on top of one of the kitchen units.  There didn't seem to be any other cooking equipment, only the deep fat fryer and the kettle.  In the centre of the room, near the stairs, there was a dining table.  James beckoned Andy to sit down.
"Do you want a cup of tea?" asked Jenny.
"Yes," said Stanley.  She put the kettle on.  Jenny opened a large shopping bag that was full of all sorts of frozen meat products.  Stanley noticed that, although the food was frozen, there was no fridge.  It must have been their intention to eat it all straight away.  Jenny began to take the food out of her bag.  Sausages, beef burgers, chicken burgers, fish fingers.  The children looked on and started shouting excitedly.
"My children are hungry," said James.  "They haven't had any meat for a month.  Our benefits are paid today."  Jenny made everyone a cup of tea.  She turned the deep fat fryer on.  While she waited for it to heat up she started cutting open about 20 packets of cheap fish fingers.  When the steam came out of the fryer she opened the lid, lifted up the pan, threw in about a hundred fish fingers and lowered the pan into the boiling fat.  The children squealed excitedly.  James laughed,
"They think it's Christmas."
"Actually, our church doesn't celebrate Christmas," said Stanley.  "It's all to do with ancient Egypt and the god Mithras."
"Stanley, they just remind me of when I was a child and we used to get up at 4 o' clock to open huge boxes of sweets on Christmas morning.  That's the expression on their faces.  Except that my kids are sick of sweets.  They want meat.  Their bodies are crying out for protein."  It wasn't long until Jenny flicked the pan full of steaming fish fingers out of the boiling fat and put them on to the children's plates with a huge spoon.  Each of the children had a large plate full of the tiny fish fingers and ate them ravenously.  No salt, no vinegar, no sauce, no time.
"Would you like some?" Jenny asked Stanley.  Stanley felt a sense of revulsion at seeing such cheap fish fingers served in such large quantities, without chips or beans or even peas to make them more pleasant.
"No thank you."  Jenny looked really offended.
"I do wash my deep fat fryer," she said.
"Yes please, I'll have a few fish fingers."
"You'll have a great big plateful like we're having," said James.  Jenny served Stanley a good plateful of fish fingers which he patiently struggled to eat.  While he was still eating, Jenny put a whole large packet of beef burgers into the deep fat fryer and pulled the pan down into the boiling fat.  A strong smell came out of the fryer.  The children, now finished their fish fingers, squealed with delight.  Ten minutes later and the beef burgers came out.
"Do you want some?" asked James.  Stanley had just about managed to struggle through the fish fingers.  He felt sick.
"No, I'm trying to lose weight," he lied.
"Oh, go on," said Jenny.  "I promise we won't feed you like this every week."
"Couldn't afford to," said James.  "Next week it'll be a big bag of frozen chips for tea."  Jenny was giving everybody 4 beefburgers each.

The next evening Stanley attended a reunion of his university class.  It was at a hotel bar.  He bought a glass of bitter lemon and sat down next to a group of old men.
"Hello Stanley."
"Hello Joe."
"Do you still not drink alcohol because you're a Christian?"
"Yes Joe, because I'm a Christian and because now that I live in community I have less money."
"Oh, tell me about this Christian community."
"We live on a farm together.  Piddledon Farm."
"Where's that?"
"Near Newport Newtown."
"I know where you mean now," said Joe.
"Do you remember when computers had green writing on the screen?" interrupted a particularly geriatric old man in a suit.
"Yes, I do David," said Stanley.
"It didn't have to be green," said Joe, "you could have any colour writing you wanted."
"We had an old Nimbus machine with orange writing on the screen," said Stanley.  "You could have white if you wanted to but it was considered hard on the eyes.  I just remember sitting with that old Nimbus machine, trying to remember the command you typed to start Basic, and all afternoon the caption coming up, 'Bad Command or File Name.  Bad Command or File Name."
"Happy days," said David, smiling.  "Do you remember when the teacher brought in the world's first Autocad programme?  We spent two weeks designing a circuit diagram and printed it out on the old dot matrix printer.  It looked like a game of join the dots."
"We had email in those days," said Joe.  "Terry emailed his homework when he was on holiday.  We all thought, how has he done that?  Sent his homework hundreds of miles when he wasn't there."
"I used to read the news on the computer in the library," said Stanley.  "Every week before I went to night school, I'd be having my tea there and then I'd read the news."
"Who wanted hamburgers and fries?" interrupted the waiter.  One of the men lifted his hand.  "And can I ask you something?  What's a computer?"
"It's what people had before mobile phones," said Stanley.  "For email and news."
"What did it look like?"
"It had a screen like a television," said Joe.  "The screen plugged into a big box that sat on the desk and you had to attach a keyboard to it."
"What's a keyboard?"
"A bit like a typewriter," said Stanley.
"What's a typewriter?"
"Have you ever seen a laptop?" asked David.
"I think I saw one in a second hand shop once."
"Anyway Stanley," asked Joe, "what are you going to do with your retirement?"
"I want to hire an old cafe on Newport Newtown High Street and call it the International Christian Centre."
"The International Christian Centre.  That's interesting.  What would you do there?"
"On one side of the building there will be a cafe, like there is now, and on the other side I will have my office.  On the door I will have a sign, The People's Advocate.  I'm concerned about poverty in the city.  I will give poor people advice."
"What kind of advice?"
"I can be trained by the Citizens' Advice Bureau and Christians Against Poverty.  Joe, I have seen a family throw a big box of beef burgers into the deep fat fryer because it's benefit day."

The International Christian Centre was opened on the high street in Newport Newtown.  Stanley sat behind the door of his office behind the cafe area where people sat and had cups of tea.  "The People's Advocate," said the exciting poster on his door.  "Poor people, know you're rights.  Talk to Stanley Green, trained Advocacy Expert."  A rough looking man with a beard and long hair knocked on the door.  Stanley opened the door.
"Can I come in?" the man asked.
"Yes, indeed, please do," said Stanley."What's your name?"
"Derek."
"Why are you here?"
"I'm worried about my weight and my doctor's worried about the amount of iron in my body."
"What do you eat?"
"I eat a big loaf of bread every 3 days.  It's amazing what you can do with a loaf of bread.  Beans on toast, scrambled egg on toast, pilchards on toast, sandwiches made with tinned meat."
"You should eat more fresh food, Derek.  Baked beans contain an awful lot of sugar, tinned meat contains an awful lot of fat, bread is like eating pure calories.  You should be eating oranges and bananas, sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbages.  They're not even very expensive."
"I live in Rotley, on a council estate which is on the outskirts of Newport Newtown.  Our shop sells bread and margarine, eggs and meat and vegetables in tins.  If I want to buy fresh food I have to get a bus to the city centre ten miles away.  Once a month I go there and get 2 big shopping bags full of cheap tins of beans, cheap tins of pilchards and tins of soup for 50p that don't really contain anything.  I can't get fresh food.  It doesn't keep very long."
"What about frozen vegetables?"
"I've got a fridge but I don't have a very big freezer.  I can't stock up enough frozen vegetables for a month."
"Tinned vegetables might be better than nothing," said Stanley.  "Try filling your heavy shopping bags with frozen meat and fish."
"I'm on benefits.  I can't afford to pay £1.50 for a little slice of fish.  I buy a big loaf of bread for £1 because it fills me up."
"What about moving somewhere else?"
"Where else?  The private landlords won't look at you.  People on benefits are no hopers when it comes to private landlords.  It's only the housing associations people on benefits can live with.  They only have the properties that are in horrible places where no one wants to live.  Is there no advice you can give me?"
"Try putting corned beef in the sandwiches,"  said Stanley.  "It contains a reasonable amount of iron."  Derek got up to leave.  

Another knock came on the door.  "Come in," said Stanley.  A woman came in who looked very distressed.
"I can't pay my bedroom tax," she said.  "I'm going to be evicted."
"Have you told the council?" asked Stanley.
"I've told them time and time again.  They say it's not their job to house people."
"You've got to apply to the housing associations," said Stanley.
"I know that," said the woman.  "I can't get a one bedroom flat.  I live on my own."  Stanley picked up his mobile phone.
"I'll have a look for you," he said.  "One bedroom flat," he typed on to the screen.  "There's several vacant properties on Killburn Bank."
"You don't come from here," said the woman.  "You don't have a Newport accent."
"I'm from Manchester," said Stanley.
"If you came from here, you would know that there is a part of Newport Newtown called the Axis of Evil.  Killburn Bank, Gravemoor, and Cause End Estate are the Axis of Evil.  They're the most violent part of the city.  My mother went there late at night once and got mugged.  I don't know what she was doing there at 11 o' clock at night, she might have got lost, but she only went there once and she was beaten up and had her bag stolen.  The flats have bullet proof windows because there are drug dealers running around with guns.  One man who moved into a flat there was met at his front door, one day, by a gang with baseball bats.  'We steal pipes from this building,' they said.  'We don't want anyone living here.'  Have a good look at the cars on the street view.  There isn't a single one of them that is less than 20 years old.  No one would buy a decent car.  They are often stolen and set on fire."
"It might be safer than living in a hostel," said Stanley.  "There seem to be quite a few one bedroom flats in Rotley."
"Rotley is way out.  It's ten miles from the city centre.  When you're unemployed you rely on being able to walk everywhere.  The bus fares are extortionate.  I'd be marooned."
"If you get evicted the council will have to put you in a hostel," said Stanley.  "You can only stay there for 3 months."
"I'll wait until then," said the woman.  She left.

Stanley opened the door to see the commotion going on in the cafe.  Mark was standing behind the counter and was arguing with an African woman who had returned a packet of tea bags.
"I don't want tea, I want coffee," she said.
"This is the third time you've returned something today," said Mark.  "It's all free.  Beggars can't be choosers.  First you didn't want fish and you wanted to know if we had hallal meat.  Then you didn't want rice pudding and you wanted to replace it with ordinary rice.  Now it's coffee instead of tea."
"Do you have some coffee?  Yes or no,"  asked the woman.  Mark picked up a small jar of coffee but looked as if he was suppressing the urge to either smash the jar or punch the woman in the face.  Instead he shouted,
"I would think that people who have journeyed hundreds of miles across a desert on the back of a lorry, and gone hundreds of miles across the sea on an overcrowded rubber dinghy, at incredible risk to their lives, wouldn't complain about having to drink tea instead of coffee."
"We know where we are now," said the woman.

A woman with four children came into Stanley's office.  There were 2 boys and 2 girls.  The boys were laughing, running and punching each other.  The girls seemed to involved in a cruel game of torture, pulling eachother's hair.  The woman sat on the seat next to the electricity meter.
"Calm down!" she shouted at the boys.  "And Shan, stop doing that to Lizzie's hair.  It's not very nice."
"How can I help?" asked Stanley.
"I want to register my family with an NHS dentist."
"Well, you've come to the right place.  I'm the expert on dentists."  Stanley took out his mobile phone.  "We need to look at the NHS website, search for a dentist, and then find an area of the city where there are lots of NHS dentists.  Then I need to phone them up and see if they're still taking on new patients.  Hmm, there's a lot of dentists in Cause End.  I suppose people who live on Cause End Estate don't go the dentist every six months."  Stanley pressed a number on his screen.  "Hello.  Are you taking on any more patients?"
"No.  We're not taking on any more.  We're full."
"Thank you.  Goodbye."  Stanley pressed another number.  "Hello.  Are you taking on any more patients?"
"Call back at Christmas.  Our list is closed until Christmas."
"It's only March," said the woman.
"I think we'll forget about that one," said Stanley.  He pressed another number.  "Hello.  Are you taking on any more patients?"
"Yes we are.  We're a big practice in a poor area.  Always looking for patients."
"Oh good," said Stanley.  "I have a family who'd like to register with a dentist."
"Excellent," said the voice on the phone.  "Complete this online form."  Stanley passed his phone to the woman who filled in the details on the form on the screen.

A few days later the woman turned up at the dentist with her four children.  Shan picked up a scalpel.
"Is this knife big enough to chop someone's leg off?" she asked.  Lizzie picked up another knife.
"My knife is bigger than your knife."  The two girls began to dance around, threatening eachother with the knives, as if they were fighting with French swords.
"Calm down, calm down!" screamed the mother.  "The dentist wants to look at your teeth."  One of the boys had sat in the chair.  The other was using the controls to move it up and down.
"Mrs. Hastings!" shouted the dentist.  "This is your first appointment.  It is a probationary appointment.  If you mess up this appointment I can not give you another one.  Please take your children and get out of this clinic.  You are no longer registered with this dentist."