Susie is looking quite gaunt when I pop into The Hope Café, with an hour or so to gather my thoughts about this week’s PC and before I meet Sami, who had texted me to say he’s got some news! Never sure whether to engage with people obviously lost in their own thoughts, but I’ve known Susie for a couple of years so give her a querulous look when I order my double espresso. She looks down and then mutters:

“It’s one of my cousins. He was crossing the road in Clapham when an e-scooter knocked into him.”

“I thought they aren’t allowed on the roads.”

“Most aren’t, although there is a trial going on to help decide how this new form of transport can be regulated. (See Note 1) This one was being ridden illegally.”

“How is he?”

“Oh! Richard. It’s awful. He hit the kerb with his head and was knocked unconscious. They called an ambulance which took him to St George’s Hospital in Tooting but it’s not looking good. When they got to A&E it was some two hours after the accident and he was rushed into ICU.”

“God! In ICU! I am so sorry Susie.”

“The doctors think he had a bleed on his brain and are not sure how to reduce the swelling. My aunt and uncle are there and have been told to be prepared for the worst possible outcome.”

I left Susie with her worries and concerned thoughts about her cousin and find a table. The café has charging points as a way of encouraging more people to WFC (Work From Café – see PC 282 Back in The Hope May 2022) and plug in my laptop. My thoughts begin to flow, at last, and I’m in mid-sentence when Sami taps me on the shoulder. I hadn’t seen him come in and think he looks very well.

“Hello Richard! How’re you doing?” he asks, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

Sami, who you may recall was made bankrupt through the faults in the Post Office Horizon computer system, brings me up to date. Apparently those who were made bankrupt have been offered three options: take all the interim payments they have received but risk a company called Moore Recovery taking action against them, begin costly litigation themselves or accept 51% of their claim. These poor sub-postmasters, poor not in a monetary sense necessarily but poor as in put-upon by the power of the government and the Post Office, won a landmark case against the Post Office in the High Court and were awarded £55 million. Wow! Wonderful you might think; £100k each. But after legal fees were deducted they ended up with some £20,000. The current Public Inquiry was due to hold a special hearing on compensation this week.

If I understand this scandal correctly, the Post Office introduced a new computer system and it was very quickly recognised there were faults in it. Faults which caused sub-postmasters accounting errors. Over 12 years hundreds suffered. Surely the Government or its Post Office should foot the legal bills of the claimants?

We are in the midst of industrial action by Post Office/Royal Mail workers, complaining about pay and conditions (who isn’t!?). In the run up to Christmas, the busiest time for card and letter delivery, their action will not garner public sympathy and will exacerbate the decline in letter writing. In fact I now write my bread-and-butter ‘Thank You’s longhand, as always, and, rather than consigning them to an unreliable postal service, photograph them and send them via email or WhatsApp! Very C21st!

After some twenty minutes or so, Sami looks down at his watch and then towards the Hope Café door. “I have a surprise for you.”

“Ah! Her she is!” he exclaims and gets up to greet a gorgeous looking woman. “Richard, meet Lisa!” I get up, shake her hand and we all sit down.  Susie comes over and takes the drinks order.

Lisa lives in Folding Over Sheet up in the Derbyshire Peak District and is a writer. She’d come down to Hove for a few days, to see Sami whom she had met during his tour of the Indian Mutiny sites. (See PC309 November 2022). I haven’t seen Sami so animated in a while and sense this relationship is just what he needs.

“So why were you doing this tour Lisa?”

“Such a mixture of reasons. Firstly some of my ancestors had served in the East India Company, one as the Secretary at the Residence in Lucknow and I was interested to see its ruins, to put the family stories in context. Secondly India is an enormous country and this tour not only covered some interesting cities but also gave me a sense of the countryside and the rural way of life, all within two weeks. Being a writer I am always looking for ideas to weave into future stories.”

I needed to leave them to get on with other things but I hope to meet up for supper somewhere, sometime.

Richard 9th December 2022

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Here in the UK, trials are taking place in four transport areas where, if you have a driving licence, you can rent an e-scooter and use it on the roads. You can only use an e-scooter outside of these areas on private land. The public desire to use e-scooters is way ahead of the current transport laws, so HMG is playing catch-up. Meanwhile thousands of individuals are buying and using them illegally. In Wednesday’s Times a news item on e-scooters reported that a 12 year old boy had died on Tuesday as his (illegal) e-scooter had collided with a bus and in the London Boroughs of Bromley and Newham two other children had died in the last year. “I didn’t know it was not legal” is not a defence likely to find favour for Giovanna Drago, who is suing Barnet Council in London for £30,000 over a pothole which caused her to crash her e-scooter, breaking her leg.