Monday 9 January 2012

How the Duke depressed me on Christmas Eve

Oh how chance, I believed, might favour me in the days before Christmas when I heard a grand old Duke (not of Cambridge, he's a young one)patron of a homeless charity (again not the young one who also is) would be present at a carol service.

Here's the letter I handed to him, which he put in his breast pocket and said he'd read later. Which he did, and responded to straight away, which was great as no-one ever does that. However, he wrote there was nothing he could do, no-one he could influence, but "every success" with my lobbying. Oh the rage, I could only see black. So I wrote a response in my Black Notebook but haven't sent it. Should I? I feel my blood boiling again...

(Oh and Google told me how to address him because in truth, I had no idea)

20 December 2011

To Your Grace, the [Grand Old] Duke of [X],

If I have hand delivered you my article, then my prayers have been answered. If this letter and my article in the Ham & High have been passed to you, my prayers have also been answered because I was very nervous of approaching you at the Church of the Immaculate Conception’s carol service reception.
In short, Your Grace, I am asking you to help me help our country.
What the Government is about to do in regards to housing will destroy the lives or indeed life chances of so many people.
As you many know, the coalition wishes to abolish council housing, end life time tenancies, increase social rent to market share, and amongst other things, re-introduce the Right to Buy which got us into this mess in the first place where there is not now enough affordable housing for ordinary men, women and children.
I have appealed to Government ministers many times, to no avail. Articles I have written in the Ham & High and other papers, have gone unnoticed.
You have connections your Grace. Please, on behalf of everybody I mention in the article, see what you can do in order to halt this catastrophe. Or make those with power understand what they are unleashing.
Thankyou Your Grace. It was a coincidence I was at the carol service at all. My local church is elsewhere but on Sunday came to Farm Street to thank God for everything that I’ve got. The music is so stunning, it’s a beautiful service.
I do hope you can help me. I’ll put my details at the bottom of the page should you wish to contact me.
I wish you and your family a very happy Christmas and all the best in 2012.

Yours faithfully,

Sue de Nim

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