Ealing, with just a touch of Broadwayi
Wednesday 24 October, 2018
We’re getting to know Ealing rather well, with a few visits to see Bren and Laura over the years, and today’s expedition to our meeting with Glinys and her colleagues, who turned out to be a Queensland girl who, after working as an adviser in Early Childhood and Infants, was returning home to Innisfail after 17 years. Well, did the discussion about the UK system turn into a personal overview of changes in the Australian system!
As with Tuesday’s meeting, it became immediately obvious that comparing systems was immensely complex but that the Australian systems have some real advantages because there just isn’t that level of social disadvantage that one finds in pockets of the UK. Overall, however, is the looming concerns about Brexit. There’s no doubt that around London, no one is interested in leaving and they are desperately hoping that Labour will engineer a second referendum; but while they wait, budgets are on hold and key decisions are left in the air because the politicians are focused on the treaty and whether or not Theresa May can survive.
It also became clear that pay was an ongoing problem, but sort of in reverse to the Australian version. In Oz, it’s the private sector that is struggling for pay increases because the unions are buggered and the bosses are spooked into short-term arrangements. After 25 years of growth, we still won’t invest in workers. The public sector has engineered regular, if small, pay increases. Over in the UK, the public purse is strangled by “efficiency dividends” while there is certainly work in the private sector – hence one reason why teaching is only attractive as a working holiday job.
In the afternoon, while we waited for clothes to dry so we could start the uncomfortable business of packing – yes, already – we decided to do a big walk along the Thames path and do something I’ve wanted to do for years, which is to walk through the foot tunnel between the Isle of Dogs and Greenwich. The photos are courtesy of Paula, because I didn’t take a phone or camera, but they do showcase the quality of the cameras on the iPhone XS and also that she’s got a pretty good eye!
We love this part of the Thames Path, because even though the Docks have mostly been cleared, you can see the remains that have been “repurposed”, often creatively. Along the way are reminders of moments of great significance – it’s quite amazing that Brunel chose the Isle of Dogs to build Great Eastern, and I wonder if it was the biggest ship ever built on the Thames. Famously, of course, she was launched sideways and took a few goes to coax into the water!
We’ve picked up other bits of trivia along the way, of course, particularly after visiting the Docklands Museum of London. It had an amazing exhibition on slavery, which was very powerful, but among other things we discovered that great sections of Mulberry Harbour had been constructed in the docks. I assume that, with the warehouses wrecked and a skilled workforce, it made sense to drain the docks and treat them as shipyards. The other piece of WW2 trivia was that PLUTO – the Pipeline Under The Ocean – was designed and constructed in the Docks area, using expertise developed from building undersea cable. Impressive, particularly when you see photographs of the damage caused by the Blitz.
The end of the day was the business of packing, as I have to store my bag until I finish my meanderings in the West Country. It all looks very possible when you look at it on the floor of the lounge, but will it all come together when I have to repack on the way to Salzburg? And I hate doing it – the trip together is really coming to an end and we’ll be on our separate ways on Friday.
