Barry Cryer backs The Big Issue’s Caring at Christmas campaign
Comedy titan and top chap Barry Cryer insists he’s enjoying being an oldie at Yuletide, but like The Big Issue’s Caring at Christmas campaign, he says we should spare a thought for those who are less lucky.
“Well I’m lucky, I’ve got a big plan,” the 78-year-old said. “The Big Issue knows about this – loneliness is the most awful thing. And I was spared, been dogged by good luck all my life. We’ve got four children and seven grandchildren, so it’s a big family.
“With the extended family – the in-laws and the outlaws – we’ve got huge group photographs. Very lucky. We’re going to be moving about quite a lot at Christmas. It’s a family thing and I’m so grateful for it.
“The build-up to Christmas gets to me a bit: the frenzy, the rushing about, people going, ‘Oh, I haven’t bought that present and blah blah blah.’ You can feel it in the air, you can smell it.
“I retreat a bit, back from the frenzy. But once it’s arrived I love it. It starts so early commercially, it seems they’re all cashing in very early on. But once it arrives and you pull up the drawbridge… if you’re lucky, as I am, to have a family and a whole gang… I love every minute of it.”
Packing for someone with dementia on Christmas Days Out
Guest blog by Grommit
All carers have the same dilemna when leaving the house for the day. What to take, what to leave. However, it is possible to remember things if you sing it as you go.
“On the first hour of packing I must remember these:-
The Sat Nav with the car keys.
On the 2nd hour of packing I must remember these:-
2 packs of Werthers,
and a Sat Nav with the car keys.
MP’s blast over welfare ‘cruelty’
The hardships being suffered by Blackpool residents were laid bare to Prime Minister David Cameron during a heated exchange in Parliament.
Blackpool South MP Gordon Marsden used yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Question Time to put pressure on Mr Cameron about the impact welfare reforms are having on ordinary people.
He said: “As the Prime Minister sits down for Christmas dinner to’ chillax’ with his family and friends, will he spare a thought for my Blackpool constituents, and half a million others, whose Christmas is mired in the incompetence and random cruelty of DWP’s benefits sanctions.
