Domestic Archaeology

Further developments at work on the leaky roof front. The Head, rather unwisely IMHO, decided to play "have a go" and slept over in the school building on Thursday night. Fortunately for him it paid off - the thieves returned and he managed to summon the police before they knew he was there. He then did a full days work on two hours' sleep, which certainly shows dedication.

Moves are afoot to replace the missing lead with an artificial substitute that's less appealing on the black market for building materials - problem is we are a listed building so, even though the portion of the roof in dispute is invisible from street level, we aren't supposed to do this. Hopefully something can be worked out.

I have agreement in principle for improved lighting. Nothing definite on paper yet, though.

Meanwhile, my dad-in-law has transferred to residential care and DH has been sorting though boxes of his stuff every night as we prepare his bungalow for sale. DH's parents never threw anything away so this has been something of a revelation to Becky (my 16 year old daughter), as for the first time she sees a purse containing pounds, shillings and pence (unused in the UK since 1971), petrol ration coupons from the 1940s, her gran's swimming medals from the 1930s and all the paperwork connected with my DH's transfer to secondary education in 1964. These last documents are a vivid reminder of the days before IT, when even secondary schools had four-figure telephone numbers and typewriters were manual, leaving Braille-like indentations in the back of the paper and words in wobbly lines. Some things change less than others though - the instruction that "diversions and social arrangements will not be tolerated as excuses for the neglect of homework," for example. The language may sound like something out of Jane Austen but the sentiments don't date. I wonder what they would have made of Facebook?

Also interesting to note - the instruction that to accept the place parents had to "sign under a sixpenny stamp", the information that a year's education at a grammar school would cost £115 a year (state funded in this case), milk was available daily on request, school dinners were a shilling a day and pupils were allowed to go home for lunch. A bill for school uniform came to just over £6.00 - that included blazer, shirt, tie and swimming trunks.

There's an element of emotional archaeology involved as well. My in-laws were not sentimental people so it came as a revelation to find a very tender love note from their early married life, when it was a delightful novelty to address J's mum as "Mrs W...." I think we all felt a little intrusive coming across that. We also found 'Mum's' wedding shoes from 1946 - wonder how many coupons they cost her? It does make you reflect on the objects that define a human lifetime. Philip Pullman fans will know what I mean when I say that the whole collection was filled with "Dust".

Finally, we came across a scribbled note stuck to DH's bedroom door one Christmas in the 1970s. "Please wake up late, had a very boozy night last night." Apparently he didn't appear until teatime on Christmas Day, and his mother was not impressed. As my North London husband put it, "She done her nut."

I think I'll send that little note off to my son. As I said before, some things change, others stay much the same.

Going Straight

In what is being described as a landmark case, a gay couple have just been awarded £3,600 damages because a family-run small hotel refused to allow them to share a double bed. The hotel owners are devout Christians and claim they won't have couples who aren't married bed-sharing under their roof, since it is against their religious beliefs. They state this on their website (though not very prominently) and claim that the couple's original telephone booking didn't specify that they were of the same gender. (Incidentally, the gay couple are married by civil partnership).

Christian activists have turned out in force to defend the hotel owners, alleging that the whole thing was set up by gay rights groups, because Stonewall had sent them a letter before the incident pointing out that they were acting illegally. Press coverage has been pretty polarised, with papers like the Daily Mail going out of their way to take the hotel's side, while unsurprisingly the more liberal Guardian takes a different view.

Often, the comments made on such articles are more revealing than the articles themselves. I found one of the most unpleasant responses was that the gay couple shouldn't have tried to book into a hotel that was described on its website as suitable for families. A hotel that happens to be near a nice beach and has a high chair in the dining room is, arguably, suitable for families. Are gay people supposed to go out of their way to avoid staying in any place where children might be scarred for life by seeing two blokes or women come down to breakfast together? If they don't do this and trouble ensues are they, like a woman in a short skirt who gets raped on the way home, asking for it? The mind boggles.

I was an evangelical Christian for most of my adult life, and the most awkward thing about travelling with the man who is now my husband, but wasn't back then, was that the number of small, reasonably-priced hotels in rural areas that can offer you two comfortable single rooms is more or less zero. Hoteliers understandably detest single rooms; almost as much work as a double with much less profit. If they have them at all, they will probably be in a broom cupboard under the eaves. That, rather than any uncontrollable perversion, was what finally got me to compromise on my Biblical principles.

Now the hotel in question has only one single room and charges a single occupancy supplement. That's standard practice in the industry, unlike their moral stipulations. But one of the reasons I left evangelical Christianity was that I was sick of clergy, with safe jobs and tied accommodation, telling hard-pressed young families and single people to "give till it hurts" and trust God to sort out details like mortgage payments. I have very little respect for these hoteliers. But I might, just might, have slightly more if they were prepared to stick their money where their mouths are and offer at least two well-appointed singles at a reasonable price, and advertise them in the Christian press for those guests who struggle with this particular issue.

And, if anyone reading this from outside the UK has a moment to spare, I'd be interested to know how this case would have panned out in their corner of the world.

Finally, if you're ever visiting Cardiff, I strongly recommend Ty Rosa - even though I'm straight!