Some days you just wonder if it is worth carrying on in this life – When it says it doesn’t rain but it pours – I get that – how much more of this can we take?
The consequence of the serious armed drugs raid that I was unwittingly dragged into, and with the hostile reaction that we received from the majority of the villagers ( even though it was proven that I was indeed, an innocent man) meant we had to move away – and as fast as we could for my families safety.
We had settled out of Court with the Police, and we set about having a purpose built extension onto my Mother in Laws house ( please, no Mother in Law jokes)
Anyhow, due to the fact that our builder (who turned out to be qualified as an odd job man, and NOT a qualified tradesman) had helped himself to a sizeable portion of the build fund – so we sacked him, but we found ourselves now woefully short of money to finish the project.
I must say that Mother in Law was good enough to lend us some money, and this was repaid by her living rent and bill free for over two years.
However, this in itself caused major problems within the family i.e. a certain sister thinking that we have been given more than she has…I could retaliate with her having holidays paid for, and money lent for new gas boilers – but that is none of my business…like what we were lent is no one else’s.
But, I have seen what money issues can do to families when my Step Mother used to be a Warden for the Elderly. Believe me. Money can tear the living soul out of the closest and most loving – I have seen it with my own eyes.
A letter came through the post from one of my former employers, the Royal Mail saying that as I had reached the age of 60, I was entitled to claim my Royal Mail pension in a lump sum OR I could be paid my pension from them on a monthly basis.
At this particular time the offer of a lump sum was something that we couldn’t refuse, and within a few weeks, the lump sum was sitting in our Bank – Happy Days, we now had enough to nearly complete the build.
Well it would have been happy days if we had not received a letter from the Tax Office demanding £5,000 on the pension money that I was legally entitled to.
We were informed how serious a matter this was, and that the HMRC were expecting repayment as soon as possible.
Just let me side line for a moment – Amazon and Facebook identified on the television as not paying millions of pounds in revenue – or an ex Prime Minister ” forgetting” that he had off shore accounts. Famous footballers and actors being named as being involved in tax evasion schemes –
AND yet that doesn’t matter – its little old me, who used the Royal Mail pension that I had worked my backside off for who THEY are coming after.
So as I sit here on the 13th September 2018 – I can inform you that the Tax Office passed this matter on to a Debt Collecting Agency who have bullied us into repaying part of MY pension on a monthly basis ( probably until the year dot to clear)
Talk about one rule for one and one rule for others.