The Vicar's Wife

This morning I was running a bit late, so I heard ‘Thought for the Day’ on Radio 4. Dr Mona Siddiqui was talking about how the slowdown in the housing market makes people feel frustrated because

“We have taken the buying and selling of property as a costly but essential part of our lifestyle choices.”

This is one of the reasons for all the repossessions in our neighbourhood: people bought into the lie that everyone should own their own property and then just couldn’t afford it. Where families are still managing to pay their mortgage there are difficulties here that you don’t see in middle class neighbourhoods.

Our neighbours, the Jollies, very rarely spend their annual leave together, as they can maximise the free childcare by taking it in turns to take their holiday. I see Arthritic Granny, obviously in much pain, struggling with the pushchair to the school gate, as her son and daughter-in-law are out at work all day and she is left with three little ones to watch.

But mainly I don’t think it wouldn’t occur to most of the people in our parish that having a mortgage was ‘an essential part of our lifestyle choices’. People don’t have that choice in the inner city. But then, they don’t listen to Radio 4 either.