Who cares?

Watching yet another tear-jerking episode of DIY SOS reminds me of one simple truth: without low paid workers and volunteers the lives of a great many people would not be worth living. An exaggeration, perhaps? No way. All over the country, a small army of people earning around the minimum wage, driving around in a fleet of old bangers, keep our society civilised. Just.

An old joke I heard was “What do you call someone who works in social care or a charity who drives a nice car?” I was stumped there. What was the answer? “A manager!” It’s the same the world over. Those at the bottom do the most valuable work and get paid the least for doing it.

The comment I have heard most, in a working life that has seen me meet countless people who do the jobs that perhaps the rest of us would prefer not to do, is that caring for people is ‘a calling’, a vocation. They know from the outset they will not earn what most people will regard as ‘good money’. They’d like to earn more but what they get out of seeing their grateful clients smile after today’s good deed has been done, so to speak.

The old adage that charity exists in order to pay for the things society deems are not important enough to be paid for collectively through taxation is more true than ever. As the nation, led by a generation of useless politicians, frets over one subject – Brexit – to the exclusion of all else, have we all forgotten the things that really matter in life?

DIY SOS suggested to me that there is still hope. Volunteer workers rebuilt a house for a needy family for no other reason than they wanted to make someone’s life better. That’s what care workers do every single day of the year. It’s what volunteer workers do every single day of the year.

One thing that always makes me realise that the more elite members of society, meaning the politicians and media personalities are hopelessly out of touch with what life is like for many people is when they blithely point out that older cars should be taxed to the hilt and even banned from city areas. No one ever seems to tell them that if old cars were taxed to the hilt and banned, the low paid care sector would simply collapse. No one would be able to travel anywhere, except the managers of the workers who presumably would have to get out on the road instead.

Yes, Britain is broken right now. It’s hopelessly divided and no one is capable of putting it back together again. At least, there is a small and largely unseen army doing good things for people who have nothing. They were there on DIY SOS, they will be out and about tomorrow. I dread to think what this country would be like without them.