FALLEN off your bike have you, young man? Broken your leg?

What a shame, but don't worry, we'll look after you in hospital for as long as you need treatment.

And you madam, need a major operation, do you? You will be well looked after in spite of the fact that you may have to lie on a trolley for some time before we can actually get you into a ward for treatment.

But you, what's your trouble? Old and frail are you, no one to fight your corner eh?

Well, you're in a comfortable home now aren't you, but do we have plans for you!

The powers-that-be have decreed that you must have a room to yourself and en suite facilities, however comfortable you are in your present circumstances.

What? You know many folk who don't have such things at home and you'd rather be happy and comfortable and not have your life turned upside down?

What do you know about anything - you're old, you have lived your life and you've hung on for far too long, and anyway, it's all for your benefit, you ungrateful person.

You think I jest? Sadly, although it's true I have exaggerated the scenario, such decisions are being taken across both East and West Sussex and no doubt elsewhere, as old people's homes are being closed and the inmates moved around like so many chess pieces.

Of course it would be nice if every room had all the refinements and no one had to share.

But at that time of life those chess pieces will tell you, if you care to listen, that warmth, caring staff, and above all being surrounded by the friends they have made in their twilight years come much higher up the list than the frills so beloved of those in authority.

It is also hard to pretend that money, and the saving thereof, does not come into the equation.

It is true that promises have been made that money saved from the closure of certain homes is to be invested in others to bring them up to a higher standard but the misery which is being reported week after week in the Argus, as those elderly sad men and women are told they have got to move from the only home many of them have known for some years past, is heartbreaking.

Surely someone, somewhere, can fathom out a way to hold off all these uprootings, temporarily take on no more new people if that's what it takes, and do up the rooms in rotation so that those who have given so much to this country through their work, through raising their families, and in many cases through fighting for us through two world wars, can end their days with as much care and attention as they need and deserve.

It takes a little lateral thinking, not necessarily something with which those in power are always well-endowed! It's time to kick you councillors folks!

Try to get them to listen to OUR generation - we have votes and they would do well to remember it.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.