Telephone tedium. This struck a cord. For me, now 80, the bugbear is young women, office employees, who ring me up or answer my call and talk so fast that I have to keep interrupting them to say "I'm sorry, you are talking too fast for me to follow you". "Oh, sorry", they say, and repeat what they said at exactly the same speed as before.
Business people must come to terms with the fact, like it or not, that the proportion of elderly persons in the population is increasing steadily. The time is not far off when those concerns which understand this and compete for our custom will do better than those who hide their eyes from demography.
I sometimes wonder if secretarial schools actually train their students to talk fast so that office telephone bills are kept within bounds. As I am, I admit it, slowing up, I do not have time to research this matter. Does anyone know the answer?
I do not now attend the meetings of the Oxford Consumer Group - alas! My contribution is to read, think, and then write letters which may be useful now or in the future. Has anyone else, I wonder, drawn the attention of their local Group to my problem? Or written to you about it?
Maybe, in time, offices will have some staff over 60 who will speak more slowly. Or will everybody, by then, have learned to speak fast and grasp fast speaking? I wonder!
Editors comment: Nobody has written to me about this, but some have mentioned it. There is a slow food campaign in Italy, I understand. How about starting a slow speak campaign here?
1. There is no NHS dentistry in Plymouth. My husband and I have been forced to pay for private dental care.
2. We do not have insurance, so we only attend when absolutely necessary. It is just too expensive. We are both in our late seventies and have paid National Insurance contributions all our lives.
Editors comment: Plymouth Consumer Group is carrying out an investigation to find dentists who takes NHS patients. Here in Dartford, and in the Exeter area, there are dentists who will take NHS patients. Is it postcode discrimination?
My mother and I always enjoy your Consumer News. I always feel a bit down when I get to the last page, but this time I felt a bit shocked as well! When I got to the part about Canal-side Facelift and you said see Group News I suddenly realised that I hadn't read any Group News. According to the contents, this was on pages 8 & 9.
I am ashamed to admit that I had not noticed that our copy lacked them, and, not surprisingly, pages 7 and 10 also. The Group News part is always very interesting, so would it be possible to let us have a complete copy please?
Between us we have decided that it must have been the fault of your Editorial and Production Assistant that our copy was less than purr-fect.
Editors note: Apologies to Mr. Sutch, a complete copy has been sent to him. If any other reader has an incomplete one please let me know and, while stocks last 1 will send them a purr-fect one.
Dear Editor,
We are OAPs and use cash machines during the day, but more and more we are using the cash back facility at our ASDA supermarket. It does mean paying with our debit card (so money goes out of our bank current account a few days later rather than weeks later had we paid by credit card). I believe the cash back limit is £50.
Our Lloyds Bank has a swipe card lock to its lobby, but they don't seem to use it. We wouldn't go at night, whether a secure lobby or not, as that part of the town centre hasn't many people milling around. There are cash machines outside ASDA (which is in the town centre about 200 yards from our Lloyds Bank) whereat night there are more people. This is true for Tesco about 3 miles away and Tesco is open 24 hours. Our nearest cash machines are at our local petrol station and I would use them at night as they are visible to the petrol attendant.
Most places with cash machines have more than one, so most cards can be used in at least one of the machines, so you don't have to go to a Lloyds machine to use a Lloyds card. We are particularly well served as Hatfield also has Barclays, HSBC, Halifax and Abbey National outlets, all in the town centre.
Yours sincerely,
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