Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

Nargleblast wrote: »

I certainly believe that some teachers in the 60s and 70s were taught in teacher training college how to use a blackboard rubber as a guided missile. And how a piece of chalk, when not being launched at some unfortunate pupil, could be used as an instrument of torture simply by scraping it down a blackboard. Sadists, the lot of them!

There, I always KNEW they must have had special training!

My parents can recall corporal punishment back in their school days - mostly the ruler across the palm trick. One of Dad's cousins was a hellion in school and always getting rulered but he just didn't care. He went on to have a useful career in the fire service.

Indifference to corporal punishment must a familial habit. During WW1, when so many adult men were away, Great-Grandad was struggling for workers and went to ask his son's headmaster if he could take him out of school to help on the farm. Kid was under school leaving age, y'see.

The headmaster's reaction has been recorded for posterity; he consented and said 'Frankly, Mister

---

, if you can teach him anything, you're a better man than I am!'

One of my aunties knows one of my old (pre-grammar school) teachers. I feel slightly indecent that I know her first name, now. Proper teachers didn't have first names when I was a lass............:rotfl:She remembers me, apparently, as 'very clever' which is flattering since we were 40 to a class. I remember her as being older than she actually is, which is strange, she was only about 28 when she was teaching us.

D'you think teacher life-years are like dog-years, several to an ordinary human life? I know several teachers, they tell me things, things which make me very glad to work in a call centre........:p

JayneC

We had blackboard rubber hurling too. I remember in Technical Drawing class (they don't even do that now) the teacher threw the rubber at one particular lad who saw it coming and ducked out of the way. Poor lad sat behind him didn't see it and it smacked him right near his eye - drew blood, they had to take him to A&E for a stitch!! Blackboard rubber hurling became less common after that.

My form tutor chucked a lad down a flight of stairs once. Another punishment was that he used to draw a circle on the blackboard and then get whoever was in trouble to stand with their nose in the circle, he'd then move the board up until they were on their tip toes and leave them there....

jk0

I take it you all noticed this film linked to on PP this week. Probably you know everything mentioned, but this does tie things together:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0Q5eZhCPuc

Karmacat

tessasmum wrote: »

... since he died in July, I now find myself with an embarrassingly large supply of stuff and I am taking it back to the surgery a little bagful at a time and hoping they don't pass comment on how much we had got! I would still do the same again in the situation because when someone you love's life is in the balance, you do whatever it takes to keep them as safe as you can.

tessasmum very sorry to hear of your loss, and it sounds like you worked hard to keep him as safe and contented as possible. Like GQ said a bit later (I think) for people with lifesaving medication, a bit extra only makes sense - never mind shtf, what about snowstorms, transport strikes and the like?

Hope you're taking care of yourself, at any rate.

tessasmum

Thanks, all. Yes, I did worry in the winter about having to go trekking around the countryside for the medication - we had to go all the way to Papworth Hospital [about an hour's drive] one time for the special stuff, and so keeping it the house was a sanity saver for me as well as for him. His death was our SHTF moment, and we had been preparing for it for years, and so those of us still here {me, DD15 and DD18} are doing OK, although DD18 has gone off to uni, brave girl! She's nearly 500 miles away in Aberdeen, and settling in well x

nuatha

When FIL was dying the medical team decided to move him to a substantially higher morphine dose. The on-call doctor amended the script he'd written - pharmacy refused it as alterations aren't allowed on controlled drug scripts. A 30 mile round trip later to collect a new script to find the doctor hadn't signed it, another 30 miles later the pharmacist apologised but his stock was out of date, he phoned around the key pharmacies (the ones who are under contract to hold emergency drugs) and 120 miles later I was delivering the drugs to my FIL. From the prepping point of view having sufficient fuel was useful as well as an up to date map- thankfully this was in summer, winter could have made it rather difficult.
Herself has a spare month of her opiates - a cooperative GP is a godsend, but a month is all that its feasible to have in hand. We're well aware that our health problems will be an additional problem when the SHTF, but you prep for what you can and hope you can adapt to deal with what you haven't prepped for.

Frugalsod

nuatha wrote: »

Herself has a spare month of her opiates - a cooperative GP is a godsend, but a month is all that its feasible to have in hand. We're well aware that our health problems will be an additional problem when the SHTF, but you prep for what you can and hope you can adapt to deal with what you haven't prepped for.

I suspect that the medical authorities are concerned about patients selling their medication. Though I suspect that should there be a crisis of some sort, such as an ebola outbreak, that there would be a system to maintain other drug supplies to the rest of the public, should there be a medical curfew.

GreyQueen

Morning all.

I see what looks like a lot of just-in-time deliveries to pharmacies. My own (one of a chain) has deliveries come in daily in the late morning. They have a pretty small store-room, most of which is visible from the counter, compared to the numbers they serve.

I would expect that in civil unrest, pharmacies would be one of the first places to be looted, in hopes of getting opiates and other marketable things. Trouble is, the wreckage caused would damage other people's essential medication and pharmacists might well not be able to get in to do their jobs. We do have bandits robbing pharmacy vans even these days.

I feel that there are no contingency plans in place to handle a quarantine. Look what happens when there's a snowfall, fer crying out loud..........I don't think that TPTB have even begun to think beyond the Go in and stay in and await official advice level of emergency planning. I looked at a local website which was being promoted about emergency planning, hoping to learn something useful and it was pretty poor, just about dressing warmly etc and having warm things in your car.

I have a small amount of thin plastic gloves and think it would be wise to have some more by me, on my hygiene emergency prep shelf. Will get that sorted this coming week.

I will also, weather permitting, continue to peck away at the allotment, to make sure that I'm in an excellent position to garden in 2015.

[Deleted User]

That's the glory of being aware of what's happening in the big wide world GQ and having the common sense to have made some preparation to look after yourselves if anything should occur that means you need to stay out of circulation for a while. TPTB are after all only human beings just like all of us at the end of the day and will be in the same situation along with their families and loved ones. I think the only one who will do anything if TS really does HTF to help you through the aftermath is you alone and that having what you need already in stock at home doesn't make you immune from whatever is the cause but certainly gives you better chances if coming through the crisis than if you just lived from day to day and had nothing in place.

Frugalsod

I have to agree I think that TPTB have delegated all responsibility to a serious crisis to a non existent team. The vast majority of the public are really on their own, and I suspect that if there was a problem of any sorts it would only be once the press picks up on something that they will be motivated to do anything.

The current family who have been exposed to ebola in texas have been told to stay in their homes for 21 days and to not contact anyone. So it would seem that we really need 28 days food in stock just in case.