{Patterns and Consequences}[26th September 1988]

[Redbook5:364][19880926:1545j]{Patterns and Consequences}[26th September 1988]

19880926.1545

[continued]

It is a curious fact – and one quite unexpected until (I think) some time after this [Journal] volume was started – that we are, in terms of income, better off now (with Government help because we have children)* than we would have been had we received £30,000 more for the sale of our flat.** (I agonised over this application, which was eased for me by the fact that [W] had to make it – and she has made Social Security contributions since the age of 15 and never had anything back.)

It is a balance to the loss my parents incurred when the Great Storm blew down their trees, the day after I wrote a reply to their Solicitor’s letter*** – a loss**** which I very roughly estimated to be of the same order.

The difference, of course, is that the gain in income results from the loss in capital, whereas one must assume that the trees would have blown down anyway.#

*(an award of £46pw, which we were told about a few days ago, 22 or 23/9/88)

**[See [Redbook3:15-16][19860907:0612j]{A Dream: [(6)] of Madness}[7^th September 1986]; & see also:

[Redbook3:44-46][19870327:2157d]{Separation}[27^th March 1987];

[Redbook3:101-102][19870404:1005k]{The Righting of Wrongs}[4th April 1987];

[Redbook4:8-9][19870705:1545k]{Parental Concerns}[5^th July 1987]; &c]

***(And within a couple of days before the Stock Market slump) <881023>

****(presumably uninsured – timber insurance is usually for fire, I think; wind[-]throw insurance would surely carry prohibitive premiums. Wishful thinking?!)

I have just learned that they have been quoted £40,000 to clean up the mess (which they will leave, although trees are still falling). As mature timber near the track can usually be extracted at a profit, this may give a rough indication of its standing pre-gale value. <881008>

#I think the way one should look at this is to say that had they not been the kind of greedy and dishonest people that they are, they would not own the woods (which were left to them in circumstances giving rise to suspicions of ‘cultivation’, and had been bought by them (under Powers of Attorney) as a tax-dodge) and would not have suffered this loss. <881008>

[More specifically, the trees were long overdue for thinning; but in relation to later suggestions of ‘cultivation’, anecdotal evidence indicates that the disposal of inherited money by the previous generation of unmarried or at least childless female cousins had been agreed among themselves long before.]

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