Free As Far as You Can Go by Julian Mitchell Page B

said Harold’s mother. “We’ve never had anything else, and it’s never been the slightest trouble.”
    “Wait a moment, Mary,” said Mr Barlow. “We did have that time we had to call in that man from Marlow, you remember.”
    “Oh, dear,” said Mrs Crowhurst or whatever, “I do hope we don’t have any trouble. Jack is simply not good at doing things around the house, are you, darling?”
    Mrs Barlow winced at the “darling”, but she said, “I dare say plumbing is very simple at sea, isn’t it?”
    “Not too difficult. The basic principle is to chuck everything overboard. Saves a lot of time and trouble.”
    “I must say I don’t altogether approve of that,” said Mr Barlow. “This pollution business is becoming a real problem, you know, quite ruining the fishing in places.”
    “Ah, but that’s not the Navy, you know. That’s a wholly different problem. It’s the factories. I saw a most remarkable sight the other day, somewhere near Slough, I think. There was a little canal thing, it looked like, completely covered with white foam. They say it’s something to do with detergents . That’s the sort of thing that’s ruining the fishing. You can put what you like in the sea, it won’t hurt it.”
    “But the bathing,” said Mrs Barlow. “I’m told there are beaches in Lancashire which used to be beautiful, but now they’re simply insanitary.”
    “Yes,” said the Captain. “But that’s not the Navy, either, Mrs Barlow. That’s the towns discharging their sewage into the sea. They don’t get it far enough out. Or they don’t take into account the prevailing tide, so the stuff simply gets washed straight ashore! I agree with you, it’s most unpleasant , but it’s not the Navy.”
    “Well, something should be done about it.”
    “Oh, I agree. I agree absolutely.”
    “When did you retire, Captain?” said Mr Barlow.
    “Just a year ago. I’ve been looking around for something to do ever since, really. But I thought it would be better to find somewhere to live, first. And then Dolly’s husband died and we decided to go fifty-fifty. I must really set about finding myself a useful and lucrative pastime. The Navy’s a splendid life, you know, and you feel a bit let down when they say time’s up. But you have to make way for the young.”
    He looked so smug when he said that that Harold wanted to ask him what he felt about the youth of today, but he managed to stop himself.
    “I don’t think the young are worth making way for, myself,” said Mr Barlow. “They don’t seem to have the will. The spirit, that’s what’s missing.”
    “You’re not far wrong there,” said the Captain. “When I was doing a couple of years at Dartmouth—oh, just after the war, it was, wasn’t it, Dolly?—I remember we had great difficulty in getting the right type of boy, and even when we got him he wasn’t as good as he should have been. It’s the sense of service that’s lacking, we found. They have everything too easy these days, I suspect. I’m not an illiberal man, and I think the Health Service, for instance, has done a lot of good for some people, but there’s no doubt about it, the welfare state attitude isn’t good for the Navy.”
    “That’s it,” said Mr Barlow, “that’s it exactly. They don’t have any sense of service. No loyalty, that’s what it amounts to.”
    “Oh, you’re so right,” said Mrs Crankshaw-Crowhurst, “you couldn’t be more right. Trying to get a decent servant today is like looking for a needle in a haystack. And the amount of money they want, it’s simply disgraceful.”
    “I think you’ll find people in the village are very reasonable ,” said Mrs Barlow. “They all like to earn a little extra. I have no trouble in getting women in to do the housework. No trouble at all.” She smiled patronizingly.
    “It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
    “Not in Peterham.”
    “Absolutely impossible to get them to work, too.”
    “I think