Social security at the time Last of the summerwine started

P

PSi

Member
Hi,

I've been wondering what sort of social security Norman Glegg (at just over 50 years of age) might have had as a redundant co-op salesperson at the time the series started in 1973?

pekka
 
I assume he would have been on standard Unemployment Benefit, which I believe lasted for a year. After that I think you want on Social Security. Housing benefit remained the same regardless of which unemployment benefit category you came under. Age didn't come into the question of which benefit you qualified for. The main difference with Social Security is that it was means tested whereas Unemployment Benefit was paid at a standard rate for the period that you qualified, i.e. up to a year and wasn't means tested.

Foggy and Blamire probably would have been in the same position. Compo, out of work for a long time would have been on Social Security. They would have been on these benefits until reaching the then retirement age of 65, when they would have switched to the standard retirement pension. The only exception would have been if they had retired early and were drawing a private pension. That would have affected the amount of means tested benefits they might qualify for up to the age of 65.
 
Foggy would have had his army pension but it probably was not generous add to the state pension and it was not to bad for the time Clegg might have had a pension from the COOP
 
chris said:
Foggy would have had his army pension but it probably was not generous add to the state pension and it was not to bad for the time Clegg might have had a pension from the COOP
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But they weren't of retirement age when they first appeared. They were in their low to mid fifties or thereabouts. I doubt whether a Co-op pension for a redundant lino salesman would have been much anyway. They wouldn't get any state pension until 65.
 
Probably on the social as were many people who were made redundant and could not find work,but I thought they were of retirement age.
 
true philosopher, they would have been on the social....foggys pension would have been poor and cleggs an absolute pittance..i suppose being in their early to mid fifties today they would all have been classed as scroungers..we all knew compo was and accepted it through the programme....
 
gremlin said:
true philosopher, they would have been on the social....foggys pension would have been poor and cleggs an absolute pittance..i suppose being in their early to mid fifties today they would all have been classed as scroungers..we all knew compo was and accepted it through the programme....
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I think they probably would have been classed the same by some (Daily Mail Readers spring to mind!)at any time in the last 40 years or so. LOTSW was very good at hiding the simple reality that for most of its history it has been a comedy about the middle aged unemployed heading to retirement.

Even in its final offering Hobbo and Alvin, if we are to believe that they are in their mid to late 50's were not employed. Brian Murphy was a very young looking 70 when he joined, but Like Hobbo's wig, I suspect the reason why he always wore a beret was to cover up his baldness and give the impression he was younger. He might have been retired, but I don't recall it ever being mentioned what he had done for a job. Entwistle had his own business of sorts, one of the few in the trio to actually have a day job, although he still seemed to find the time to go wandering. Seymour did have his correspondence course and Blamire and Foggy did attempt to be entrepreneurial at times.

Interesting that Compo always took the flak though about not working especially in the early series as it reflected a time of mass unemployment. Those giving it, usually Blamire and Foggy were also unemployed though. Compo got picked on because he never wanted to work and do something as mundane as having a job.

Clegg was always interesting because I think he was resigned to his fate that he wouldn't work again after the Co-op.

In all the years they were on I don't think we ever see them visit a dole office, unlike other comedies of the unemployed like Shelley, Citizen Smith and Rab C Nesbitt.
 
I read the Daily Mail and I think I am a reasonable person ,in the seventies jobs were scarce and even in the eighthies it was tough I was told once by an idiot that I was to old at forty to try a new job.People like Clegg were resigned to not working again and the young people who replaced them were rubbish but in the north of England jobs were really scarce due to heavy industry closing down along with all the service companies just like it is now. :'(
 
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