Side Note regarding The Department of Work and Pensions

Throughout my life, the State Bureaucracies of the United Kingdom took money from my wages. Part of this money was to provide me with a State Pension to be paid from when I reached retirement age, which, at the time was 65 years. The government should have saved it for me. They could have invested the money to gain interest for me in order to protect it from inflation and then pay me the resulting amount as a pension. But they didn't. They spent it at the time on other unrelated things.

Because of this, the only source from which they can now provide my pension is from income tax money taken from younger people who are currently in employment. So the government first thieves from the old during their working phase of life and pays them back — in very small part — by thieving from the young who are working now. And this they do with the projected implication that it is the old [plus the infirm, deficient and inept] that are the cause of the heavy burden on the poor 'hard working' tax-payer.

The bureaucracy concerned; namely, the British Department of Work and Pensions, will only condescend to pay me my measly £92.49 a week provided I am able to furnish them with proof, that is acceptable according to their terms, that I am still alive. Of course, the relevant bureaucrat just sits on his butt at his desk, externalizing the whole task, of producing and conveying this proof, onto the shoulders of a frail old pensioner to prevent the poor 'hard-working' taxpayer being 'burdened' any more than he has to be.

But I hardly think that paying an old man £92.49 a week [that will never rise to compensate for inflation] could be rightly called a burden! Do they really think that anybody can sustain their biological existence on that amount? They blindly assume that some other source will make up the rest of what is needed. So it's fortunate for me that pure unconditional charity does exist in the world, otherwise I would be long dead.

The Fiasco of 2022

On 17 August 2022 [as I was approaching my 80th birthday] I received a letter from the UK Department of Work and Pensions [DWP]. It said that I must send them a professionally witnessed certified notification, that I am still alive, back to the DWP in order for me to continue to receive my measly State Pension of £92.49 per week. The letter said that if the DWP did not receive my reply within 16 weeks of the date of the letter then my pension payments would be stopped.

The letter is dated 27 March 2022. Incidentally, that was a Sunday. Am I to believe that the United Kingdom Government's Department of Work and Pensions write official letters on Sundays, or indeed, at weekends? There was no dated postmark on the envelope. Thus, I received the letter 20 weeks and 3 days after the date on the letter. Consequently, there was never any possibility of my being able to get the reply to the DWP within 16 weeks of the date on the letter.

So I have — at least for the time being — lost my pension, which is the only income I have.

The time taken for this letter to arrive is so far removed from the norm between the UK and Brazil that it begs the question in my mind as to when the letter was really posted. It conjures up notions that perhaps the letter was intentionally posted very late in order for the DWP to have an excuse to stop my pension and thereby save this disgracefully small pittance for their precious British voting tax-payers.

Notwithstanding, I telephoned a lawyer and arranged for him to come to witness my signing of the so-called Life Certificate form. He came to my house [am not quite so mobile any more] and witnessed my act of signing on Monday 22 August 2022. That was only 5 days after I received the letter and was the earliest he could manage.

At 09:53 the next day [Tuesday 23 August] I submitted the letter to DHL for rapid return to the UK. That was an expense I could have done without. DHL advised me that the letter had been delivered to the DWP at 10:24 on Tue 30 August 2022. That was a total transit time of 7 days. So the DWP received my reply 22 weeks and 2 days after the letter was purportedly posted.

My Internet service became intermittent and unreliable from 03 August 2022 and the service was terminated definitively on 21 September because the ISP, Oi, decided to discontinue its ADSL service via copper wire, intending to transfer it to optical fibre. I was unable to get Internet access again until 15 October 2022 from a different ISP. Consequently I was unable to access my bank account to see if my State Pension payments had been reinstated. On Sunday 16 October 2022 I was able to verify that the payment of my State Pension of £92.49 a week had been reinstated. As an 80 year old pensioner I found this whole experience rather traumatic.

At 14:30 on 19 December 2022, I received another letter from the DWP. It stated that my pension payments had been stopped because I had not returned my proof of life within the stipulated deadline. The letter was dated 19 July 2022. Thus it took this second letter 153 days to reach me! Again many times the normal letter transit time from the UK to Brazil. Of course, the second DWP letter was posted 42 days before my proof of life arrived at the DWP via DHL. So perhaps it is safe to ignore it. Notwithstanding, the Internet service from my second ISP has proved to be essentially useless. Over the 67 days from when it was installed on 15 October to today 21 December 2022, my Internet connection has worked properly for only 9 of those days. That's an 87% downtime. Consequently I cannot now access my bank to see whether or not I am still receiving my reinstated State Pension.

My Internet service was restored on 26 January 2023 and so I was then able to verify that my bank account had been credited correctly with my State Pension payments.

The Fiasco of 2026

On 30 April 2026 I received another letter from the Department of Work and Pensions. It was dated 23 March 2026. So, this time, the letter took only 38 days to arrive. Excellent. As with the letter in 2022, it demanded that I fill an enclosed form with my details and have a lawyer bear witness to the details and my signing of the form. Reasonable, except for one thing. I was blind.

I could in fact experience light and see very fuzzily. Notwithstanding, I most certainly could not read, irrespective of how large the print may be. Not even a street billboard close up. I had very rapidly developed abnormally opaque cataracts. Not uncommon at my age. This, of course was not the fault of the Department of Work and Pensions. But it wasn't my fault either. It just happened.

Once upon a time, my partner could speak and read English. But not any longer. She is now at a very advanced stage of Alzheimer's disease. She has good eyesight still. But although she can see the print clearly, she hasn't a clue what it says. I know an English teacher who could have read it for me. But she is currently in the UK for 6 months. So she cannot help me. I don't know anybody else available who can either speak or read English.

My diminished vision requires that I must always arrange for somebody to take me to eye appointments or anywhere else outside my home. I have responsibility of being my partner's Power of Attorney, which, being unable to read is extremely challenging. I must also care for my partner, whose disruptive behaviour is now like that of a precocious triple turbo-charged 4-year-old, when our day carer goes home at night. At almost 84 years old, all this vastly depletes my time and energy.

Since the beginning of 2026, I have had numerous consultations and two major eye operations to regain my vision. I need these because my new artificial lenses [replacing the old natural crystalline lenses in my eyes] are of fixed focus at infinity. So I still couldn't read. The artificial lenses had to settle for a month after the final surgery. I was not able to have my eye focus measured for reading glasses until 06 July 2026. Then I had to wait a further month for them to be ready to collect.

Until then, I was not supposed to go out. If I were to fall in the street, which at my age is a real and present danger. Before all this eye treatment I had had 5 serious falls in the street going shopping and to the bank. Such could well cause the new artificial lenses to pop out with a possible loss of vision all together. Therefore I did not go out.

I felt uneasy with the idea of using the lawyer I had previously because of a complicated situation that had precipitated a potential conflict of interests. Consequently, will have to find another lawyer. I couldn't look for a lawyer to have my form witnessed and signed until I had my new reading glasses. This could only happen at or after the end of July, which was after the given deadline of 13 July 2026 for the return of the Proof of Life form to the Department of Work and Pensions.

The Department of Work and pensions will not accept communication by email. They wouldn't even accept my sending them my new telephone number by email. They said I would have to advise them by letter. The only other option they offered for communication was by telephone. I have no fixed telephone. Such does not exist any more in my area.

I have a cell phone but, at the time, I couldn't see the stupidly small print or the stupidly small touch keyboard with keys a fifth the size of my fingertips. Furthermore, the cost of transoceanic telephone calls is way beyond what I could afford. Besides, I have a strong aversion to using a phone because of the excruciating phone bills I was forced to pay for decades in the UK for a telephone, which was abused beyond all bounds by my then wife.

So I will have to let the deadline pass, lose my measly pension and deal with the matter when I am able to see again.