Nana was small, but forthright.

You were never in any doubt about

What that pocket battleship thought!

She liked to keep the purse strings tight

And the Cost of Living was the battle she fought…

 

Two pounds fifty for a sausage roll.

What would Nana have had to say?

“Don’t try and take me for a fool!

Come again, I wasn’t born yesterday!

When is this madness going to stop?"

 

A fiver for a pint of beer?

“Well, I’ll go to the foot of our stair!

They should come and try to live round here,

If they think this cost of living is fair!”

 

A five-pound note for a slab of butter?

In my mind’s eye I can see my Nana mutter,

“Pull the other one, lad, it’s got bells on!

You can shove that Lurpak where the sun don’t shine!”

Twelve quid, now, for a bottle of wine!

“Do you think I’ve just fallen off a flitting?

That’s far too dear, from where I am sitting!”

 

95p to post a letter!

“I’d think you were daft, John,

If I didn’t know you better!”

 

Nana died in 2002.

But I can hear her, now, inside my head

And her words of wisdom still ring true.

The Consumer's Champion is not yet dead!