Old McDonald
Member
- Location
- Harray, Orkney
I was proud to see work done in Greece using money we had paid into the EU, the level of poverty there in the 1970's shocked me.To see people living in properties with no running water sewage, and sometimes no doors or windows was a disgrace to the rest of Europe.
I bought a farm in Northumberland in 1975 that had no running water in the house and an earth closet 50 yards away. It was not common, but not unusual.
Do you realise that these conditions exist for a lot of people in europe today?
I have been in few village houses but am aware of houses that have rooms with no windows. I was in one last week. It is not too long since I saw it estimated (govt figures) that over 100,000 inhabited houses in Portugal did not have water connected. Many more do not have electricity. I know of ex-pats who have bought houses, inhabited by Portuguese at the time, without any services. These houses are in villages and towns, not isolated rural places. I know of an area within the Castelo Branco city limits where the inhabitants live under canvas.
It is also true that when I left Australia in 1992 there were numerous people living under similar circumstances. Things might have changed there, but I doubt it.
I am sure there are similar houses throughout a great deal of Europe. There is still a lot of poverty in the so-called civilized world.