Dear Sirs,
I recently read your ‘Contributors’ Charter’, and very impressed I was too. I was so impressed, in fact, that I thought ‘Well if they’re so fired up with good intentions, we’ll see what they’re like at putting it into practice’ and so here is your big chance.
You will see from my letterhead that I am a Picture Peddler. You will also see that my studio is at Ludham Bridge, on the Broads. I sell mainly to holiday makers. I open my studio during Holy Week and I stay open 7 days a week until the end of Oct./ end of B.S.T. which ever is earlier. I then have an exhibition for one week at the Assembly House, sometime in Nov. Then I go home for the winter and don’t work/earn anymore until the following Easter. In fact, this has been the pattern for at least 10yrs.
Now it occurs to me that for at least 4 months every year I am unemployed. No- unemployed does not mean signing on and receiving benefit, it means not in gainful- earning- employment. So if I’m unemployed for 4 months, I suggest that I shouldn’t be paying Nat. Ins. For that period.
In about ’83 or ’84, when the wolves were at the door, I did in fact sign on at Cromer (we lived at Southrepps at the time) I told them the whole story and I did infact receive benefit for about 3wks, but I was so underwhelmed by the company I was obliged to keep, in the process, plus the fact that I didn’t want to claim benefit, that the following winter, rather than sign on again, I got a bank overdraft to see us through the winter, and that’s the way it’s been ever since.
The point of the last paragraph is that there is an official precedent for classifying my ‘winter rest period’ as un-employment.
I admit I may get the odd doorstep sale in winter, but a glance through my paying in book will show that they are a scarce as rocking horse shit, and if I paint a picture in July and sell it for £100 in December, when did I earn that £100? In July, surely; I could be in a coma in December, and that £100 would still come. But an odd December sale could be put against the balance of November- one week in the whole month, remember. My assessment, and I’m sure,
though not technically accurate to the day, is that I’m employed for 8 months, and unemployed for 4 months, and I suggest that my contribution programme should be amended accordingly.
I await your reply with considerable interest.
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