Fallout

Two weeks.

I know.

But I've been a bit... taken aback at how difficult it has been to write all this.

And apparently two weeks is what it takes to face up to the last post.

Not that it's a big one, it's just really the point of the whole thing.

The point is, about a year ago I heard from an expert, a lawyer who knows how to deal with Labor department claims and he thought he could help me.

A year ago we once again got everything together, this time with some amazing expertise that managed to get things moving and, a year ago we talked tentatively about not hoping that something would come of it.

Because hoping is the last thing we wanted to do.

Still, it was hard not to hope when the claim sluggishly moved ahead, when it cleared the vital hurdle of the local authority (the hurdle that the lawyer felt was the really important one). It was hard not to hope, at least a little.

Only everything stalled again, and the national people insisted we resubmit all the paperwork that had already been handed in. And then they asked for a copy of the original file I had faxed in so many years ago - more and more hoops that had to be cleared, hoops the lawyers hadn't ever seen asked for before, and copies of letters in legalese that I couldn't begin to understand.

But that's not why I started this. It's not why I have put together a timeline and a press kit and everything else I can think of. It's not why, after all this time, I'm going to try to get some media attention on this thing.

It's because I found out that I'm not the only one - that this ridiculous run-around, this refusal by the government to fulfill their own obligations and follow their own laws, is happening with all sorts of other people - people who might not be lucky enough to have an expert legal team helping out; people who might not have even the small voice I have.

And I have to do it for them.