British Values Day

Not written for a few weeks as you will have gathered.  Was really not sure what to say after Trump's victory on top of the rest of the weirdness in 2016.  However, I have been shaken from my lethargy by the appearance on our school calendar of 'British Values Day'.

We have not been told what this encompasses but it rang major alarm bells for me in the wake of Brexit.  A friend who is a school governor elsewhere says it's about tolerance and decency and so on and therefore should be embedded more into the curriculum on a daily basis.  She was surprised to see a whole day labelled this way.  As was I.

I come, as my regular reader (not sure if there is plural here!) will know, from an Anglo Indian background on my father's side.  I have done a great deal of family research and general reading about these mixed race people.  Early soldiers and male settlers were actively encouraged to integrate into India by taking native wives.  But the offspring of these partnerships gradually were prevented from marrying white settlers themselves and ended marrying within their own community.  But they were (are) Christian, Europeanised in dress and manners and not well received by the Indian population.  Mainly because the British used the Anglo Indians to prop up their rule of the sub-continent.  Railways, Post Office, telegraph systems, lower civil service levels - the nuts and bolts of the administration.  But socially the Anglo Indians were discriminated against by the British for their colour.  So 'British Values' changed over the course of the occupation of India, to accommodate whatever best suited those trying to maintain the Empire.  These chameleon tendencies are a pattern of all governments - whatever their political flavour - as they seek to control populations and advance their own agendas.

Why, for example, we are now classing basic human characteristics such as tolerance and decency as 'British Values'?  Does our government believe that enforcing a nationalistic tone in schools will drown out the news which our children are bombarded with elsewhere?  Of ministers refusing to help refugees.  Of cuts to all the services which children see around them - from doctors surgeries and hospitals to libraries or museums.  Of open racism.  

'You are British, children.  That is the best thing to be.'  Repeat until you are convinced and ignore the evidence to the contrary.

And how does our media fit into 'British Values'?  The gulf between headlines continues to grow.  The spin taken on different issues varies madly.  If you took your British Values from the Daily Mail, where would you be?  Some of their current stuff is beginning to look horribly like the pre-First World War headlines as regards antagonising Putin and Russia.

I am all for teaching our children tolerance, respect etc.  But in the current climate I am definitely not convinced that adding a 'British' aspect is helpful.

Remember, Remember

I was at a Guy Fawkes' Night bonfire on Saturday.  Number of strands to blog from this but I can't think how to tie them all together.  So here are my random thoughts:

1)  I found myself thinking 'it's like Beirut round here!' when every garden in the area was letting off fireworks.  Then realised what a child of the 70s and 80s I am.  There was always war and terrorism in Lebanon when I was a child and that was a regular Guy Fawkes comment by the adults.  I suppose it would be Aleppo or Mosul now but it seemed terribly inappropriate to say, when we know about the suffering being caused.  And there we were, all covering our ears and laughing and telling everyone not to stand too close.  We have no idea about being under fire for real.

2)  It has since occurred to me that we were supposed to be celebrating victory over a terrorist plot.  The Catholic plotters of 5 November wanted to blow up King James I and parliament.  But if our press is to be believed (!), there is nothing to value in parliament these days  Apparently there is no need for parliament to even debate the Brexit agreement because 'the people have spoken'.  Except they haven't really.  Not completely and overwhelmingly.  More like just about sneaked it because a large number couldn't be bothered to vote at all.  Unlike in 1605, our monarch does not have power over parliament.  We all sing God Save the Queen but really it should be God Save Democracy and Free Speech.  And God Save our Independent Judiciary. 

3)  To this day, no-one really knows if Guy Fawkes was fully implicated in the 1605 plot.  But he was the man caught, tortured and put to death in an attempt to forestall any further Catholic plots.  We read about his torture and execution with gritted teeth.  'How could they?' 'How awful!'  Yet torture remains as much a part of life in many places as it ever was in Stuart England.  And now the threat of it is permeating our society in new ways.  The woman who funded the court case for a parliamentary Brexit debate has been threatened with gang rape and beheading.  Rapes and serial killings - particularly against women - are continual 'entertainment' on our television channels.  Documentaries, contemporary drama and historical drama are all getting ever more explicit.  The news is full of ISIS torture and murder.  Are we therefore desensitised to a point where threatening such violence is acceptable?  How did we allow this to happen in a civilised society?

4)  By the time I blog again, we will finally know who is the new President of the USA.  Many bonfires in the UK used Trump effigies as their guys this year for the comedic value.  Let us hope that we can still find comedic value if he actually wins.  I strongly suspect that there will be nothing to laugh about if he gets into the Oval Office.

And as a family history 'by the way', be careful what you Google for.  I typed in a weird disease name from an Indian death record yesterday.  I was faced with the most horrible list of porn sites I have every seen!  I did eventually work out what the certificate should have said but be warned!!!!

Victorian 2016

Recently I have been watching BBC2's The Victorian Slum on catch-up on iPlayer.  It follows a group of people who have volunteered to live in a mock up of a slum and each episode has followed a different decade.  1860s onwards.

I highly recommend the programmes.  A number of the participants have actually traced that they had relatives who lived in such areas but all of the people have been very affected by what they have experienced.  One man, for example, volunteered to give up his prosthetic leg and to manage with a peg leg for the entirety of the experiment.  

The programmes have introduced immigrants at the relevant points (Irish escaping the famines, Jews escaping the pogroms in Russia) and have also given social history asides via a presenter.  The sick, the old, the disabled stood no chance of making enough money to survive.  The debt cycle was never-ending.

And looking at the reactions on Twitter, I think many viewers have drawn similar conclusions to me.  

Namely, just how close are we to such appalling circumstances being repeated now?  By the 1870s, there were people actually campaigning to take away such poor relief as there was, despite cities over flowing with people in need.  There was a strong belief in the idea of the deserving poor versus the feckless, undeserving poor.  Racism was endemic.  And all of the available assistance was presided over by 'boards' of white middle class men who sat in judgement over those forced to go cap in hand in order to survive.  All sounding a bit close to 2016, isn't it?

Here in York, an initiative took off last year called Xmas Presence.  It started as someone's attempt to provide a really good Christmas Day for a small number of people who would otherwise be alone and  ended up as a fantastic event, with food, drink, gifts, entertainment and many local people involved - as helpers, providers and guests.  It will hopefully be even bigger this year.

This week, someone wrote to our local paper complaining at the use of 'Xmas' instead of 'Christmas' in the title of this initiative - 'what a pity the title is another step towards losing the real meaning of Christmas'.

Ian Donaghy, the amazing founder of Xmas Presence, wrote a wonderful reply about inclusivity, ending that he wondered what Jesus would think of the work being done.

We are still battling with the idea of 'deserving poor v undeserving'.  Our media endlessly promote these ideas.  Whether it be attempts to dehumanise the refugees stranded in Calais or the 'can't pay, we'll take it away' style of reality television (such programmes are far too close to the wealthy Victorians' sightseeing trips into the slums for my liking).  Our government is constantly attacking the welfare system and underfunding the NHS and is now making a concerted effort to break equal education.  When Brexit finally takes place,  many of the laws which currently protect our remaining rights will be up for grabs.

I think Jesus would be delighted at Xmas Presence, of course.  But he would, and we should all, be appalled at what is happening in our society.  And our Victorian ancestors would be amazed that so many fundamentals haven't changed.

Beat the Uncertainty

Every day at the moment seems to bring some new hit of bad news or prediction of future problems.  It feels almost overwhelming.  India Knight wrote recently in The Sunday Times that Strictly Come Dancing was providing her with the only light relief to be had at the moment.  All sequins and sparkle and fluff but she would take her respite from the news where she could get it.  And I quite agree.

Sometimes I long for a time travelling device.  I have always wanted to go to the past before now, should I get such a machine.  But now I just want the US election over, Brexit done in whatever manner.  The uncertainty is horrendous.  I want to visit, say, 2020 and just check what has happened.  So I can mentally prepare myself and my family for whatever is going to happen over the next four drawn out years.  To say nothing of knowing what has taken place in the Middle East, Russia, etc.

Normally I say to my children that they should not be wishing time away.  And I do still stand by that mantra.  We should live in the moment and enjoy life to the best of our ability.  Enjoy the small pleasures.  The trouble at the moment is, it is increasingly hard to enjoy the small things when such huge beyond-our-control decisions loom over us.  Booking a holiday?  Oh, well it might cost you twice as much as you thought by the time it comes round but hey, that's Brexit-land for you.  

And it is not just the small pleasures.  It is the everyday life decisions which are being affected.  Education, employment, future finances, care for the elderly, the health service.  Thanks to the selfish decisions made by arrogant politicians, our country has been thrown into indecision and chaos.  And it is worsening day by day.

I have often wondered what it was like for my family in India during the time preceding Partition.  The uncertainty, that is.  Partition led to one of the biggest mass movements of people ever seen and also to horrifying violence.  Its 'design' was mainly based on decisions by ill-informed, arrogant politicians and civil servants.  Sounding familiar?

Sick of the uncertainty as I am though, I do actually believe it is vital to remain engaged in what is going on, no matter how painful.  There is little political opposition of worth in the UK at present.  It is up to all of us therefore to keep up the pressure for transparency (and common sense!).  Much as it is tempting to sink in the mire of bad news, we should be making our voices heard as loudly as we possibly can rather than admitting defeat.

The Curious Case of Kim K

In a world where thousands of people are dying everyday in unnecessary wars, where the resources of the planet are far from equally shared and where we seem to have a major leadership crisis, apparently one rich (mainly naked) woman being held up and robbed at gunpoint is worthy of major news items on all media sources this morning.

Kim Kardashian.  That juggernaut of celebrity for celebrity's sake has been robbed - but not harmed - in her hotel room in Paris.  Twitter is divided between her fans saying 'she is a mother, wife and daughter' like anyone else and many from the US pointing out how many black people are being shot on a daily basis in the States.  Interestingly for a UK person, many US tweeters are also saying how they too have experience of gunpoint robberies and feel sorry for it to happen to Ms Kardashian/Mrs Kardashian-West (or whatever she calls herself).

How have we reached this point?  The woman has been in Paris for 'fashion week', although wearing less and less clothes every day.  Her every move is followed by an enormous press pack and millions on social media.  But I just don't understand what she 'does'.  She became famous for a 'reality' TV programme and a sex tape but has accumulated vast wealth.  But she makes no attempt to use her 'power' for good.  Other than a brief self-interested dabble in Armenian politics and history (funnily enough for this blog, her family tree is Armenian connected), she does not seem to comment on anything contentious. Let alone encourage her millions of followers to help society in any way.

In the days before social media, Princess Diana made a conscious decision that if she was to be followed by a massive press pack for the rest of her days, she would at least give them some issues to think about while they were trailing after her.  Via their coverage, she was able to raise world issues such as the landmines crisis by barely uttering a word.  Of course, the irony is that she died trying to escape the press pack.  In Paris.

But that sad fact aside, I think we should now hope that this experience will cause Kim Kardashian to finally say something of use to the world.  She could now properly make a statement about the effects of gun crime.  Apparently she is traumatised - as you would be - by the experience.  Her cameras (and where were they at the time...?) should record the effects of the trauma.  And then she should begin to strongly campaign for gun controls in the US and put her influence to good use for once.  Rather than to sell stuff or show off her quite bizarre backside.

And if she wants to perform a service to the world rather than just the US, she should link her gun control campaign to a plea for people not to vote for Donald Trump.  

Imagine.  Kim Kardashian saves the world.  Now that would be a headline.

The Big Read

Not managed a proper post this week.  Not that there isn't plenty to talk about.  There is just not plenty of time in the day!  However, I did just want to recommend something.  In York this autumn, we have something called The Big Read.  The library people have organised these before - getting lots of free copies of a book and doing events based around its themes.

 

However, next week, the 2016 Big Read opens and they have chosen Renegeration by Pat Barker.  It is the first of a trilogy and is about the First World War.  It is not a new book but it is a wonderful book.  If you are a York reader of this blog, copies of the book are available from our libraries from 5 October.  The many events are already booking though - including a couple of visits from Pat Barker herself.

 

And if you are not in York, I highly recommend, in these days of 'the big society' having to run its own libraries, such an event.  Every museum and many organisations in the city are contributing and it promises to be a fantastic event.

 

With a thread true to the heart of this blog, they are also taking the opportunity to look at modern links to the themes of Regeneration, such as mental well-being.

 

http://www.exploreyork.org.uk/bigcityread/

The One with the Cultural Legacies

My children have discovered Friends.  Showing every evening on our holiday, it was great to revisit much loved episodes.  Apart from the occasional fashion issue or the distinct lack of technology to assist (or not) the characters' relationships, I think the shows' content has really stood the test of time.  They just make me laugh every time.  And the kids loved it.

This sharing of my loves has not always worked with the children.  Some things just don't work for succeeding generations.  The Bagpuss (above!) and Clangers DVDs gathering dust on my shelf are testament to this.  Books have not gone how I would have liked either.  Try as I might, I cannot pass on my love of 'classics' like Little Women, Treasure Island etc.  My son reads futuristic adventures like The Hunger Games.  My daughter loves Jacqueline Wilson at the moment.  They did both read some Enid Blyton in the past but not avidly.  Harry Potter has been actually the one series we definitely have in common.  Except of course I first read the books as an adult. 

So how are 'classics' decided?  How many generations have to adopt and love something before it is a 'classic'?  These days we refer to 'classic comedy', for example.  But mostly this means stuff from the Sixties and Seventies.  Is it measured by number of re-runs, number of awards?  Or by generational fanbase?  The Morecombe and Wise Show could be shown to every preceding and following generation and they would all 'get it'.  Well, once you had explained television to the preceding ones obviously.  Is it therefore the themes which constitute a classic?  A love story, a slapstick comedy, a war epic.  All understandable for hundreds of years, no matter what the fashions.

What about all the other stuff?  The books and shows which haven't really stood as classics but in their time were loved and admired.  Hundreds of books were written in the nineteenth century but sometimes you could be forgiven for thinking there were only a relatively few authors around.  Thousands of plays have been written.  Many rarely get a second outing.  Some forms of entertainment enjoyed by our ancestors have vanished forever.  Unless we have access to diaries or letters (sadly unlikely in most cases), we cannot have a rounded idea of what made our ancestors tick.  People should be required to leave recommended - and honest - reading/listening/viewing lists with their wills, maybe.  (In Friends, Rachel claims her favourite film is Dangerous Liaisons.  Her actual favourite is Weekend at Bernie's.  That kind of honesty...!)

On a related note, in the last week there has been a furore about changes to the Great British Bake Off.  Now, I do love the show but I don't believe it will be a classic.  We will not be watching its repeats in ten years time.  I think the more important things to take from the GBBO fuss are the further whittling away of the BBC's resources and the very creditable refusal of presenters Mel and Sue to change channels with the show.  It is a pity, though, that we can't better use the energy expended on outrage over television programmes, Z-list celebrities or random YouTube videos.

Unequal Opportunities

This week, whilst considering the reignited grammar school debate, I recalled my O Level project about education in my home town, Nuneaton - from 1870s church schools to the 1902 Education Act, standardising the various school boards.  The 1944 Act, reforming secondary education and introducing the 'tri-partite system' so much back in discussion now - grammar, secondary modern and technical schools.  And finally, in 1965 the Labour government instructing local authorities to begin converting from the tri-partite to comprehensives.  A policy decision inherited by, of all people, Margaret Thatcher as Education Secretary in the early 1970s.  She opposed comprehensives but it was too late to change most authorities' plans.

The picture above shows King Edward VI College (as it is now called) in Nuneaton.  It began as one of many colleges established by Edward VI and survived as a fee paying boys' school right up until the 1944 Act.  It had been called King Edward Sixth Grammar School since the 1880s but from 1944, it was selection rather than fees which decided its entrants.  Then, in 1974, as part of the process which so outraged Thatcher, King Edward VI Grammar School closed.  It re-opened as a co-ed sixth form college.  I graced its doors in 1987 as a sixth former  but it was still referred to as 'KEGS' by everyone in the town - ie the grammar school.  A little piece of history surviving endless change.

I do not agree with grammar schools.  I do not think any child should have their life choices affected so definitively at age eleven. 

My own children are each very different in outlook.  I am sure they will both achieve excellent results in the end but I think it will take the youngest longer to knuckle down.  She is is Year 6 now though.  SATs year.  Or Eleven Plus year.  And I do not think she would be a candidate for a grammar place as things stand at the moment, which would mean a very different path for her life, for her self esteem if her brother had reached the grammar, and so on, ad infinitum.

My own comprehensive experience was, it has to be said, greatly enhanced by streaming.  But there was opportunity for all and fluidity based on ability.  Total division at eleven does not allow for differences of development or personality.  A piece I read this morning said that in the previous post-1944 system, grammar places accounted for 15-25% of secondary places, depending on location.  If competition was considered to be fierce for places back in the 1950s, can you imagine what it would be like now?  The tutors, the pressure, the backbiting over who got in, the social exclusion issues. To say nothing of the social media backlash amongst children and their parents!  It is bad enough now with catchment issues in so many areas.

 

And what of the thousands of children without parental backing?  Or with backing but no resources?  My maternal grandfather was the first in his family to go to university.  An immense achievement in the 1930s and very unusual for a son of a railwayman.  It is a credit to the current system that his story would not be so unusual today.

 

Our schools are not perfect.  What institution is?  But we have made great strides, as the history of Nuneaton and KEGS shows.  From education for fee-paying males only to education for all.  Just thinking about the millions which will be wasted on these plans through public enquiries, civil service overtime and council battles makes me angry, let alone the actual proposals.  And as the incredibly brief one-town rundown above shows, the changes, if passed, will take years to implement.  We do not need grammar schools.  We need resources for our existing schools.  Unfortunately we are supposed to be planning how to compete in a 'post-Brexit world', aren't we?

 

Coatigans and Assumptions

Back on track after holiday.  At last.  Apologies for lack of posts for last two Mondays - between jet lag and then camping, neither Monday was very productive!

Anyway, yesterday I read an article in the Sunday Times Style Magazine.  It was called 'Are You Coatigan Woman?' and discussed the apparent 'rise' of the 'coatigan'.  A coat shaped/style of cardigan.  (Fairly self explanatory really.)

However, the journalist, Laura Craik, used the article mainly to poke fun at the kind of person who might wear such a garment.  It culminated in a list entitled 'You are coatigan woman if...'.  Now, one tries not to take such articles too seriously.  Even if they do feel a little close to home - the list included '...if you can't wait for Poldark tonight'.  Definitely me yesterday.  Hence excuse for gratuitous picture above.)

But the tone of the piece did anger me.  Why should any ordinary person be judged by a fashion journalist?  Fashion magazines are there to show us mortals the way, yes.  But was it necessary to make such statements as 'those who worship at the coatigan's drab beige feet are united less by age or demographic than by outlook' followed by another unworthy list?

We are all guilty of assumptions.  We make daily judgements on how people look, what they might be thinking, how they behave.  The Brexit result was the hideously spectacular result of many completely wrong assumptions about people's thoughts and behaviour.

And everyday that we blithely watch - with increasingly thick skins - the continuing chaos of the refugee crisis, we are making assumptions about the people who are trying to get to Europe.  We are told - or assume - many are criminals or terrorists.  Or 'economic migrants' after our jobs and our lifestyles and leaving perfectly reasonable lives behind.  We begin to believe they risk their children's lives on the Mediterranean because they are irresponsible - when actually they're at their wits' end.

When we look at our own family histories, assumptions are not a new phenomenon.  They are unfortunately a human trait.  And in writing your family history, you are continually making assumptions about people's actions in order to make some sense of the scant information you can glean from official records.  My ancestor who joined the army in 1804 and went to India gave his occupation as 'staymaker'.  I could assume he was a patriot who decided to fight.  More likely, he was in trouble with the law or destitute or even conned into signing up by a sergeant who got him drunk.

My descendants might look at photos of me and assume I was a badly dressed would-be writer who clearly ate quite a lot of cake.  Except for winter 2016/17 photos though!  Because I will be Coatigan Woman.  Yes, after reading the article, I held my head high and proudly purchased said item that very afternoon (that's how cross I was).  From Warehouse - proclaimed by the very same magazine having been 'transformed' this season.  I quote their assumption: 'you'll love this'.

In my absence...

I am currently away and will not be posting as normal this week.  Service resumes next week, hopefully!  In the meantime, may I recommend a book...

Just finished The Muse by Jessie Burton.  The author of The Miniaturist has produced an outstanding second novel.  The characters are brilliantly observed and the period settings are meticulous.  I absolutely loved it and am considering abandoning the rest of my holiday reading list in order to re-read it!

Talk to you soon....

Can Donald Trump Surf?

So I am off to California.  Apart from a brief stop in San Francisco nearly twenty years ago, I have never been there.  As a movie fan, I am beyond excited about Los Angeles and Hollywood.  And I am going to attempt to learn to surf.  (Or maybe paddleboard - a little more sedate.)

However, in this American election year, I am also curious about what we will find.  We are staying in San Diego too, near the Mexican border.  I intend to take my family to see the current arrangements - high metal border gates and so on.  I think it is important for us to see the physical manifestation of the way the world is going.  If Trump has his way, it will be a brick edifice of course.  But I think the border will be scary enough as it is.  And we are people who are unaffected by it - at present.

I say 'at present' because I believe if Trump were to succeed to in his plans, there are implications for the whole world.  The man is campaigning on a wave of hatred that could indeed propel him to the White House.  But if he makes it to the Oval Office, can he then ride the riptide which he will have unleashed?  Or will it be a closeout?

In the UK, reported hate crimes rose in the wake of the Brexit vote.  The very worst of our society thought they suddenly had the right to treat others with contempt.

Now let's just pause and think about what might happen in the US in the wake of a Trump victory, where everyone has the right to carry guns.  Guns so prevalent, incidentally, that a number of people are killed every year in the US by toddlers who have picked up loaded guns found in their homes.  Terrifying, isn't it? 

A politician aiming for national office in the US has to find factors which appeal to a huge variance in people, places and concerns.  Unifying factors which have historically been all too often based on fears.   The US is not the only place where this happens by any means.  But its open society and importance to the world in general make the knock-on effects of its domestic politics very troubling.

So I am 'looking forward' - for want of a better phrase - to hearing 'the word on the street'.  To seeing some of the bonkers TV election ads.  To trying to gauge, just a little, what people think might happen.  Although I don't think a Brit is the best person to ask for political predictions at the moment.  Let alone surfing advice*.

*although I have been reading the slang.  Can you tell??!

More World History, Please

For the last couple of weeks I have been listening to The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan on Audible.  It is a fascinating 'reassessment of world history' as the blurb says.

 

Frankopan starts with the idea that centuries ago, maps of the  known world centred on places like Constantinople and even further East.  I am now about half way through and it has been so amazing to hear about places like Kabul, Baghdad and Palmyra in such a different context to what we are used to in our century.  Such rich histories and civilisations.  I knew, of course, these places had incredible stories from way back but it is hard to imagine when all you see and hear most days in relation to them is destruction.  My own grandfather used to work in places like Baghdad and Beirut and that was only in the twentieth century but it seems unimaginable when you see how things are today.  And I was never given the opportunity to study them before.

 

There are many aspects of The Silk Roads which I could discuss in relation to the themes of this blog.  For example, it has given me some idea of the movement of peoples in Asia and shown me why my DNA test has traces of Afghanistan and Tibet in its 22% Asian.

 

It also ties in very much with modern day politics.  I have written quite a few times about how we are none of us pure 'Anglo' and how immigration and people movements are not a modern phenomenon nor should they be feared.  The main events our politicians reference are really very recent in comparison to the history of the world.  The millennial-old patterns shown in The Silk Roads are simply being continued today.  It is tactics and technology that have changed.

 

And as for Britain, the battle since the Second World War to maintain our 'place in the world', our space at the 'top table' as our press refer to it, seems a minor blip when you consider that the first proper maps of the world barely acknowledged our existence.  And Seventy years of European co-operation is nothing when seen alongside Frankopan's assessment of historical trends.

 

I am really looking forward to hearing the second half of the book and I really recommend you give it a try if you would like to try to better understand the times through which we are living at the moment.  It is a very accessible account of a period and of places which I feel are very much neglected in our education system.  Our children need more understanding of the history of the world as a whole, rather than 'Tudors', 'Victorians', etc. if peace is every to come again.

No News Can Be Good News

Last Friday afternoon, I was driving along glorious country lanes.  It was amazing weather, we were on the way to a favourite campsite and we were singing along to All Request Friday on Radio 2.  But just as I was looking out for the last turning, my phone pinged and the news about a gunman in Munich flashed up.  Instantly, the mood in the car felt different.  I mean, the kids didn't know and I carried on.  But it felt like world events had once again taken a bit of the pleasure out of everyday life.  You are imagining the scenes, thinking how those people must feel.

I am all for modern technologies.  I can see the endless reasons why instant news/contact/banking etc are advantages our ancestors did not have but still...  Is it really good for us to live with 'news' infringing at every opportunity?

We lurch from awful news story to awful news story on these twenty four hour channels and on the endless news websites.  I watch and read these as much as anyone.  But I just wonder if our ancestors were happier when they didn't know what was going on?  The worldwide wars, the Crusades, the natural disasters, the plagues all made little ripple in everyday people's lives until ages after events.  Unless they were unlucky enough to live in those areas.

Our twenty first century expectation, on the other hand, is to know what is happening everywhere, all the time.  As another less serious example, going on holiday to a new hotel or cottage used to be mostly guesswork.  You were lucky to even see a couple of pictures before you got there - and those would be taken from the most advantageous angle.  Now, we expect to have taken a video tour, read fifty reviews on Trip Advisor and looked at the area on Google Earth before we even set off.

 

There are few such happy places as a British campsite on a fine summer night.  A constant burble of chat, jokes and laughter interspersed with cheers from endless cricket and rounders matches.  And all the better - with no offence to anyone affected by this weekends' news stories - for the lack of 4G or television or even a newspaper shop.  Just for a little while, it is still possible to step off the news treadmill.

Opinions for the Future

 

Once again, there are any number of unbelievable events which I could write about from the last week.  It is impossible to do justice to the suffering of those caught up in the latest attacks/coups.  To say nothing of the continuing wars and refugee crises.  Maybe the person who posted this week that David Bowie had been the glue that held the Universe together was actually right... 

 

Before the horror of Nice though, the entire world seemed to shout a collective 'What the f...??!!!' at the announcement of Boris Johnson as the new UK Foreign Secretary.  Clearly Prime Minister May now has Johnson, the Leave figurehead, firmly in her debt but it does seem incredibly risky to be sending such a buffoon (polite description) on diplomatic errands.  We will have to pin our hopes on the ever present Civil Service to keep him under control, a la Yes Minister.

 

But future descendants of Boris will at least have access to a mass of information and speculation about the motivations on all sides.  Chapter and verse for his personal and political histories.  Possibly his own diaries.  However badly he performs.

 

This is the 'privilege' of fame or notoriety.  Descendants of the very famous or aristocratic never need to grub about in county records offices or trawl through online newspapers.  Their family history is freely available.  (Distant relations of Big Brother contestants or other minor celebrities will have a job separating the endless 'saucy' selfies from the true facts but hey, it'll add a new dimension to family history.)

 

I have argued many times on this blog that our historical records lack ordinary voices.  In 1937, a project called Mass Observation was started in Bolton.  It began as an artists' curiosity project but once the Second World War began, it was an important exercise in public opinion and requirements.  Its people observed, eavesdropped on and photographed ordinary lives.  Plus members of the public kept daily diaries.  To quote David Dimbleby's BBC series Seven Ages Of Britain, governments began to realise that they 'could not just tell people what to do, they actually had to listen to what they were saying.'

 

For something like Brexit, our descendants should not be left with simply academic or journalistic opinions.  Or with the thoughts of the privileged.  Somebody or some organisation needs to be recording ordinary opinions.  Social media is all very well as a record but Mass Observation, for example, was very fond of gleaning information in the pubs or on the streets.  Social media generally excluding the views of the elderly being a good example of the need for this.

 

To quote Dimbleby again, 'Bolton stood as an example of the great Northern cities which supplied much of the nation's wealth but which had a long history of being ignored by the South.'  Sounds terribly familiar in the context of what we already know about the split of the Brexit vote, doesn't it?  Someone should have been 'mass observing' before David Cameron decided to assume he could win a referendum.

David for PM

Late posting today.  Partly doing school holiday stuff and partly because everything I thought of writing seemed to pale compared to the increasingly mad UK political news.

As if leaving the EU wasn't enough, our 'politicians' seem to have lost the will to live.  And apparently in two days time, the one who started it all - David Cameron - will retire to his estates having graciously handed over to (gratefully chucked it to) the second ever female prime minister, Theresa May (apologies if by the time you read this, the news has changed again and Kermit the Frog or someone equally well qualified is taking over).

This weekend, the debacle over Andrea 'Loathsome' Leadsom did at least spark some interesting teen 'show and tell' events in our family.  We were staying with friends and the adults were busy exclaiming over the hideous parenting-related claims which had burst forth from the woman.  And our nearly teen was earwigging.  The journey home therefore severely tested my powers as a politics graduate.  Rather large questions such as 'what is a feminist', 'what do Left and Right mean in politics' and 'why there has only ever been one female prime minister before now', fired from the backseat for most of the way.

I noted on Facebook this week that I was horrified to find myself wishing for a Theresa May victory and even more disturbed by the failure of the Left to produce any female leaders.  I spent my own teen years protesting against Thatcher - for the miners, against the Poll Tax, in favour of CND, etc.  I can only hope Theresa May manages to conduct herself and the government in a less adversarial way.  Mind you, at least Thatcher had a well-honed plan - whether you agreed with it or not.  No-one at the moment seems to have a clue.  (Must have Brexit-itis - I have just expressed a positive sentiment about the Milk Snatcher.)

Previously I have posted about where our political beliefs come from.  I had one Left and one Right parent growing up.  It never occurred to me to vote Tory though.  My innate tendencies were firmly Left wing.  I am now very curious to see where my children end up on the political scale.  They too have one Left and one Right parent but their father is more economically Right than in terms of equal rights etc.  But how will their views be affected by what we are living through right now?  By the time they are - hopefully - coming out of university, we will have Brexited.  What will they be concerned about?  Britain's place in the world?  Or basics necessities like finding a job in a shrivelled economy?  Or all the rights which they know their ancestors enjoyed and which no longer exist?

Will May be the saviour of the country or the bogeywoman of their teen years?  Who will grasp Brexit and make the best of it?  Theresa May is the best of a very sorry bunch - and I sadly include Labour in that.

Mind you, Youngest might have an idea.  She asked me this afternoon whether David Beckham would now have to move out of Downing Street...  Maybe we should be moving him in... his management would never have let things come to this.  A worldwide PR and financial disaster.

Alternate Reality

 

And so another week into Brexit World and still there is no semblance of a plan by our politicians.  I can't write anymore than that or the ranting will start again.  Instead, some thoughts on the future. 

 

When I was an A level student, I wanted to join the European Civil Service.  I did French 'A' Level and had a university place for European Studies.  Unfortunately, despite doing all five French 'A' Level papers, the exam board claimed I was absent.  My name was mixed up with someone who had been absent and there was no sign of my papers or marks.  I lost my university place.  Me being me, I refused to retake because I felt I should not have to and thus language degrees were out.  Instead, I went to Sheffield a year late.  To do History, Philosophy and Politics. 

 

My life now is totally shaped by that moment of not receiving my French result.  I am married to the man I met at Sheffield for a start.  As for my 'career', well I never really found any professional path after the idea of the civil service.  I went from job to job, moving on according to merit and experience and changing sector every few years.  Until I ended up as a stay-at-home parent, which in general I have loved.

 

Whilst at Sheffield, we were very keen on Red Dwarf, a comedy set in space in the future.  Many episodes revolve around ideas of parallel universes, alternate realities, unexpected time travel.  For example, a parallel universe where the male leads' counterparts turned out to be female.  All except the creature who had evolved from the starship's cat.  His opposite, to his disgust, was a dog.

 

This week, I have been reading On Writing by Stephen King.  He says his story starting points are most often from a 'what-if question'.  I also read a very poignant article about Brexit - I'm afraid I can't recall the source - talking of the 'lost marriages, lost friendships' etc of the future thanks to withdrawal from Europe.

 

It seems to me that Brexit is like a massive time bend.  We all have our own personal turning points, our 'what-ifs' throughout our lives.  But Brexit is a huge shared experience of that.  For the thousands who voted Leave without really understanding what the EU does for their lives (as discussed in my post last week), there isn't the sense of fear and loss which the Remain voters are feeling so immediately.  Leavers think they have won.  But their lives will turn.  Funding withdrawn from thousands of projects, businesses closing, cheap travel opportunities gone, employment rights whittled away.  And they will have to find a new bogeyman to blame because it won't be the EU.

 

It will take at least ten years after the Brexit for pro-Europe people to feel like they have control of their own destinies again.  At least that long for an EU-less world to feel real and not like a weird parallel universe.  Maybe one day, humans will access an alternate reality where Brexit was rejected and future generations of Brits will meet their counterparts, all still living as part of the EU.  Let's just hope the reality chosen by Leave voters will measure up when our time traveller descendants are comparing notes. 

The Understanding Divide

I have tried really hard to thing of how to write a post this morning.  The obvious topic for a UK blogger is, of course, the vote for the UK to leave the EU.  However, since Friday morning, all anyone has talked about, all anyone has reported, has been the consequences of this vote and I am not sure I can add anything to such a massive debate.  I have felt heartsick since four in the morning on Friday.

 

So, inspired by an Irish friend who wrote very eloquently on Facebook about how she, as a UK resident of twenty years, feels after the vote, I decided to try to give some more personal perspectives rather than historical ones.

 

On Saturday night, I held a party in aid of the Macmillan cancer charity.  Night of Lights, a nationwide effort.  It had been a while in the planning and it brought together a group of people whom I have known for over ten years.  They include a judge, research scientists, a public art consultant, a planning officer, housewives, an employee of a multinational manufacturer, a railway engineer, a financial services director, civil servants.  You get the idea.  A group of well educated people.  All with children.  All voted Remain.  Even those who usually disagree politically did agree on this one issue.

 

I did tell them I would be charging for every mention of the referendum, on behalf of the charity pot.  But as you can imagine, especially after alcohol, that was impossible.  The most fascinating - and disturbing thing - though was the stories from everyone of how this decision is likely to affect their professions and their lives.  Legislative changes and rights now at risk.  Research projects wholly funded by the EU - in the environment, health, etc.  Changes to anti-flood funding and insurance rights.  The multinational employee, about to leave on an international job placement, saying their family may just not return to the UK.  Transport funding.  Pension concerns.  Work in Scotland maybe needing a passport in the future.  Waiting on a mortgage application.

 

Much has been said about the North/South and young/old vote divides, amongst other statistics.  Part of me wanted to write today about an education divide.  Then you remember that most of the Leave campaign's most prominent people were public school-educated!  But there is a huge divide in understanding.  If all you read is the Daily Mail or The Sun, for example, and if those papers are all your peer group quotes or writes about on Facebook or wherever, how could you possibly understand what you were voting for?  You thought you were voting to stop immigration and to get more money for the NHS.  You have been consistently told that all your woes are caused by unelected faceless people in Europe.

 

Setting aside, but not by any means ignoring, the fact that so many people have revealed themselves to be racist, both sides of the campaign must take responsibility for such a nasty negative approach.  No-one explained to the mass of voters about what the EU actually does for them.  No-one tried to reach the sink estates and say 'we know it is bad for you but please understand that the EU is not the cause of your problems.  Look at all the things it funds and protects.'

 

As for educated people who believe they made a considered decision to vote Leave, I have fought for democracy and transparency all my life.  I respect your right to your opinion.  But I do strongly believe that you are in a minority and that without the votes of desperate, usually disenfranchised people, you would not have won.  I hope you can live with yourselves when you see your children and grandchildren taking the consequences of your actions on 23 June 2016.

The Space Future

 

 

 

In the face of the almost overwhelmingly hideous news from the last week - hate crimes, murders,  football violence, the list goes on - it seems to me that one amazing piece of news has been overlooked.  Well, not overlooked.  Just hasn't received the coverage it deserved.  The return of Tim Peake to Earth after six months on the International Space Station.  It was reported, of course.  But some of the articles were pretty derogatory.  Along the lines of 'what has he been doing up there anyway because he seems always to have been on TV award shows' and so on.

 

What these type of comments fail to recognise is the need for visibility for space exploration.  Think of the hours and hours of media coverage for fake space travel - Star Wars, Star Trek, etc etc.  But kids need to be inspired by the real thing.  If future generations are ever going to get beyond our conflict-ridden planet, they need to believe it might be possible and to aspire to 'make it so' (one for the Trekkies there).

 

Tim Peake and his team have brilliantly used social media and popular TV and radio programmes to extend awareness of the mission.  The aerial photographs on Facebook and Instagram every day have been beyond beautiful (see the UK above).  I am actually going to miss them.  But I don't think they were really aimed at people like me.  I hope they were aimed at younger people, specifically children.  Because if we are going to make progress, children need to believe it is possible.  They need to want nothing more than to be astronauts, like Tim Peake.  He got the job out of 10,000 applicants.  That alone is a fact worth repeating to children, regardless of the profession they want to enter.  It is worth aiming high.  Even into space.

 

To comedians it may seem funny that Tim Peake has popped up on all sorts of programmes.  To columnists, it might seem like a giant waste of time and money.  But to children in their classrooms, able to talk to someone in space?  Not so much.  It has been brilliant.  And they are the ones who will push our families' stories forward.

 

In these times of terrible hatred and awful crimes, Tim Peake has, with a bit of luck, caused a good proportion of the children who have followed his journey to want to push Earth's boundaries themselves.  While we adults are arguing over Earthbound, self imposed borders, hopefully the next generation are thinking about 'boldly going where no one has gone before' (sorry, sorry, another Trek reference but I couldn't resist it... probably shows my age too...)

Live Long and Prosper - wherever you are

Today I did consider the Orlando mass shooting as a blog subject but whichever way I attempted to approach this awful event, I felt unqualified to write about it.  Suffice to say, it was, and is, horrible seeing the details unfold and I send condolences to all.

 

Instead then, this weekend I finished reading The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell.  I am very late to this book - it won the Costa prize in 2010 - but since Maggie O'Farrell's seventh novel, This Must Be The Place, has just been released to very good reviews, I thought I should read some of her earlier work, in an attempt to look at her progression as a novelist (now doesn't that sounds grown up?!) when I read the new book.

 

I was not prepared for the effect The Hand That First Held Mine had on me.  I gather from a recent profile in Writing magazine that Ms O'Farrell does have young children but her writing about the immediate aftermath of bringing a baby home touched me very deeply.  One of the main characters has had an emergency caesarean section and is completely disorientated once at home alone with the baby.  I found it very very poignant.  In fact, as I was reading some passages, I felt as if I was once again standing in the dark hallway of the house to which we brought our eldest home.  So sleepless I was basically hallucinating.  No idea what I was doing but very aware of having to keep another human being alive (my only previous 'live responsibility' having been a hamster).  It was like the author had delved into my head and taken my deepest, darkest thoughts.  I remember, for example, being obsessed with hearing one of the emergency surgeons referring to it being the end of their shift while they were sewing me up.  I became convinced I had been 'deprived' of a natural birth because they were in a hurry.  Not because they were saving my child's life obviously.

 

What kept me going through those confusing months was friends, a plethora of 'what to do with babies' books and the then fledgling internet resources like Mumsnet.  I am still close to some of the friends I made as I dragged my hugely pregnant and then just completely knackered self around our new home city.  Looking back, Eldest was actually not that difficult a baby either...

 

And how on earth did women manage before NCT groups, playgroups, self-help books, Mumsnet, etc.  As children, my brother and I used to laugh at my mother's reliance on her Dr Spock for diagnosing illnesses.  Now I can see that there was very little else available.  She did not live round the corner from either of our grandmothers and frankly, I am not sure what use they would have been anyway.  We had a neighbour who actually saved my brother' life when he had convulsions.  She also had older children so had been there, done that.  But it was not exactly a meeting of minds for my mother, to say the least.

 

Parenting is the hardest job I have ever, without question, done.  I have worked with politicians, TV people, investment bankers, all sorts.  But I am into my thirteenth year of parenting now and although it changes constantly, it does not get easier.  Yes, I am now one of those who looks at a new baby and hands it back saying 'just you wait, this is the easy part'.

 

However, in countries like the UK, when we look back over our family history, we can see, mostly, the progressions in ante- and post-natal health.  In contraception.  In life expectancy.  There are still far too many countries in the world, though, where parenting of the type I have attempted to describe is a complete luxury.  Daily survival, hand-to-mouth, is the priority in these places.  If your child is lucky enough to survive to its teens, you will have been expecting them to have been paying their own way for a long time.

 

Of course, poverty, neglect etc can be found everywhere in the world.  But as I read The Hand That First Held Mine and was transported back to my own personal battles - which still continue as far as depression is concerned - I wondered how so many parents but women especially manage to keep mind and body together in physical circumstances far beyond our imagining.  From war zones and refugees to drug addictions and slavery to 'just' lack of what we consider basic resources.  They are all amazing.  And they deserve our help.

 

[If you would like to help with such issues, my suggested charity would be http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what-we-do/issues-we-work-on but there are many others if you google.]

Decades

Very little, other than loss, focuses the mind on the passing of time like a birthday.  Especially your child's birthday.  Youngest was ten this week  and ten years seem to have flashed by like the click of my fingers.  I have written previously about how easy it is to gloss over decades when doing family history.  Because you only have snapshot resources for most ancestors.

However, the passing of a decade is immense, if the following are anything to go by.  For example...

2006 was the year of:

• Daniel Craig's first Bond film, Casino Royale (a rare post baby outing for this);
• Take That's return (I was over seven months pregnant at their first gig and my friend announced I was on my own if I had an emergency - she would not be leaving the venue...);
• Top Gear's Clarkson/Hammond/May line-up on its eighth series.  But it was the year that Richard Hammond nearly died in a crash, pushing up viewing figures (don't try this at home, Chris Evans/Matt LeBlanc);
• Donald Trump's mortgage company.  He said it was a great time to do so as the housing market looked firm for some time to come.  The markets crashed in 2008 along with Trump's company (no comment or I will be here for a while);
• Victoria Beckham at the Germany World Cup with the other WAGs, wearing very small shorts and t-shirts.  She now makes a fortune from persuading us all into massive culottes and polo neck tops;
• Defector Alexander Litvinenko dying of polonium poisoning in London, apparently at the hands of the Russians.  The public enquiry only concluded in 2016.  Really?  Ten years?
• Tony Blair and George W.Bush still in situ.  Not long to go though.  Blair went in June 2007 and Bush at the end of 2008;
• The last regular Top of the Pops.  Meaning I would never fulfil my childhood ambition of dancing in its studio.

(I looked at books for 2006 but it was all a bit of a mystery.  I was only capable of picking up gossip magazines for most of it, clearly.  And television passed me by too, although I have since caught up on Life On Mars and The IT Crowd amongst other 2006 hits!)

Some things we did not have in 2006:

• iPhones (launched January 2007)
• ISIS (proclaimed 2014)
• iPlayer, TV streaming in general
• Wi-Fi, although it seems to have existed - the article I read was very technical!
• The Kardashians - at least thankfully not really famous then
• Arab Spring - began 2011
• Twitter - introduced 2006
• sleep - well, that was just me

Of course, these have and have not lists are endless.  The people lost, the babies born.  The technology used, the stuff not yet invented.  But I think these examples do show how we take so much for granted very quickly.  In the same way that you can't imagine how you will fit a child into your life.  Or how you will fit a second child in once you can just about cope with the first.  We should all take the time to stop and look around us once in a while.  In another ten years, I will be an empty nester with, fingers crossed, two kids rampaging (quite literally for Youngest, we fear) around universities somewhere.  I really hope the coming decade will slow down a bit.