Lowborn

It is half a year since I wrote anything on this blog.  Is anyone still out there??!  Apologies if anyone (!) has been looking out for my musings.

I wasn't in a great place at the beginning of the year and then it all just felt too overwhelming.  I didn't seem to be able to write concisely or in a reasonable fashion.  Brexit, Trump, austerity, the climate, it all just felt too much.  So I concentrated more on trying to stay happy in my small place in the world.

However, I am just reading a book which has spurred me into blogging action finally.  It is called Lowborn and is by a brilliant writer called Kerry Hudson.  You may have seen it around - in the UK for sure - as it is hotly tipped for all sorts of non-fiction prizes.

Kerry Hudson was brought up be a mainly single mother who dragged her to towns in all parts of the UK.  She says she attended 9 primary schools, for example  She experienced a grinding, seemingly never-ending kind of poverty which has, I believe, rarely been written about in this country - for the reasons that she details from the beginning of the book.  Namely being in a class who are considered worthless and feckless.  People rarely drag themselves out and even more rarely discuss their pasts if they do. 

Reading her story is an incredibly sobering experience.  I would like to think of myself as a caring person.  Someone who tries to be aware of differences between people.  To be sensitive.  To give what I can when I can.  But reading this book makes you all too aware how almost impossible it is to offer much respite to those living such lives unless you could house them, give them bank accounts, give them jobs.  Simply the act of sending your own child to school well-fed and in a clean uniform gives daily pain to those who are hungry and whose uniforms are too small, too dirty.

And then how much difference would that make in the end because so much is ingrained in terms of lack of parenting, alcohol and substance abuse, casual violence and abuse.  The cycle goes on and is difficult to break.  Yet Kerry Hudson came through and others have too.  There are ways to turn this section of society around and as I have argued many times on this blog, the UK is not a poor country - despite what many in government would have us believe.  There is money, a great deal of money.  But there is no desire to make any real change.  Thousands and thousands of people are living below the poverty line.  Daily forced to choose between food or heat, bills or school shoes, etc etc ad infinitum.  Food banks report that they can barely cope with the onset of school holidays - the loss of free school meals for six weeks simply breaks the delicate finances of many families.  

This is the twenty first century, people.  Weren't we all supposed to be equal and disease-free and living in high tech, violence-free communities by now?  Some the most terrifying parts of Kerry's book are when she revisits the towns that she lived in during her childhood.  Most have not changed, many are worse off than thirty years ago.  No wonder so many of such places voted for the grotesque clowns who promised that the EU was the root of all their troubles and that leaving the EU would bring endless cash injections.  'Beware men bearing gifts'...

Read Lowborn, I urge you.  It will probably make you weep.  But I hope it spurs you to action too.  Protest.  Donate.  But most of all, start trying to think differently about why someone might be where they, looking like they do or behaving in a certain way.  

For The Many Not The Few

This weekend we have once again, in the UK, seen the best and the worst of humankind.  Another appalling attack but amazing stories from those who helped with the aftermath.  Along with a wonderful concert organised by Ariana Grande to benefit those hit by the previous attack, just twelve days before.  It is hard to find the words to describe how this rollercoaster of events makes us feel, isn't it?  

We want to know what happened during the attacks but we are scared and upset by the media coverage.  We enjoy the concert but feel dreadful about the reasons it has been put on and guilty that so many will not have seen it because they've lost their lives.  We know that those who carry out the attacks must feel angry and desperate in order to do such things but we cannot condone their methods.  We want to be tolerant of all religions and sections of society.  But it is difficult not to be fearful of what might happen next.

And on top of that, we have to vote in an election this week.  An election which has been called on the back of another kind of huge division within our country.  With an electoral system which does not make most of us feel that our votes count.

I believe we must still very definitely vote for the benefit of the many and not just the few, though.  We must not vote for a party which will destroy our health, social care and education systems just because they might appear to talk tougher about security in the wake of the recent tragic incidents.

These hideous attacks are carried out by the very few and they affect relatively few (although that is not to in any way lessen the awful suffering, I know).  The emergency services are already stretched by such incidents.  What will it be like if the NHS has been allow to crumble and we are still dealing with such events?  And how will we begin to talk to the coming generation of disenfranchised and frustrated young men and women who will carry out future attacks if they cannot receive decent education, social support?  To say nothing of the funding needed for community policing - not just firearms.

Now, more than ever, we need a cohesive and supportive society.  One which benefits as many of us as possible.  It is ordinary people who are bearing the brunt of the attacks, it is state-funded services which are dealing with the aftermath.

I sometimes include an element of family history in my blog posts.  This is not one of them.  But it is, once again, about the world our descendants will face.  And we must take that responsibility seriously.