Maybe it is because I am not experiencing many new things at the moment, with my life very constrained by a severe shortage of money and working away from home 5 days out of 7 that my thoughts turn nostalgically to better times. This is a nostalgia posting looking back 20 years to when I lived in Norwich which I did for a year. In my view Norwich is a very much overlooked city, perhaps because it is stuck on the eastern end of Britain and the road and rail services to it have long been poor. Maybe that is a good thing as it spares the city the influx of literally millions of tourists that Oxford experiences. I know tourists are important for the local economy, but I guess selfishly none of us wants to struggle to get along the pavement or have to queue for an hour to get into a restaurant. For me, Norwich was just the right size, big enough to have the facilities I wanted but not so large that it took a 45-minute ride on a bus or train to visit friends who lived in the same city, for me a bicycle was more than sufficient to get me around to see people.
Norwich was a place where I had some of the best socialising of my life. Maybe that was in part down to my age, I was there between the ages of 23-24 and was fortunate to meet up again with a woman, a teacher, I had known while living in West Germany. Ironically another woman from the group of Britons I had been with in Köln was just leaving Norwich when I arrived and I was able to borrow her room as a base for looking for accommodation. Anyway, the teacher connected me into another group of socially active friends and to parties hosted in her house, which simply added to the social activity I am going to outline here. In addition, we had a kind of close relationship in which we rather behaved like a couple, but only for the domestic things like going to buy crockery and having tea in cafes and watching foreign language movies, that never manifested into a romance partly because I was over-awed by her self-confidence and the fact that she was on the pill. Looking back it seems ridiculous to feel that way at 23. Given the knock-backs that I had from other women and I do remember a beautiful Dutch woman called Saskia that everyone was attracted to and another hippie whose name I forget but with whom I would have had a relationship if money and the chance of work had not taken me away from Norwich.
This is turning into a wide-ranging nostalgia festival. I need to focus back a bit more tightly as I have not even mentioned cinemas yet. I will fill in the rest of the context. I am talking about Norwich in the early 1990s and unfortunately I have not been back since. However, from what I can find online, I do not think that my observations about the city would be terribly out of step with the place as it is now, so as well as reflecting on a bygone era, it may spark interest in the city now; interest I feel it deserves. Alongside the people I met in the city, the other key contributing factor for my good social life there were simply the number of reasonably-priced places you could go to.
I see that these days there are more big-name chain coffee shops, which did not exist there in the 1990s, but there seem to be a range of others remaining. Many of the names are unfamiliar and unfortunately I have forgotten many of them from the past. The Denmark Cafe selling Danish food, which I remember going to with a German Society, survives. However, I cannot find Linzer's Viennese Cafe (renowned for its 'traffic light' cheese cake with a strawberry, orange and kiwi fruit on) or the Elm Hill Cafe which had opened at the end of the 14th century, though I imagine it had not served tea or coffee back then. There was also a restaurant I think on the wonderfully named Tombland near the 'Edith Cavell' pub, with black and white tiles flooring the entrance way.
Norwich was and still is full of a wonderful range of pubs. I remember 'The Reindeer' attached to a micro-brewery, 'The Vine' the smallest pub in Norwich and probably much of the country, 'Adam & Eve' near the cathedral, 'The Lawyer' and 'Ribs of Beef' both still open in Wensum Street and nearby the 'Red Lion' where I drank once with a juggler and a Kurdish refugee from Iraq. I also remember the wonderfully named 'The Wildman' and further out from the city centre, the very Victorian style 'Belle Vue' unrelated to the cinema I am going to talk about in a minute. Nearby was 'The Alexandra' and 'The Mitre' though I see now it has become a Chinese restaurant though keeping the same name. Possibly favourite of the eateries was the 'The Waffle House' which did the most delicious milk shakes I have ever tasted though my brother, in a heavy metal band at the time, complained the food and drink in there was too healthy!
An important element of my life up until I got into long-term relationships in the mid-2000s was going to the cinema. I cannot really say it was part of my social life as literally nine times out of ten I would go to the cinema on my own. I was quite a regular visitor typically going to the cinema about 3-6 times per month. In Norwich was where I probably had my best cinema experiences. I am heartened to see that the two cinemas there I enjoyed the most are still functioning. Norwich had and still has a mainstream cinema, one which I would visit occasionally, but it was to Cinema City and to a lesser extent, Belle Vue that I would go. I would not call them 'art house' cinemas, though they did show an eclectic set of movies, but they showed mainstream stuff too. I remember seeing 'Cry Baby', 'Metropolitan' and 'Das Schreckliche Mädchen' at Cinema City. Both were small, with a single screen and certainly when I went in the 1990s the furnishings were respectively characteristic of the 1970s and 1950s. The Belle Vue was actually an arts complex with a cinema among a range of facilities offered by the venue. What was great about these cinemas was that they were on a human level. You could get to know the staff and they you. Only at the two independent cinemas in Oxford in 1992-3 did I develop such a relationship with cinema staff.
The human scale extended to other people in the audience. I remember on one occasion finding myself sitting behind the author Malcolm Bradbury (1932-2000) in Cinema City and chatting to him about upcoming movies. At the time he lectured (1970-95) at University of East Anglia on the outskirts of Norwich on the MA creative writing degree programme, the first in the UK and still running very successfully. You can find a list of the renowned graduates of the programme on Wikipedia.
Not only was it the human scale of these cinemas that made you feel rather that you were going to a club rather than a normal cinema, it was the events they put on. One I particularly remember was an evening with the historian, cultural commentator and crime author Mike Phillips to discuss the television movie of his novel, 'Blood Rights' (1989) which was shown at Cinema City. The star of the drama, Brian Bovell was also there to talk about the production. After the talk and the movie, we all retired to the cafe for a friendly discussion. Mike had studied at the University of Warwick about a decade before I did, but he never took up my suggestion to write a novel set in Coventry, which the university sits on the outskirts of, and, at the time was infamous for its violence. Rather he set his novels in London and US cities. Given that I remember that evening 20 years later suggests it was a good experience.
The Belle Vue cinema being in an art centre was also liable to run events and the one I particularly remember was two evenings in a single week when 'Jour de Fête' (1949) and 'The Lady Vanishes' (1938) were shown at the cost they would have been when the cinema opened, fifty years earlier, 3 shillings, i.e. 15p, though in 1951, 3 shillings was worth a lot more than 15p was in 1991. It was not the cheap cost of the evening but the fact that you were seeing classics in a cinema that suited what you were seeing, attracting an audience happy to discuss spotting Alfred Hitchcock in the movie and delighting in the simple comedy of Jacques Tati.
I do feel that I am suggesting that I only enjoy movies when among a like-minded audience. However, I think it is more than that. It was the context in which the experience occurred. It was in a city in which I could safely cycle to the cinema of an evening and watch movies that were not in the current top 10 list and that the cinema went to an effort to engage the audience with movies in a different way and the fact that I could stop on the way home for a waffle or a beer in an equally conducive establishment. Of course, the independent nature of the cinemas could cause issues. I remember cycling on one cold evening to go to see 'Metropolitan' only to find that the movie reel had not arrived in time and as a consequence, I ended up becoming doorman at a gig, the first time I had done that, but that is another story.
Showing posts with label nostalgia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nostalgia. Show all posts
Sunday, 11 December 2011
Saturday, 7 August 2010
Going to Greenwich
This is another of my occasional nostalgic 'memories of' postings. It takes me back to a time in the mid to late 1990s when I lived in East London. Thinking about this posting was partly prompted by what I wrote recently about launderettes. Anyway in the mid-1990s I left Oxford for a better paid job (with far fewer hours) in East London. First I lived in Poplar which is at the northern end of that southward pointing meander in the River Thames known as the Isle of Dogs (apparently because royal dogs were once kennelled there). It could have been termed the Isle of Docks because in the first two-thirds of the 20th century it was filled with docks and warehouses unloading ships from around the world bringing food and other materials into London. This trade began to fade by the 1960s and in the 1980s the docks were closed and Docklands was re-vitalised (in part) by filling some docks, turning others into marinas and putting in office blocks and luxury apartments. However, alongside these expensive places continued ordinary East End housing, parks and pubs (though many of these clothes), though of course with the work in the docks gone unemployment in the area for ordinary people has always been high. From Poplar I moved about 3 Km North-West to Mile End but would still often cycle through Poplar and down the Isle of Dogs.
The reason why I would go that way was to get to Greenwich. This district sits on the southern bank of the River Thames, opposite the southern end of the Isle of Dogs. Its history has been very different, being a location of a royal palace in the Tudor era and then home to a major naval college. It is also the location of the historic Royal Observatory on which the Greenwich meridian, i.e. where each stay is deemed to start, runs. Whist there are districts around Greenwich such as Charlton which are not wealthy, none of the area is as poor as the Isle of Dogs. It used to strike me when I stood in Island Gardens on the North bank and look over to Greenwich that the divide used to remind me of when I had looked over the West German - East German border in the 1980s, though I must say the difference in wealth was more visible here in London than when I had looked across the Iron Curtain border in rural Hesse. My trips to Greenwich from the Isle of Dogs generally preceded the extension of the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) under the river to Lewisham which was completed in 1999. From 1994-9 the DLR (first opened in 1987; extended in 1994) stopped at Island Gardens high above street level, but now it dips down and goes under the river with its next stop in Greenwich. This changed the dynamic of the journey to Greenwich because up until the 1999 extension, DLR passengers had to get off in Island Gardens and then go through the Greenwich foot tunnel. Thus in the period 1994-9, the foot tunnel probably had the greatest flow of traffic it had seen in decades. Now they simply ride on the DLR all the way to Greenwich and beyond.
The DLR is a train service without any driver. It runs automatically around East London linking the City with Docklands but also now North and South London. There is usually a ticket inspector on board but a lot of children have fun sitting at the front of the driverless train pretending to drive it. It winds its way through the large office blocks like a monorail at some World's Fair of the 1960s but also passes by very ordinary streets and allotments. The sharp contrast between the wealth of big business and pretty poor streets is one thing that always struck me. Of course, generally I cycled rather than took the DLR. Once when coming back late one evening from seeing friends in Charlton I carried my bicycle up all the steps and put it on the DLR train at Island Gardens. Aside from me there was only a ticket inspector and one other passenger. The floor was covered with vomit but the ticket inspector constantly berated me about why I had brought my bicycle on the train (it was not against rules to do so) as there was a chance oil would get on the train. Given the rubbish and vomit there already I found it rather alarming that he felt the need to have a go at me. I told him there was no indication when you bought your ticket that bicycles were not permitted and I was not travelling in the rush hour, quite the opposite, but clearly my action exercised him greatly. In the end I got off at Poplar and cycled the rest of the way back to Mile End.
Even though you can travel direct to Greenwich, I would suggest if you can getting off at Island Gardens and using the Greenwich Foot Tunnel. You used to pass a classic 1960s tea rooms in Island Gardens (I do not know if it is still there) with the shape of a teapot outlined in white bricks built into its brick work. Then you step into a huge circular lift with padded seats around the perimeter. Bicycles are allowed in, but you are not permitted to cycle in the tunnel and the lift attendants have CCTV cameras so they can see who is breaking the rules. Steps spiral round the lift if you do not want to wait. The first time I went through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel (it opened in 1902 and was designed to allow dock workers from South London to cross to the Isle of Dogs easily) I half expected to stumble across some underground Victorian city. The curve of the walls with their white tiles and the glass domed entrances at either end give it a nice steampunk flavour. Often (though not at present due to refurbishment until March 2011) there are buskers in there and loads of people. The bubbling voices make it seem very busy at times. I have been through there with crowds of people and when it was just me and a guitarist strumming away at the mid-point of the tunnel with absolutely minimal audience. I have even seen clouds down there from moisture that has gathered. It curves and you have a sense of going under the ground then back up to the surface. It is often used as a location for short movies; I saw once as a fake Channel Tunnel and then as a tunnel in which a woman was transformed by going into a poster halfway along and from an uptight businesswoman emerged as a kind of hippie-gypsy character.
Anyway, once through the tunnel you emerge in the shadow of the 'Cutty Sark', the famous clipper that used to sail to India and the far smaller and once as famous 'Gypsy Moth' used for single-handed around the world sailing. These emphasise the maritime connections of Greenwich and whilst it is on a river, you certainly feel like you are in a seaside town rather than part of London. Now aside from these sights a lot of what I will refer to now is drawn from my memories of the 1990s and there is no guarantee that these things will still be there. Perhaps someone can email me and update me about what has come and gone since my time. The last time I went back was in 2001 and on that occasion to the University of Greenwich for a presentation evening. Greenwich as I remember it was filled with second hand and remaindered bookshops, one classic junk shop, two sorts of flea market and a more stylish covered market selling gift items like soap and stationery and things. There were a number of decent pubs. I remember drinking in one on the market and the 'Trafalgar Tavern' further along the river front which many people miss but it does get crowded. I never drunk in the 'Gipsy Moth' next to the Cutty Sark ship because it was rather too 'chavvy' in contrast to the 'Trafalgar Tavern' which can be very 'yuppie' at times. I have never drunk in 'The Auctioneer' but think I was taken to the 'Greenwich Union' by a friend. There are numerous cafes from chains like Cafe Rouge to indepedent ones so it is good for 'light lunches'.
Once you pass beyond the area of shops and markets in nice period buildings, interspersed with the occasional shop selling seascape paintings or even maritime supplies you begin to get to the historic buildings. Greenwich has been visited twice by the archaeological programme 'Time Team' who have uncovered Roman remains on the hill and then remains of Henry VIII's jousting arena in the grounds of the former Naval College. The college sits to the East of the district centre and is now primarily owned by the University of Greenwich. Its long pillared arcades often feature in television dramas (the whole area also features in the movie 'Blow Up' (1966); the tennis courts where the hero inadvertently photographs a dead body are still there, just East of there near Charlton/Kidbrooke). There is a decent museum in the Naval College too.
Then there is Greenwich Park rising up to the Royal Observatory at the top of the hill. The park is very pleasant and gives you good views over East London. I have photographs that I should find out and scan in to illustrate. The Royal Observatory is a nice small museum in the historic building with information on chronometers. In its grounds you can stand astride the meridian line and so have one foot in the western hemisphere and one in the eastern hemisphere. Fascinatingly in the park there is a service road and at some time a diagonal white line was roughly painted across it. It actually runs North-West to South-East rather than North-South like the real meridian line, but it is in an area you do not have to pay to enter and so there must be thousands, possibly even millions of people around the world who have had themselves photographed straddling this random line thinking they are on the meridian. You see them in their scores and never want to disappoint them by revealing the truth.
For me Greenwich is always in a bubble of a wonderful summer's day taken up with looking at some history, having a pleasant lunch, browsing for second hand books and dozing on the grass of the park. For people who live in the packed streets of East London which ironically at weekends in certain areas seem devoid of live, it is a lovely escape to get over to Greenwich which has such vibrancy compared to the run-down shopping streets and closed pubs of the Isle of Dogs. The fact you can look over from one to another I think heightens the poignancy of it all. However, I found being able to get away from my single room in Mile End living above a chip shop with a bathroom shared by seven people to a place that was like going to the seaside was a great pick-me-up and even though I live (for the moment) in far better conditions I do miss the opportunity whenever I fancied to quickly go to Greenwich.
The reason why I would go that way was to get to Greenwich. This district sits on the southern bank of the River Thames, opposite the southern end of the Isle of Dogs. Its history has been very different, being a location of a royal palace in the Tudor era and then home to a major naval college. It is also the location of the historic Royal Observatory on which the Greenwich meridian, i.e. where each stay is deemed to start, runs. Whist there are districts around Greenwich such as Charlton which are not wealthy, none of the area is as poor as the Isle of Dogs. It used to strike me when I stood in Island Gardens on the North bank and look over to Greenwich that the divide used to remind me of when I had looked over the West German - East German border in the 1980s, though I must say the difference in wealth was more visible here in London than when I had looked across the Iron Curtain border in rural Hesse. My trips to Greenwich from the Isle of Dogs generally preceded the extension of the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) under the river to Lewisham which was completed in 1999. From 1994-9 the DLR (first opened in 1987; extended in 1994) stopped at Island Gardens high above street level, but now it dips down and goes under the river with its next stop in Greenwich. This changed the dynamic of the journey to Greenwich because up until the 1999 extension, DLR passengers had to get off in Island Gardens and then go through the Greenwich foot tunnel. Thus in the period 1994-9, the foot tunnel probably had the greatest flow of traffic it had seen in decades. Now they simply ride on the DLR all the way to Greenwich and beyond.
The DLR is a train service without any driver. It runs automatically around East London linking the City with Docklands but also now North and South London. There is usually a ticket inspector on board but a lot of children have fun sitting at the front of the driverless train pretending to drive it. It winds its way through the large office blocks like a monorail at some World's Fair of the 1960s but also passes by very ordinary streets and allotments. The sharp contrast between the wealth of big business and pretty poor streets is one thing that always struck me. Of course, generally I cycled rather than took the DLR. Once when coming back late one evening from seeing friends in Charlton I carried my bicycle up all the steps and put it on the DLR train at Island Gardens. Aside from me there was only a ticket inspector and one other passenger. The floor was covered with vomit but the ticket inspector constantly berated me about why I had brought my bicycle on the train (it was not against rules to do so) as there was a chance oil would get on the train. Given the rubbish and vomit there already I found it rather alarming that he felt the need to have a go at me. I told him there was no indication when you bought your ticket that bicycles were not permitted and I was not travelling in the rush hour, quite the opposite, but clearly my action exercised him greatly. In the end I got off at Poplar and cycled the rest of the way back to Mile End.
Even though you can travel direct to Greenwich, I would suggest if you can getting off at Island Gardens and using the Greenwich Foot Tunnel. You used to pass a classic 1960s tea rooms in Island Gardens (I do not know if it is still there) with the shape of a teapot outlined in white bricks built into its brick work. Then you step into a huge circular lift with padded seats around the perimeter. Bicycles are allowed in, but you are not permitted to cycle in the tunnel and the lift attendants have CCTV cameras so they can see who is breaking the rules. Steps spiral round the lift if you do not want to wait. The first time I went through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel (it opened in 1902 and was designed to allow dock workers from South London to cross to the Isle of Dogs easily) I half expected to stumble across some underground Victorian city. The curve of the walls with their white tiles and the glass domed entrances at either end give it a nice steampunk flavour. Often (though not at present due to refurbishment until March 2011) there are buskers in there and loads of people. The bubbling voices make it seem very busy at times. I have been through there with crowds of people and when it was just me and a guitarist strumming away at the mid-point of the tunnel with absolutely minimal audience. I have even seen clouds down there from moisture that has gathered. It curves and you have a sense of going under the ground then back up to the surface. It is often used as a location for short movies; I saw once as a fake Channel Tunnel and then as a tunnel in which a woman was transformed by going into a poster halfway along and from an uptight businesswoman emerged as a kind of hippie-gypsy character.
Anyway, once through the tunnel you emerge in the shadow of the 'Cutty Sark', the famous clipper that used to sail to India and the far smaller and once as famous 'Gypsy Moth' used for single-handed around the world sailing. These emphasise the maritime connections of Greenwich and whilst it is on a river, you certainly feel like you are in a seaside town rather than part of London. Now aside from these sights a lot of what I will refer to now is drawn from my memories of the 1990s and there is no guarantee that these things will still be there. Perhaps someone can email me and update me about what has come and gone since my time. The last time I went back was in 2001 and on that occasion to the University of Greenwich for a presentation evening. Greenwich as I remember it was filled with second hand and remaindered bookshops, one classic junk shop, two sorts of flea market and a more stylish covered market selling gift items like soap and stationery and things. There were a number of decent pubs. I remember drinking in one on the market and the 'Trafalgar Tavern' further along the river front which many people miss but it does get crowded. I never drunk in the 'Gipsy Moth' next to the Cutty Sark ship because it was rather too 'chavvy' in contrast to the 'Trafalgar Tavern' which can be very 'yuppie' at times. I have never drunk in 'The Auctioneer' but think I was taken to the 'Greenwich Union' by a friend. There are numerous cafes from chains like Cafe Rouge to indepedent ones so it is good for 'light lunches'.
Once you pass beyond the area of shops and markets in nice period buildings, interspersed with the occasional shop selling seascape paintings or even maritime supplies you begin to get to the historic buildings. Greenwich has been visited twice by the archaeological programme 'Time Team' who have uncovered Roman remains on the hill and then remains of Henry VIII's jousting arena in the grounds of the former Naval College. The college sits to the East of the district centre and is now primarily owned by the University of Greenwich. Its long pillared arcades often feature in television dramas (the whole area also features in the movie 'Blow Up' (1966); the tennis courts where the hero inadvertently photographs a dead body are still there, just East of there near Charlton/Kidbrooke). There is a decent museum in the Naval College too.
Then there is Greenwich Park rising up to the Royal Observatory at the top of the hill. The park is very pleasant and gives you good views over East London. I have photographs that I should find out and scan in to illustrate. The Royal Observatory is a nice small museum in the historic building with information on chronometers. In its grounds you can stand astride the meridian line and so have one foot in the western hemisphere and one in the eastern hemisphere. Fascinatingly in the park there is a service road and at some time a diagonal white line was roughly painted across it. It actually runs North-West to South-East rather than North-South like the real meridian line, but it is in an area you do not have to pay to enter and so there must be thousands, possibly even millions of people around the world who have had themselves photographed straddling this random line thinking they are on the meridian. You see them in their scores and never want to disappoint them by revealing the truth.
For me Greenwich is always in a bubble of a wonderful summer's day taken up with looking at some history, having a pleasant lunch, browsing for second hand books and dozing on the grass of the park. For people who live in the packed streets of East London which ironically at weekends in certain areas seem devoid of live, it is a lovely escape to get over to Greenwich which has such vibrancy compared to the run-down shopping streets and closed pubs of the Isle of Dogs. The fact you can look over from one to another I think heightens the poignancy of it all. However, I found being able to get away from my single room in Mile End living above a chip shop with a bathroom shared by seven people to a place that was like going to the seaside was a great pick-me-up and even though I live (for the moment) in far better conditions I do miss the opportunity whenever I fancied to quickly go to Greenwich.
Thursday, 9 April 2009
Memories of Wensleydale
This posting is not about cheese. I know Wensleydale cheese has experienced a boom since 'A Grand Day Out' (1989), the first Wallace and Gromit movie came to our screens. I have long been a big fan of the cheese which has a really distinctive white colour, crumbly texture and sharp flavour. However, this posting is about the valley of Wensleydale in Yorkshire, where the cheese is now made. Following enjoying writing a posting about the small town of Sables d'Or in France that I visited twice as a child I began thinking of other holidays that I had and the locations that I been to. Of course with time the memories tend to get smoothed out and you do forget all the tensions and the arguments in the car, plus the boredom of being on holiday when you were a child in the 1970s because you would be missing your friends and your regular television programmes as holiday homes rarely had televisions and there was nothing like videos or DVDs to watch or computers to play on let alone handheld games consoles and ipods that even primary school children seem to have these days; the highlight was listening to the very old-fashioned children's programme on Radio 4. So holidays in the 1970s were no different to much of life in general in the 1970s, for the bulk of the time, very tedious. Despite this I have fond memories of Wensleydale.
Wensleydale is an East-West running 'u'-shaped valley created by a glacier, which lies in the National Park of the Yorkshire Dales. For some reason I remember these facts from having done a project on the valley in 1974; in those days schools seemed hostile to parents even taking their children away out of term time, though ironically I know in those days it was in fact far easier than now to take them away during term time, perhaps it was the quirkiness of the schools I attended, which as I have acknowledged in previous posts, were peculiar even as schools in suburban southern England go and I have had corroborating opinions from outsiders to this. Anyway, you were always meant to feel that even when on holiday you should be working and so you ended up producing these 'projects' about where you had gone and sticking in every ticket you could.
Anyway, Wensleydale, now as then, is an unspoilt environment with nice green scenery and renowed for its waterfalls. Attention was first drawn to the region by the novels/memoirs of James Herriot, the pen name of James Alfred Wight (1916-95). Wight had been a veterinary surgeon in the area 1939-42 before serving in the Royal Airforce. He lived in Thirsk. The novels are written in the first person and are effectively fictional as the character comes to the fictional town of Darrowby in 1937 straight from veterinary college whereas Wight came three years later and having worked in Sunderland first. In the novels the narrator is given a partnership in the Farenon practice as a wedding gift whereas Wight had to wait eight years after his marriage in 1941 before he became a partner. The six main novels were published 1969-77 though Wight kept publishing until his death. There were two movies 'All Creatures Great and Small' (1974) and 'It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet' (1975) with different casts, and a television series with yet more actors which ran 1978-90, 'All Creatures Great and Small'. So through the 1970s-80s the region was constantly in the public view. These programmes were seen as comfy Sunday viewing.
Wensleydale remains a rural area with cow and sheep rearing. There is one town, Hawes and a number of small villages. Hawes has quite a few more facilities than when we stayed near there in 1974 and 1976. At that time there were two general stores and a single-room fish and chip shop was the only food outlet. Now there are a couple of cafes, a gallery, some solicitors, a sweet shop, a nic-nac shop and various wood craftsmen. I remember a fete happening in the village and the queue afterwards to the fish and chip shop ran right up the street. All they sold was 'fish' without saying what fish it was and of course deep fried chips. They may have had some pickled eggs too, but that was it. I remember one of the small shops right by the river as you entered the village had the river water lapping at its wall constantly and even in the heat wave of 1976 they had to have their heating on because it was so dark and cold inside. I remember there was a little park just before the main street of the town. In 1974 it looked quite run down and the wooden gates were dull and the slide and everything else was sticky from buds; I think the roundabout was broken. In 1976 I was not eager to return, remembering how desultory it was, but was persuaded to do so and to my delight it had all been tidied up, repainted and revived.
For both of our visits to Wensleydale we stayed in a large house half-way up the valley side on the South side of the valley, just East of Hawes. However, I used to think of the valley as running North-South with Hawes at the North end rather than at the West end as it is in reality. The house was 1.2 Km from the nearest surfaced road and you had to bump along a track to reach it. When we first went there in 1974 you had to jump out and open numerous gates along the way, by 1976 these had been replace by cattle grids, which made life easier for us but I remember a hedgehog trapped in one.
The house had apparently been built in Norman times (11th-12th centuries CE; the valley has had settlement at least since Roman times, probably longer) and you could see this in the shape. It was like a large rectangular block of dark grey stone with a slate roof and chimneys. In fact it was two houses welded together as there was two of everything: two kitchens, two lounges, two dining rooms and so on, presumably so it could be let to two families at once. It was nice to have the space and in the afternoons I would go into the spare lounge and sit in the window seat and pull the curtains closed to make my hideyhole. I would sit looking through the back issues of 'Punch' magazine that were stored there, reading all the cartoons, though given I was 7 and 9 on our two visits I do not expect I got much of the political humour, though the weekly caption competition at times seemed to produce funny material.
I also remember that incongrously there was a stone table for chopping up crabs by the front door. Wensleydale is in the middle of the country so it was unlikely to be a place where you would be preparing crabs. We needed this type of equipment some years later when my parents bought a crab for lunch when staying at a house in western France.
At the back was a yard with a huge quagmire of rotting cow dung that we used to throw stones into. I also remember sheep skulls everywhere which spooked us as we had never seen animal bones like that and to have them simply left around was rather eerie. We used to gather up the scraps of wool sheep left snagged on fences. One night my parents were awoken by a banging at the front door and thought it might be a lost hiker given that the weather was wet and windy. However, when they went to open the door they found it was two sheep huddling in the lee of the door against the bad weather. Another creature encounter came when a homing pigeon (it was a popular sport in the region at the time, we would see lorries carrying the pigeons on the road) had somehow mistaken the partially open window in the bathroom for the entrance to its pigeon loft and had flown in and was rather too scared by its surroundings to fly out again. This suggests it was not a particuarly good homing pigeon. It took quite a while for my parents to coax it back out.
Further up the hill side from the platform on which the house sat, and over a dry-stone wall was a stream which had cut a channel into the hill side as it went Eastwards from the valley rim to the floor. Me and my brother used to go there and sail sticks down the stream and bombard them with stones. One day I picked up a cube shaped stone of a yellowy colour and was about to throw it when I noticed it was literally covered in fossils of sea creatures, presumably brought from another region by the glacier. We also used to sit on the dry stone wall (these are walls famous in Yorkshire as they are not mortared and simply consist of large flat stones laid on each other to build a rough wall) and blowing the horn my mother's father, I think, had brought back from the French town of Carcasonne (renowed for its hunting festival) and doing this one day we caused the cattle in the field leading to the stream to all charge down the hill as if stampeding. Fortunately they stopped at the stream. Ironically in Norman times when the valley was heavily forested (there are few trees in it now, it is all just meadow) a man would blow a horn in Bainbridge every evening as a guide huntsmen and travellers.
If you continued up the valley side you eventually came to an exposed Roman road. We drove up there one day, the only traffic I remember was a single tractor. We stopped in what looked like the middle of nowhere and set up the table in the back of the camper van my father was driving and had our picnic with the scenery all around us. I remember it being windy up there though it was sunny. I also remember walking on a cloudy day along the valley to a village which I think must have been Bainbridge (though it may have been Burtersett), for a fete there. We won a goldfish and fed it for the remainder of the holiday in a bucket on bread. Not only did it survive that, but also the journey back home about 430 Km and a stop at my grandparents' house for lunch. The fish survived nine years, it must have been one of the toughest goldfish ever.
The thing that the area is famous for is its waterfalls. There is the triple set of Aysgarth (which featured in the 'Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves' (1991) movie and the even more impressive Hardraw Force which falls 33m and you can walk along a rock shelf that goes behind it, which as children we thought was great; this waterfall also features in the movie, despite it being over 210 Km from Nottingham. Of course in 1976 with the nationwide water shortage brought on by the incessant hot weather, these waterfalls were a shadow of what they had been in 1974. The other thing I remember about travelling around the area in 1976 was that the temperature was so hold the tar on the roads was melting and climbing out of the valleys in a 12-year old van was difficult. One day my father had to let us roll back down the hill and take a different route as we had insufficient power to climb the incline when the road was so loose.
I also remember making a number of visits to Bolton Castle (which like Leeds Castle in Kent, is not near the town it shares a name with) near Leyburn. It is was built in 1399 and is a very rectangular castle with square towers. It has remained in the hands of the same family since then, quite rare for British castles. It was a little ramshackle when we went there, I remember a pile of rubble left in the bottom of one of the towers. However, the outer shell was intact and there were bits you could go up and down. For some reason I remember we bought a book about the Ice Ages in Yorkshire from the castle shop. There was also an small, old disused artillery piece looking like it came from the 1940s, perhaps to defend Leyburn against German invasion. The shots of the interior show that in the past 33 years a lot of work has gone into smartening it up and it is now a venue for weddings and photo shoots. There were no gardens there when we went and I see they were restored in 1994 following archaeological evidence being uncovered about them and how they were there in the 16th century. I imagine they must have fallen into disuse by the 19th century when getting servants proved harder. There is a maze and even a vineyard there now.
On other days we travelled as far as Skipton where I remember the guide sheet for the castle which to me seemed to have immensely thick walls and to York where the castle on the mound and the railway museum stick in my mind and eating in a Chinese restaurant where they were suprised we did not want chips with the meal (saying that I encountered the same thing when in Ormskirk, Lancashire just recently and when I ordered a curry was asked if I wanted chips with it. I forewent the cooked breakfast at the hotel and they gave me a discount on my bill; you can see the impact of such policies in many of the locals and despite my open-minded approach to people, I found stereotypes of Yorkshire/Lancashire seeming to be real). The other trip out I remember was in 1976 walking from from Keld (the one near Richmond rather than Penrith) to Muker which is 5.1 Km by road but a couple of Km longer by footpath. It is very picturesque along the valley, but I remember it being so hot that the whole family stripped naked and went swimming in the splashpool of a waterfall along the way. You would probably get a fine these days if you tried that. I also remember the pub in Muker not letting children even come through the door so we had to sit outside in the baking sunshine at a wooden picnic table without even an umbrella while my father fetched food from inside. Of course family-friendly pubs were an invention 15-20 years away from then.
Anyway, this was another of my nostalgic postings. Wensleydale still looks like a nice place to visit on holiday and though it is clearly rather busier than back in the mid-1970s it does not seem to have been ruined. Given the availability of technology (cafes in Hawes have wi-fi) it is probably even nice if you are a child taken there for a fortnight as the technology will lighten the rainy days. Looking back I realise now that I have an ambivalent attitude to holidays there, but that is probably has more to do with the boredom factor than the location. However, in contrast to many postings I have made about trips I have organised as an adult, I realise that the two visits were far more successful than any holiday I have tried in the past decade, so for that reason it is worthwhile digging into the memories.
Wensleydale is an East-West running 'u'-shaped valley created by a glacier, which lies in the National Park of the Yorkshire Dales. For some reason I remember these facts from having done a project on the valley in 1974; in those days schools seemed hostile to parents even taking their children away out of term time, though ironically I know in those days it was in fact far easier than now to take them away during term time, perhaps it was the quirkiness of the schools I attended, which as I have acknowledged in previous posts, were peculiar even as schools in suburban southern England go and I have had corroborating opinions from outsiders to this. Anyway, you were always meant to feel that even when on holiday you should be working and so you ended up producing these 'projects' about where you had gone and sticking in every ticket you could.
Anyway, Wensleydale, now as then, is an unspoilt environment with nice green scenery and renowed for its waterfalls. Attention was first drawn to the region by the novels/memoirs of James Herriot, the pen name of James Alfred Wight (1916-95). Wight had been a veterinary surgeon in the area 1939-42 before serving in the Royal Airforce. He lived in Thirsk. The novels are written in the first person and are effectively fictional as the character comes to the fictional town of Darrowby in 1937 straight from veterinary college whereas Wight came three years later and having worked in Sunderland first. In the novels the narrator is given a partnership in the Farenon practice as a wedding gift whereas Wight had to wait eight years after his marriage in 1941 before he became a partner. The six main novels were published 1969-77 though Wight kept publishing until his death. There were two movies 'All Creatures Great and Small' (1974) and 'It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet' (1975) with different casts, and a television series with yet more actors which ran 1978-90, 'All Creatures Great and Small'. So through the 1970s-80s the region was constantly in the public view. These programmes were seen as comfy Sunday viewing.
Wensleydale remains a rural area with cow and sheep rearing. There is one town, Hawes and a number of small villages. Hawes has quite a few more facilities than when we stayed near there in 1974 and 1976. At that time there were two general stores and a single-room fish and chip shop was the only food outlet. Now there are a couple of cafes, a gallery, some solicitors, a sweet shop, a nic-nac shop and various wood craftsmen. I remember a fete happening in the village and the queue afterwards to the fish and chip shop ran right up the street. All they sold was 'fish' without saying what fish it was and of course deep fried chips. They may have had some pickled eggs too, but that was it. I remember one of the small shops right by the river as you entered the village had the river water lapping at its wall constantly and even in the heat wave of 1976 they had to have their heating on because it was so dark and cold inside. I remember there was a little park just before the main street of the town. In 1974 it looked quite run down and the wooden gates were dull and the slide and everything else was sticky from buds; I think the roundabout was broken. In 1976 I was not eager to return, remembering how desultory it was, but was persuaded to do so and to my delight it had all been tidied up, repainted and revived.
For both of our visits to Wensleydale we stayed in a large house half-way up the valley side on the South side of the valley, just East of Hawes. However, I used to think of the valley as running North-South with Hawes at the North end rather than at the West end as it is in reality. The house was 1.2 Km from the nearest surfaced road and you had to bump along a track to reach it. When we first went there in 1974 you had to jump out and open numerous gates along the way, by 1976 these had been replace by cattle grids, which made life easier for us but I remember a hedgehog trapped in one.
The house had apparently been built in Norman times (11th-12th centuries CE; the valley has had settlement at least since Roman times, probably longer) and you could see this in the shape. It was like a large rectangular block of dark grey stone with a slate roof and chimneys. In fact it was two houses welded together as there was two of everything: two kitchens, two lounges, two dining rooms and so on, presumably so it could be let to two families at once. It was nice to have the space and in the afternoons I would go into the spare lounge and sit in the window seat and pull the curtains closed to make my hideyhole. I would sit looking through the back issues of 'Punch' magazine that were stored there, reading all the cartoons, though given I was 7 and 9 on our two visits I do not expect I got much of the political humour, though the weekly caption competition at times seemed to produce funny material.
I also remember that incongrously there was a stone table for chopping up crabs by the front door. Wensleydale is in the middle of the country so it was unlikely to be a place where you would be preparing crabs. We needed this type of equipment some years later when my parents bought a crab for lunch when staying at a house in western France.
At the back was a yard with a huge quagmire of rotting cow dung that we used to throw stones into. I also remember sheep skulls everywhere which spooked us as we had never seen animal bones like that and to have them simply left around was rather eerie. We used to gather up the scraps of wool sheep left snagged on fences. One night my parents were awoken by a banging at the front door and thought it might be a lost hiker given that the weather was wet and windy. However, when they went to open the door they found it was two sheep huddling in the lee of the door against the bad weather. Another creature encounter came when a homing pigeon (it was a popular sport in the region at the time, we would see lorries carrying the pigeons on the road) had somehow mistaken the partially open window in the bathroom for the entrance to its pigeon loft and had flown in and was rather too scared by its surroundings to fly out again. This suggests it was not a particuarly good homing pigeon. It took quite a while for my parents to coax it back out.
Further up the hill side from the platform on which the house sat, and over a dry-stone wall was a stream which had cut a channel into the hill side as it went Eastwards from the valley rim to the floor. Me and my brother used to go there and sail sticks down the stream and bombard them with stones. One day I picked up a cube shaped stone of a yellowy colour and was about to throw it when I noticed it was literally covered in fossils of sea creatures, presumably brought from another region by the glacier. We also used to sit on the dry stone wall (these are walls famous in Yorkshire as they are not mortared and simply consist of large flat stones laid on each other to build a rough wall) and blowing the horn my mother's father, I think, had brought back from the French town of Carcasonne (renowed for its hunting festival) and doing this one day we caused the cattle in the field leading to the stream to all charge down the hill as if stampeding. Fortunately they stopped at the stream. Ironically in Norman times when the valley was heavily forested (there are few trees in it now, it is all just meadow) a man would blow a horn in Bainbridge every evening as a guide huntsmen and travellers.
If you continued up the valley side you eventually came to an exposed Roman road. We drove up there one day, the only traffic I remember was a single tractor. We stopped in what looked like the middle of nowhere and set up the table in the back of the camper van my father was driving and had our picnic with the scenery all around us. I remember it being windy up there though it was sunny. I also remember walking on a cloudy day along the valley to a village which I think must have been Bainbridge (though it may have been Burtersett), for a fete there. We won a goldfish and fed it for the remainder of the holiday in a bucket on bread. Not only did it survive that, but also the journey back home about 430 Km and a stop at my grandparents' house for lunch. The fish survived nine years, it must have been one of the toughest goldfish ever.
The thing that the area is famous for is its waterfalls. There is the triple set of Aysgarth (which featured in the 'Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves' (1991) movie and the even more impressive Hardraw Force which falls 33m and you can walk along a rock shelf that goes behind it, which as children we thought was great; this waterfall also features in the movie, despite it being over 210 Km from Nottingham. Of course in 1976 with the nationwide water shortage brought on by the incessant hot weather, these waterfalls were a shadow of what they had been in 1974. The other thing I remember about travelling around the area in 1976 was that the temperature was so hold the tar on the roads was melting and climbing out of the valleys in a 12-year old van was difficult. One day my father had to let us roll back down the hill and take a different route as we had insufficient power to climb the incline when the road was so loose.
I also remember making a number of visits to Bolton Castle (which like Leeds Castle in Kent, is not near the town it shares a name with) near Leyburn. It is was built in 1399 and is a very rectangular castle with square towers. It has remained in the hands of the same family since then, quite rare for British castles. It was a little ramshackle when we went there, I remember a pile of rubble left in the bottom of one of the towers. However, the outer shell was intact and there were bits you could go up and down. For some reason I remember we bought a book about the Ice Ages in Yorkshire from the castle shop. There was also an small, old disused artillery piece looking like it came from the 1940s, perhaps to defend Leyburn against German invasion. The shots of the interior show that in the past 33 years a lot of work has gone into smartening it up and it is now a venue for weddings and photo shoots. There were no gardens there when we went and I see they were restored in 1994 following archaeological evidence being uncovered about them and how they were there in the 16th century. I imagine they must have fallen into disuse by the 19th century when getting servants proved harder. There is a maze and even a vineyard there now.
On other days we travelled as far as Skipton where I remember the guide sheet for the castle which to me seemed to have immensely thick walls and to York where the castle on the mound and the railway museum stick in my mind and eating in a Chinese restaurant where they were suprised we did not want chips with the meal (saying that I encountered the same thing when in Ormskirk, Lancashire just recently and when I ordered a curry was asked if I wanted chips with it. I forewent the cooked breakfast at the hotel and they gave me a discount on my bill; you can see the impact of such policies in many of the locals and despite my open-minded approach to people, I found stereotypes of Yorkshire/Lancashire seeming to be real). The other trip out I remember was in 1976 walking from from Keld (the one near Richmond rather than Penrith) to Muker which is 5.1 Km by road but a couple of Km longer by footpath. It is very picturesque along the valley, but I remember it being so hot that the whole family stripped naked and went swimming in the splashpool of a waterfall along the way. You would probably get a fine these days if you tried that. I also remember the pub in Muker not letting children even come through the door so we had to sit outside in the baking sunshine at a wooden picnic table without even an umbrella while my father fetched food from inside. Of course family-friendly pubs were an invention 15-20 years away from then.
Anyway, this was another of my nostalgic postings. Wensleydale still looks like a nice place to visit on holiday and though it is clearly rather busier than back in the mid-1970s it does not seem to have been ruined. Given the availability of technology (cafes in Hawes have wi-fi) it is probably even nice if you are a child taken there for a fortnight as the technology will lighten the rainy days. Looking back I realise now that I have an ambivalent attitude to holidays there, but that is probably has more to do with the boredom factor than the location. However, in contrast to many postings I have made about trips I have organised as an adult, I realise that the two visits were far more successful than any holiday I have tried in the past decade, so for that reason it is worthwhile digging into the memories.
Thursday, 26 February 2009
Return to Victorian Policing for the UK?
I was intrigued to read that the so-called 'think-tank' group, Reform is advising that the UK move back towards the police structure that Britain had in the Victorian era, well, really up to 1942 Defence (Amalgamation of Police Forces) Regulations for southern England and the 1946 Police Act for most of the rest of the UK, though not really completed until the 1964 Police Act. If we go back to the date for which I have best figures, coming from my work on the Great Unrest we find that in 1908 there were 197 police forces in England and Wales (plus 48 in Scotland where mergers began in 1930), primarily because many towns had separate forces to those of the counties around them. For example as well as the Kent County Constabulary there were separate forces, until 1942 in Dover, Folkstone, Maidstone, Margate, Ramsgate and Tunbridge Wells. Thus, a criminal could skip across seven jurisdictions without leaving the county. Back in 2006 the government attempted to take the 1942/6 and 1964 developments a stage further and combine the current 43 constabularies in England and Wales (Scotland now has 8 constabularies; Northern Ireland has always had only one) into 17 so-called 'super-forces' though this initiative failed primarily as people felt they would be too far from the central organisation of their police units.
Forming large regional groupings was trying to go into the opposite direction to what most trends in Britain have been doing certainly since the 1995-8 with the establishment of local government unitary authorities which fragmented a county like Berkshire into four pieces and the recreation of the tiny county of Rutland in 1997 which has only two small towns Oakham and Uppingham. I have often noted how the British cling to outdated, often impractical, elements because they have no pride in anything contemporary. This is why it is taking so long for imperial measurement to die out, despite the fact that nothing else has been taught in British state schools for over 35 years. The British like the quaint and the old fashioned in favour of anything larger or more efficient. Interestingly Reform argues that smaller forces are more efficient and wants to introduce an additional 52 constabularies, raising the number to 95, a figure not seen since the 1940s. They argue that senior police officers effectively form an oligarchy, so I think they imagine that having an additional 52 chief constables would widen the intake a bit.
Another interesting thing is their reference to the Metropolitan Constabulary as being de facto the national police force and rather than the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) formed in 2006, that the Metropolitan force should take on formal responsibility for tackling such things. Again this is no different really to the pattern of the early 20th century in which detection of serious crimes such as murder was often handled by someone sent down from Scotland Yard and for dealing with riots Metropolitan police were often sent in as the only other alternative was the Army.
I suggest Reform look back to the experiences of having numerous constabularies. One key problem was the small size of these forces. In 1911, some towns such as Tonypandy in Wales would only have eight policemen all told and Hull despite being a port and a large city only had 5 mounted police. Given that we are seeing cutbacks in constabularies in an effort to cut costs. The rural county of Dorset is shedding 50 police; next door Hampshire which contains the port cities of Portsmouth and Southampton is dropping 100, more suburban Surrey is reducing by 144, 80 from Gwent in Wales and 120 from County Durham. This follows on from the fact that 19 constabularies cut police numbers in 2008. Now, if you increase the number of forces by 120% then each force will have 45% of the police they had before. I know they will have smaller areas to police and I hope that Reform has divided up the country on a rational rather than nostalgic basis, but it would mean a lot of fragmentation. In addition, each new force will need a Chief Constable and deputies and all the staff associated with those roles, so the smaller forces will actually lead to fewer frontline police officers.
So, as in 1911 we will see a plethora of small forces and a return to the dependence on London to supply detectives and probably riot police too (which given police predictions of civil unrest this Summer in the wake of the recession, this is an issue to consider). In 1911 local forces were overwhelmed. Some were able to draw on deals they had made with other constabularies, such as Liverpool bringing in police from Leeds and Birmingham, but this leads to a very complex pattern of command. I have noted the reluctance of the British population to see their local forces merged with those of neighbouring areas, back in 1911, for example in Cardiff, middle class people turned out to assault Metropolitan police brought in to help control the rioting as though they were not involved in the strikes occurring at the time, they had a violent hostility to 'foreign' police being used in their city. It became typical for 'imported' police to remove their insignia that showed which constabulary they belonged to. I did wonder during the 1984-5 Miners' Strike if officers not wishing to be the focus of complaint was only part of the reason for them concealing their insignia or whether deep in police forces there was still this guidance about revealing the origin of imported police, as, during that strike, police were bussed in from all over the UK to strike areas.
I would be intrigued to see on what basis Reform feels smaller forces are more efficient. I would suggest that they pay at least some attention to the history of the forces in the UK before making these sweeping statements, which whilst in line with recent tendencies in this country towards parochialisation could cause real problems especially as we might be heading towards a period of unrest not unlike that of the 1910s and certainly resembling that of 1981-5.
Forming large regional groupings was trying to go into the opposite direction to what most trends in Britain have been doing certainly since the 1995-8 with the establishment of local government unitary authorities which fragmented a county like Berkshire into four pieces and the recreation of the tiny county of Rutland in 1997 which has only two small towns Oakham and Uppingham. I have often noted how the British cling to outdated, often impractical, elements because they have no pride in anything contemporary. This is why it is taking so long for imperial measurement to die out, despite the fact that nothing else has been taught in British state schools for over 35 years. The British like the quaint and the old fashioned in favour of anything larger or more efficient. Interestingly Reform argues that smaller forces are more efficient and wants to introduce an additional 52 constabularies, raising the number to 95, a figure not seen since the 1940s. They argue that senior police officers effectively form an oligarchy, so I think they imagine that having an additional 52 chief constables would widen the intake a bit.
Another interesting thing is their reference to the Metropolitan Constabulary as being de facto the national police force and rather than the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) formed in 2006, that the Metropolitan force should take on formal responsibility for tackling such things. Again this is no different really to the pattern of the early 20th century in which detection of serious crimes such as murder was often handled by someone sent down from Scotland Yard and for dealing with riots Metropolitan police were often sent in as the only other alternative was the Army.
I suggest Reform look back to the experiences of having numerous constabularies. One key problem was the small size of these forces. In 1911, some towns such as Tonypandy in Wales would only have eight policemen all told and Hull despite being a port and a large city only had 5 mounted police. Given that we are seeing cutbacks in constabularies in an effort to cut costs. The rural county of Dorset is shedding 50 police; next door Hampshire which contains the port cities of Portsmouth and Southampton is dropping 100, more suburban Surrey is reducing by 144, 80 from Gwent in Wales and 120 from County Durham. This follows on from the fact that 19 constabularies cut police numbers in 2008. Now, if you increase the number of forces by 120% then each force will have 45% of the police they had before. I know they will have smaller areas to police and I hope that Reform has divided up the country on a rational rather than nostalgic basis, but it would mean a lot of fragmentation. In addition, each new force will need a Chief Constable and deputies and all the staff associated with those roles, so the smaller forces will actually lead to fewer frontline police officers.
So, as in 1911 we will see a plethora of small forces and a return to the dependence on London to supply detectives and probably riot police too (which given police predictions of civil unrest this Summer in the wake of the recession, this is an issue to consider). In 1911 local forces were overwhelmed. Some were able to draw on deals they had made with other constabularies, such as Liverpool bringing in police from Leeds and Birmingham, but this leads to a very complex pattern of command. I have noted the reluctance of the British population to see their local forces merged with those of neighbouring areas, back in 1911, for example in Cardiff, middle class people turned out to assault Metropolitan police brought in to help control the rioting as though they were not involved in the strikes occurring at the time, they had a violent hostility to 'foreign' police being used in their city. It became typical for 'imported' police to remove their insignia that showed which constabulary they belonged to. I did wonder during the 1984-5 Miners' Strike if officers not wishing to be the focus of complaint was only part of the reason for them concealing their insignia or whether deep in police forces there was still this guidance about revealing the origin of imported police, as, during that strike, police were bussed in from all over the UK to strike areas.
I would be intrigued to see on what basis Reform feels smaller forces are more efficient. I would suggest that they pay at least some attention to the history of the forces in the UK before making these sweeping statements, which whilst in line with recent tendencies in this country towards parochialisation could cause real problems especially as we might be heading towards a period of unrest not unlike that of the 1910s and certainly resembling that of 1981-5.
Sunday, 12 October 2008
Memories of Warwick Avenue
There are a number of songs which not only remind me of my past because when I hear them they fire off reminiscences of that time, but because they specifically refer to somewhere that I have had a connection with. Having lived in Woking a great deal it is not surprising that work by 'The Jam' and particularly by Paul Weller himself falls into this category. 'A Town Called Malice' (1982) is supposedly about Woking where 'The Jam' grew up. 'Stanley Road' (1995), Paul Weller's third album is named after a road in Woking which I walked down many times and a video for one of the singles from the album featured the railway station. Ironically Weller as a member of The Style Council also recorded 'Come to Milton Keynes' (1985) which I did in the 2000s. However, the most recent song which has covered a location I knew is 'Warwick Avenue' by Duffy released this year, from her highly successful album 'Rockferry'. As I have commented before Duffy's music owes a lot to 1960s female singers such as Dusty Springfield, Sandie Shaw, even Petula Clark, though with a bit more blues, soul, US influence at times. Her songs are clearly rooted in UK culture and 'Warwick Avenue' refers to 'the Tube' which is the colloquial name for the underground railway in London.
The Warwick Avenue in the song is not the one in West London that I knew because it did not have an underground station and it was a residential road which led to shops and cafes but had nowhere in it that you could meet someone unless going into a private house. The one Duffy is referring to is between Marylebone, Kilburn and Notting Hill in western Central London, which does have an underground station. The Warwick Avenue my grandparents lived in is in Harrow, a large residential area of West London; it has its own postcodes rather than using standard London ones. It is still old fashioned in style, with remains of factories now retail parks, lots of semi-detached houses, small shopping districts, municipal parks, etc. It still sums up the post-war enthusiasm for a decent life with a community of people living in clean, reasonable sized houses and working in manufacturing or the service sector. You can almost feel that in the streets of the area even to this day when things are old and worn and manufacturing has gone. My grandparents seem to fit into that element perfectly. They lived in a semi-detached house in Warwick Avenue (all the streets in that area are named after British castles). It had three bedrooms. That fact in itself is fascinating as my grandfather was from skilled working class, working in car manufacture and my grandmother was a seamstress, yet they could afford to buy a three-bedroomed semi-detached house. My income is much higher than what someone in those jobs would be today. I earn £34,000 whereas an experienced car manufacturer worker earns £20,000. I am finding myself unable to pay for an almost identical house (his gardens were far larger) to my grandfather's even outside London. The purchasing power of ordinary people in terms of property has slipped a long way since the 1950s when he bought the house in Warwick Avenue.
That economic issue aside, this posting is about the memories of my Warwick Avenue, which are stimulated when I hear the song. I think I retain such affection for it because it was always a nice time when we went to visit my grandparents. Everyone would be happy and we would get treats. So, in contrast, to my parents' home it has only good memories. That is even though the last time I went there was following my grandfather's funeral (my grandmother had died a few years earlier) and yet it was a positive experience as he had died peacefully and as people say, you felt he had gone to a better place. In my mind his Heaven, was probably pretty similar to the house where we had the funeral tea.
To a great extent my memory of the house is as if it was an expansion of the rooms that you might see at the Geffrye Museum in Hackney, London (see http://www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/) which has reproductions of rooms through the ages from 1600 onwards with authentic furniture and fittings. My grandparents' house was like that, a collection of furniture and household items from say 1955-85 and each with their own charm, though many would seem rather 'naff' to many people seeing them, they sum up the culture of millions of ordinary British people in those years.
Moving round the house, I remember the metal gate with the rising sun logo so beloved of suburbia from the 1930s onwards, the steel dustbin with the house number painted on it, by the front door; the little indicator for the milkman that could be turned to show how many pints of milk you wanted in the porch by the door; the big shiny front door itself with the spyhole to see who was there as its glass with stained elements, was frosted. The bay window with the pure white net curtains looking out on to the small front lawn and its carefully tended flowers. Inside by the front door on a dark wooden stand was the telephone and the little box with the ditty on about putting in money to save to pay for the telephone bill.
Then there was the living room or sitting room. This was the first place I ever saw a colour television, with the red turned up so that everything was a bright pink colour. There was the glass-fronted cabinet of ornaments and books. I remember the collection of the popular 1970s series about Edward VII there and books about house plants; a shelf of glass and metal ornaments such as the see/hear/speak no evil monkeys. Above the fireplace with a 1970s gas fire was one of those clocks set on the large star metal backing, with long reaching out rays, below a painting of sailing ships by a hard. Below the gas fire a patterned rug, which for many years had tapestry of 'The Mayflower'. There was a sofa, a magazine rack, a small row of library books on the window sill. Then the large television. There was also the drawers, one of which held the toys for the visiting grandchildren, like a plastic Spitfire, the letter cubes, the plastic monkeys which hooked together, a fascinating 'things to do' magazine that I read again and again, with articles on follies and how to make a paper tiger and a puzzle about which of the children had to stand on which one's shoulders to reach the jam on the cupboard.
This was the main room of the family activities, lunch and tea at the folded out dining table. Plain food for my grandfather, and 1970s version of Chinese food produced by my aunt, lots of pork balls with bright red sauce. This was where we ate my grandmother's scones, both plain and cheese with tiny chives. This was where my grandfather would bring the ice cream, bought as a brick-sized vanilla block from the ice cream van as it stopped on the corner having played its tune. This was where we ate perfectly cut sandwiches, delightfully light sausage rolls and brightly-coloured trifle; meat with gravy and stuffing and brussel sprouts. We also had heavy fruit cake with heavy white icing of the kind deemed in the UK to be perfect for weddings and Christmas, and the yellow and pink chequer patterned Battenburg cake. This is all in jumbled order and straddling across seasons, but you get the ideas. Before the main mean were snacks and I was put off nuts-and-raisins for years because a stale packet was brought out my first time and I assumed that that was what they tasted like all the time.
It was in this room that the new technology was tested. I mention the first colour television, but it was also where I first saw a remote control television in use. Being a semi-detached house, there was concern that if it was pointed at the adjoining wall it would change next door's television channel. Here was kept the cassette recorder, that wonderful piece of 1970s technology, the size of a large brick, that allowed us all easy access to music or audio books and for children to record the sound of birds, little plays and quite often 'sound effects' of the toilet being flushed. It was here that I saw an instamatic camera used, with the piece of plastic you had to pull off to show the image. Here too, my aunt's soda stream that was supposed to be the cheap way to produce fizzy drinks by forcing bubbles into a cordial, but came out tasting of chemicals you would never experience in any other place. There was a door out from the living room to the rear garden, but we never went that way, it was always through the kitchen.
The kitchen was a busy place because food played such a big part. It too held gems of mid-20th century culture. The folding step stool, the various kitchen ornaments, especially the coveted Homepride flour plastic man in the black suit with the bowler hat. From the door frame into the kitchen hung coloured plastic strips making a curtain you could walk through, like many shops had in those days. The sinks had long rubber nipples on the taps to stop drips. There was a walk-in larder going under the stairs which was a treasure trove especially of baking ingredients, notably hundreds-and-thousands.
The back garden had the typical plain lawn running down to a high privet hedge which concealed the house behind. There was a small shed in the corner made of sheets of grey concrete. It contained the tools and odd items, but was never as magical as you hoped from sheds as a child and when older we tried to make it more so, designating it as the place to go for non-parent meetings. However, it lacked the smell of wood and gardens that other people's sheds had. This role was filled more by the large garage. This was jammed with old 'biscuits for cheese' and sweet biscuit selection tins full of nuts and bolts, screws, washers, nails and so on. Here my grandfather produced his bird boxes and wooden stalls. He would practice with his very darts to the sound of 'The Organist Entertains' on the radio. By the garage was the vegetable plot which ran beside the house. Not much of interest to children bar the polystyrene ladies wig head and the round mirrors of cord to scare off the birds. In the corner nearest the front was the coal scuttle where I found a German plate from 1941 with Nazi markings. The garden with its high wooden fences was an oasis in the grey urban setting of Harrow. It was functional too, but as children it could have its attractions.
As to the upstairs, well of course, in those days you were never allowed into your parents' bedroom let alone that of your grandparents'. From what I saw I simply remember dark green. I did go in the spare backroom occasionally, to listen to series on the radio that I was following that came on Sunday lunchtimes when I was at the house. I liked the view across the neighbouring gardens, for some reason it made me feel in connection with all the people around. I have always been fascinated by knowing at anyone moment even in a single street hundreds of different actvities are going on. As a child I always wanted to go home at least once with every child in the school just to see their daily routine. I loved the credit sequence of the BBC drama 'Sweet Revenge' (2001) which starts with an aerial shot running over various London streets for much the same reason. I suppose it is an element of nosiness, maybe an aspect of being a writer. I suppose I also like the cool stillness which was in contrast to the often overly warm living room.
The bathroom was another shrine to items of popular culture. The floor was yellow linoneum flecked with red and black. There was one of those long single bar electric heaters high on the wall that were switched on and off by a cord. There was Radox, in those days a box of crystals. We never had that at home, but I dreamed of the supposedly luxurious baths it was advertised as supplying, 'Relax in a Radox bath', I remember the slogan. These days the name sounds more like a radioactive chemical. Then there was the crocheted cover for the toilet roll with the little dolls head on top. This was the archetypal item of British culture of the third quarter of the 20th century. It fitted in with the leather covers for copies of 'Radio Times', wooden cabinets to hold the television and video cassette boxes that looked like leather-bound classic books.
So, whenever I hear a reference to Warwick Avenue, I am returned to this bubble of culture and of activity, good times stretched out over many years, but all bundled up together. Though the house's decor is so far removed from the places I live now, I guess that in my Heaven my house would probably look very similar or at least I could go and visit for a scone, a cup of tea and some Battenburg cake (which these days I like).
The Warwick Avenue in the song is not the one in West London that I knew because it did not have an underground station and it was a residential road which led to shops and cafes but had nowhere in it that you could meet someone unless going into a private house. The one Duffy is referring to is between Marylebone, Kilburn and Notting Hill in western Central London, which does have an underground station. The Warwick Avenue my grandparents lived in is in Harrow, a large residential area of West London; it has its own postcodes rather than using standard London ones. It is still old fashioned in style, with remains of factories now retail parks, lots of semi-detached houses, small shopping districts, municipal parks, etc. It still sums up the post-war enthusiasm for a decent life with a community of people living in clean, reasonable sized houses and working in manufacturing or the service sector. You can almost feel that in the streets of the area even to this day when things are old and worn and manufacturing has gone. My grandparents seem to fit into that element perfectly. They lived in a semi-detached house in Warwick Avenue (all the streets in that area are named after British castles). It had three bedrooms. That fact in itself is fascinating as my grandfather was from skilled working class, working in car manufacture and my grandmother was a seamstress, yet they could afford to buy a three-bedroomed semi-detached house. My income is much higher than what someone in those jobs would be today. I earn £34,000 whereas an experienced car manufacturer worker earns £20,000. I am finding myself unable to pay for an almost identical house (his gardens were far larger) to my grandfather's even outside London. The purchasing power of ordinary people in terms of property has slipped a long way since the 1950s when he bought the house in Warwick Avenue.
That economic issue aside, this posting is about the memories of my Warwick Avenue, which are stimulated when I hear the song. I think I retain such affection for it because it was always a nice time when we went to visit my grandparents. Everyone would be happy and we would get treats. So, in contrast, to my parents' home it has only good memories. That is even though the last time I went there was following my grandfather's funeral (my grandmother had died a few years earlier) and yet it was a positive experience as he had died peacefully and as people say, you felt he had gone to a better place. In my mind his Heaven, was probably pretty similar to the house where we had the funeral tea.
To a great extent my memory of the house is as if it was an expansion of the rooms that you might see at the Geffrye Museum in Hackney, London (see http://www.geffrye-museum.org.uk/) which has reproductions of rooms through the ages from 1600 onwards with authentic furniture and fittings. My grandparents' house was like that, a collection of furniture and household items from say 1955-85 and each with their own charm, though many would seem rather 'naff' to many people seeing them, they sum up the culture of millions of ordinary British people in those years.
Moving round the house, I remember the metal gate with the rising sun logo so beloved of suburbia from the 1930s onwards, the steel dustbin with the house number painted on it, by the front door; the little indicator for the milkman that could be turned to show how many pints of milk you wanted in the porch by the door; the big shiny front door itself with the spyhole to see who was there as its glass with stained elements, was frosted. The bay window with the pure white net curtains looking out on to the small front lawn and its carefully tended flowers. Inside by the front door on a dark wooden stand was the telephone and the little box with the ditty on about putting in money to save to pay for the telephone bill.
Then there was the living room or sitting room. This was the first place I ever saw a colour television, with the red turned up so that everything was a bright pink colour. There was the glass-fronted cabinet of ornaments and books. I remember the collection of the popular 1970s series about Edward VII there and books about house plants; a shelf of glass and metal ornaments such as the see/hear/speak no evil monkeys. Above the fireplace with a 1970s gas fire was one of those clocks set on the large star metal backing, with long reaching out rays, below a painting of sailing ships by a hard. Below the gas fire a patterned rug, which for many years had tapestry of 'The Mayflower'. There was a sofa, a magazine rack, a small row of library books on the window sill. Then the large television. There was also the drawers, one of which held the toys for the visiting grandchildren, like a plastic Spitfire, the letter cubes, the plastic monkeys which hooked together, a fascinating 'things to do' magazine that I read again and again, with articles on follies and how to make a paper tiger and a puzzle about which of the children had to stand on which one's shoulders to reach the jam on the cupboard.
This was the main room of the family activities, lunch and tea at the folded out dining table. Plain food for my grandfather, and 1970s version of Chinese food produced by my aunt, lots of pork balls with bright red sauce. This was where we ate my grandmother's scones, both plain and cheese with tiny chives. This was where my grandfather would bring the ice cream, bought as a brick-sized vanilla block from the ice cream van as it stopped on the corner having played its tune. This was where we ate perfectly cut sandwiches, delightfully light sausage rolls and brightly-coloured trifle; meat with gravy and stuffing and brussel sprouts. We also had heavy fruit cake with heavy white icing of the kind deemed in the UK to be perfect for weddings and Christmas, and the yellow and pink chequer patterned Battenburg cake. This is all in jumbled order and straddling across seasons, but you get the ideas. Before the main mean were snacks and I was put off nuts-and-raisins for years because a stale packet was brought out my first time and I assumed that that was what they tasted like all the time.
It was in this room that the new technology was tested. I mention the first colour television, but it was also where I first saw a remote control television in use. Being a semi-detached house, there was concern that if it was pointed at the adjoining wall it would change next door's television channel. Here was kept the cassette recorder, that wonderful piece of 1970s technology, the size of a large brick, that allowed us all easy access to music or audio books and for children to record the sound of birds, little plays and quite often 'sound effects' of the toilet being flushed. It was here that I saw an instamatic camera used, with the piece of plastic you had to pull off to show the image. Here too, my aunt's soda stream that was supposed to be the cheap way to produce fizzy drinks by forcing bubbles into a cordial, but came out tasting of chemicals you would never experience in any other place. There was a door out from the living room to the rear garden, but we never went that way, it was always through the kitchen.
The kitchen was a busy place because food played such a big part. It too held gems of mid-20th century culture. The folding step stool, the various kitchen ornaments, especially the coveted Homepride flour plastic man in the black suit with the bowler hat. From the door frame into the kitchen hung coloured plastic strips making a curtain you could walk through, like many shops had in those days. The sinks had long rubber nipples on the taps to stop drips. There was a walk-in larder going under the stairs which was a treasure trove especially of baking ingredients, notably hundreds-and-thousands.
The back garden had the typical plain lawn running down to a high privet hedge which concealed the house behind. There was a small shed in the corner made of sheets of grey concrete. It contained the tools and odd items, but was never as magical as you hoped from sheds as a child and when older we tried to make it more so, designating it as the place to go for non-parent meetings. However, it lacked the smell of wood and gardens that other people's sheds had. This role was filled more by the large garage. This was jammed with old 'biscuits for cheese' and sweet biscuit selection tins full of nuts and bolts, screws, washers, nails and so on. Here my grandfather produced his bird boxes and wooden stalls. He would practice with his very darts to the sound of 'The Organist Entertains' on the radio. By the garage was the vegetable plot which ran beside the house. Not much of interest to children bar the polystyrene ladies wig head and the round mirrors of cord to scare off the birds. In the corner nearest the front was the coal scuttle where I found a German plate from 1941 with Nazi markings. The garden with its high wooden fences was an oasis in the grey urban setting of Harrow. It was functional too, but as children it could have its attractions.
As to the upstairs, well of course, in those days you were never allowed into your parents' bedroom let alone that of your grandparents'. From what I saw I simply remember dark green. I did go in the spare backroom occasionally, to listen to series on the radio that I was following that came on Sunday lunchtimes when I was at the house. I liked the view across the neighbouring gardens, for some reason it made me feel in connection with all the people around. I have always been fascinated by knowing at anyone moment even in a single street hundreds of different actvities are going on. As a child I always wanted to go home at least once with every child in the school just to see their daily routine. I loved the credit sequence of the BBC drama 'Sweet Revenge' (2001) which starts with an aerial shot running over various London streets for much the same reason. I suppose it is an element of nosiness, maybe an aspect of being a writer. I suppose I also like the cool stillness which was in contrast to the often overly warm living room.
The bathroom was another shrine to items of popular culture. The floor was yellow linoneum flecked with red and black. There was one of those long single bar electric heaters high on the wall that were switched on and off by a cord. There was Radox, in those days a box of crystals. We never had that at home, but I dreamed of the supposedly luxurious baths it was advertised as supplying, 'Relax in a Radox bath', I remember the slogan. These days the name sounds more like a radioactive chemical. Then there was the crocheted cover for the toilet roll with the little dolls head on top. This was the archetypal item of British culture of the third quarter of the 20th century. It fitted in with the leather covers for copies of 'Radio Times', wooden cabinets to hold the television and video cassette boxes that looked like leather-bound classic books.
So, whenever I hear a reference to Warwick Avenue, I am returned to this bubble of culture and of activity, good times stretched out over many years, but all bundled up together. Though the house's decor is so far removed from the places I live now, I guess that in my Heaven my house would probably look very similar or at least I could go and visit for a scone, a cup of tea and some Battenburg cake (which these days I like).
Thursday, 10 July 2008
Britain - The Land That Time Forgot 2: Buses
Last year I did a posting about how obsessed the British were with the past and how we seemed to only be able to derive pride from things that were very dated like pre-decimal currency and I did another similar posting about imperial measurement. Well, all of this stuff seems to be going on but I was alerted this week to a new and more vigorous example of this obsession. When the Conservative candidate, Boris Johnson, a real buffoon who has a made a career in the media of appearing like a real-life version of the 'Tim Nice-but-Dim' character of the comedian Harry Enfield, was elected to be the Mayor of London, he said he would reintroduce the Routemaster bus to London by 2012 and remove the so-called 'bendy bus' by 2015. The Routemaster double-decker bus was produced 1954-1968 and used in London from 1956 onwards up until present day, though they were phased out actively from 2005 onwards. This means that the Routemaster is not a pre-Second World War bus as many people assume. In fact its predecessors were Leyland Titan, in service 1938-9 and the AEC Regent III RT produced from 1942 onwards and used in London primarily 1947-54, though the last RT ran until 1979. They are often mistaken for the Routemaster.
None of these old buses, including the Routemaster was designed for an era in which we are concerned about disabled access. Its aisles are very narrow as is the staircase to the upper deck and it is high off the ground so is difficult for children and the elderly to access let alone anyone in a wheelchair. The Routemaster is open at the back, it cannot be closed against the weather and it allows people to jump on and off while the bus is moving causing on average 10 serious accidents per year and also making fare evasion easier. Every day 1000 wheelchair users travel on buses in London. This is compared to 6 million users in total, but it suggests on average there are 1-2 wheelchair users on every London bus route every day. Obviously this does not take into account the many more pushchair users or the numeous elderly people using the three-wheeled push along supports or people with other mobility difficulties or even luggage to get on board who welcome the low-level floors and ease of access of modern buses. This is why there are only 18 routemasters running compared to 5,197 modern double-deckers and 389 'bendy', i.e. two compartment buses in London, A bendy bus can hold 149 people compared to 90 on a modern double-decker and only 69 on a Routemaster.
People complain that there are fewer seats than on a Routemaster, but have they actually tried to sit in the seats. I am 6'0" tall (1.86m) which is about average height for a man in the UK now. I cannot sit on most Routemaster seats because my knees are jammed so hard into the seat in front, so I have to turn them to one side so I take up two slots or I have to stand anyway. Routemasters are more expensive to run than modern buses. People complain that they are safer on a Routemaster because of the conductor. Well, I know modern buses do not have conductors, but there is no reason why you cannot put one on or have a 'guard' if it makes people safer. I have travelled often on the Docklands Light Railway which is totally automated. There is no driver and all the tickets are bought from machines, and yet often, especially at night, they have a guard to make people feel safer. The structure of a bus does not determine who you put on it. If you wanted to, there is no reason why you could not have four armed guards on every bus. We do not have conductors on underground trains and yet people pack on to those.
You can see how successful modern design buses are if you note that bus passenger numbers are rising faster than at any time since 1946, they carry more people now than at any time since 1968 (when the Routemaster was dominant) and they cover more distance than at any time since 1957. Why is that? It is because they are clean and safe and easy to get on and off.
What is hilarious is that there are more complaints about the abolition of Routemasters online than there are people complaining about inflation. As I have noted before the British will always sacrifice comfort and efficiency for some perverse sense of nostalgia, that it is somehow better to be jammed on to a draughty bus that fills up quickly because it looks 'right' than to be on a modern efficient, safer service that their granny can get on without difficulty. Its removal is not portrayed as a step forward but, and I quote, 'an act of cultural vandalism'. No-one says every Routemaster must be destroyed but there is a difference between things you see in a museum and what you need to get to work or the shops in the morning. It is the same with the old red telephone boxes. They may have looked good but you had to be a weight-lifter to get the door open, not a child or an elderly or even just an average middle-aged person.
Johnson is clever, he knows how masochistic the vocal British public is, in its desire to live in some fantastical golden past that costs more and works less efficiently. His policies pander to that. It is ironic that most of the people who want the Routemaster back do not travel daily by bus in London. It is no different to saying that we should replace modern airliners with the aircraft you might see at a historic airshow or that the British Army should return to scarlet jackets and muskets because we won more battles with that equipment. Nostalgia has its place but not in informing the best approach for tackling the challenges of day-to-day life in 2008 Britain.
None of these old buses, including the Routemaster was designed for an era in which we are concerned about disabled access. Its aisles are very narrow as is the staircase to the upper deck and it is high off the ground so is difficult for children and the elderly to access let alone anyone in a wheelchair. The Routemaster is open at the back, it cannot be closed against the weather and it allows people to jump on and off while the bus is moving causing on average 10 serious accidents per year and also making fare evasion easier. Every day 1000 wheelchair users travel on buses in London. This is compared to 6 million users in total, but it suggests on average there are 1-2 wheelchair users on every London bus route every day. Obviously this does not take into account the many more pushchair users or the numeous elderly people using the three-wheeled push along supports or people with other mobility difficulties or even luggage to get on board who welcome the low-level floors and ease of access of modern buses. This is why there are only 18 routemasters running compared to 5,197 modern double-deckers and 389 'bendy', i.e. two compartment buses in London, A bendy bus can hold 149 people compared to 90 on a modern double-decker and only 69 on a Routemaster.
People complain that there are fewer seats than on a Routemaster, but have they actually tried to sit in the seats. I am 6'0" tall (1.86m) which is about average height for a man in the UK now. I cannot sit on most Routemaster seats because my knees are jammed so hard into the seat in front, so I have to turn them to one side so I take up two slots or I have to stand anyway. Routemasters are more expensive to run than modern buses. People complain that they are safer on a Routemaster because of the conductor. Well, I know modern buses do not have conductors, but there is no reason why you cannot put one on or have a 'guard' if it makes people safer. I have travelled often on the Docklands Light Railway which is totally automated. There is no driver and all the tickets are bought from machines, and yet often, especially at night, they have a guard to make people feel safer. The structure of a bus does not determine who you put on it. If you wanted to, there is no reason why you could not have four armed guards on every bus. We do not have conductors on underground trains and yet people pack on to those.
You can see how successful modern design buses are if you note that bus passenger numbers are rising faster than at any time since 1946, they carry more people now than at any time since 1968 (when the Routemaster was dominant) and they cover more distance than at any time since 1957. Why is that? It is because they are clean and safe and easy to get on and off.
What is hilarious is that there are more complaints about the abolition of Routemasters online than there are people complaining about inflation. As I have noted before the British will always sacrifice comfort and efficiency for some perverse sense of nostalgia, that it is somehow better to be jammed on to a draughty bus that fills up quickly because it looks 'right' than to be on a modern efficient, safer service that their granny can get on without difficulty. Its removal is not portrayed as a step forward but, and I quote, 'an act of cultural vandalism'. No-one says every Routemaster must be destroyed but there is a difference between things you see in a museum and what you need to get to work or the shops in the morning. It is the same with the old red telephone boxes. They may have looked good but you had to be a weight-lifter to get the door open, not a child or an elderly or even just an average middle-aged person.
Johnson is clever, he knows how masochistic the vocal British public is, in its desire to live in some fantastical golden past that costs more and works less efficiently. His policies pander to that. It is ironic that most of the people who want the Routemaster back do not travel daily by bus in London. It is no different to saying that we should replace modern airliners with the aircraft you might see at a historic airshow or that the British Army should return to scarlet jackets and muskets because we won more battles with that equipment. Nostalgia has its place but not in informing the best approach for tackling the challenges of day-to-day life in 2008 Britain.
Thursday, 10 May 2007
Britain - The Land That Time Forgot
This post follows on from the one earlier today about imperial measurements. The title 'The Land That Time Forgot' is from a 1970s film set at the time of the First World War when a German submarine along with some Americans it has picked up arrives at an undiscovered island where dinosaurs and cavemen are still in existence. A similar story is the book 'Dinotopia' which came out in the 1990s but has a happier outlook. Anyway, I am taking it as the theme for my discussion British people's obsession with the past and inability to really embrace what is going on in the world today.
Many countries are founded on perceptions of the past. France in the post-Second World War era based its legitimacy on stories of the Resistance, in a different way West Germany based its on the sense of Year Zero, that the slate had been wiped clean at the end of the war. Israel derives its legitimacy from reactions to the Holocaust; the current state in China from The Long March and the Revolution plus elements of longer Chinese history stretching back into the periods of the emperors and Confucius. Though the states in these countries have been based on a view of the past and it can be controversial when this view is challenged, none of them live in the past as much as British society. I love history, I have a house full of history books and I read a lot about different historical periods in different parts of the world. However, I do not need that history in order to have a sense of pride in what I do and in what the UK is doing. For many people in the UK however, the situation is different.
Whilst surfing the internet I noticed that a university in Berlin does courses on British Studies and in this they have a talk on soon about Britain and Germany in sport 1966-2006. The England world cup win of 1966. (and note, a lot of what is put forward as 'British' history is actually English history, I heard a man complaining recently about Adam Smith appearing on the new £20 note as Adam Smith was Scottish and this man felt the £20 note was 'English money' though it is legal tender in Scotland [though they also have their own notes] and the pound and pence are the only currency in Wales). The chant that Britons often throw at Germans is 'two world wars, one world cup' as a source of pride. Given that the latest of these victories was now 41 years ago and the earliest was 89 years ago, it hardly says much about pride in modern Britain. I accept that 21% of the population of the UK is over 60 and only 20% are under 16, but the majority of the population of the UK was not alive in 1966, so are the people who constantly hark back to that victory saying nothing of value has been achieved in the UK in their lifetimes?
British television is filled with historical drama. I accept it is the case in other countries too, but my argument is that they do not define themselves by portrayals of life among the wealthy classes as shown in dramatisations of the Jane Austen novels which are so popular in the UK; the Sherlock Holmes series keep on being repeated too. Films still set in the Second World War continue to be made and even those made in the USA often feature British actors, such as 'Band of Brothers', 'Pearl Harbor', etc. Television constantly repeats 'Dad's Army' a comedy series about the Home Guard of the Second World War. It ran from 1968-77, so longer than the war itself. Other series such as 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum' set amongst a concert troop in India and Burma in the Second World War ran 1972-85, even longer, then ''Allo, 'Allo' a series about the French resistance in the Second World War which ran 1982-91 and had a follow-on episode in 2007. Now I accept that there might be black humour to be had, but these among many other series produced during those times have remained enduringly popular and many of their catch phrases have entered British language. I accept we are moving away from this, but these things have another life in DVDs and on cable television.
Thus, the culture of many people is shaped by eras in which they did not live themselves. Of course there is always a nostalgia for a Golden Age that never actually existed, in the USA it tends to be the Eisenhower era of the 1950s and in both the UK and USA there is now nostalgia for the 1970s with people forgetting the terrorist activity, the inflation, the wars, the nuclear threat and in the UK the strikes and power cuts. John Major, UK prime minister 1991-7 tapped into this successfully when he referred to a fuzzy kind of 1950s Britain with district nurses cycling home and warm beer in pubs. The sense that if these things were recaptured the plagues of the modern day such as crime and drugs would be dismissed. Of course Britian had those things but they too were in the context of unpleasant things that are now forgotten: continuing rationing (legally the Second World War did not end in the UK until 1955, 10 years after the actual fighting stopped and the last rationing remained until 1956), few items for consumption, Britain being shamed by the world for its imperialistic pretentions, the sliding of competitiveness of British industry, the increasing division of British society and the rise of race riots.
I have no problem with people looking back and in particular, actually learning from history, what my problem is, that does this have to be the only place you can glean some sense of pride in your country. Britain is struggling for an identity and one which is not racist or nationalistic and all it can draw on to give it pride seem to be out-of-date events. This is why the British cling so tightly to medieval hang-ons such as the monarchy, the House of Lords, imperial measures, scraps of empire, though none of these things benefit 99% of the UK population. Being able to rely on these dated things seems to take the pressure off actually seeking to have something to be proud of now. Why can we not strut around saying 'we've got the best health service/education system/transport network/tolerant society/combating of poverty/curing of diseases in the world' now, any one of those I would be more than happy to chant with pride. Let's get out of the past and make the UK a country to be proud of, legitimately, in 2007.
Many countries are founded on perceptions of the past. France in the post-Second World War era based its legitimacy on stories of the Resistance, in a different way West Germany based its on the sense of Year Zero, that the slate had been wiped clean at the end of the war. Israel derives its legitimacy from reactions to the Holocaust; the current state in China from The Long March and the Revolution plus elements of longer Chinese history stretching back into the periods of the emperors and Confucius. Though the states in these countries have been based on a view of the past and it can be controversial when this view is challenged, none of them live in the past as much as British society. I love history, I have a house full of history books and I read a lot about different historical periods in different parts of the world. However, I do not need that history in order to have a sense of pride in what I do and in what the UK is doing. For many people in the UK however, the situation is different.
Whilst surfing the internet I noticed that a university in Berlin does courses on British Studies and in this they have a talk on soon about Britain and Germany in sport 1966-2006. The England world cup win of 1966. (and note, a lot of what is put forward as 'British' history is actually English history, I heard a man complaining recently about Adam Smith appearing on the new £20 note as Adam Smith was Scottish and this man felt the £20 note was 'English money' though it is legal tender in Scotland [though they also have their own notes] and the pound and pence are the only currency in Wales). The chant that Britons often throw at Germans is 'two world wars, one world cup' as a source of pride. Given that the latest of these victories was now 41 years ago and the earliest was 89 years ago, it hardly says much about pride in modern Britain. I accept that 21% of the population of the UK is over 60 and only 20% are under 16, but the majority of the population of the UK was not alive in 1966, so are the people who constantly hark back to that victory saying nothing of value has been achieved in the UK in their lifetimes?
British television is filled with historical drama. I accept it is the case in other countries too, but my argument is that they do not define themselves by portrayals of life among the wealthy classes as shown in dramatisations of the Jane Austen novels which are so popular in the UK; the Sherlock Holmes series keep on being repeated too. Films still set in the Second World War continue to be made and even those made in the USA often feature British actors, such as 'Band of Brothers', 'Pearl Harbor', etc. Television constantly repeats 'Dad's Army' a comedy series about the Home Guard of the Second World War. It ran from 1968-77, so longer than the war itself. Other series such as 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum' set amongst a concert troop in India and Burma in the Second World War ran 1972-85, even longer, then ''Allo, 'Allo' a series about the French resistance in the Second World War which ran 1982-91 and had a follow-on episode in 2007. Now I accept that there might be black humour to be had, but these among many other series produced during those times have remained enduringly popular and many of their catch phrases have entered British language. I accept we are moving away from this, but these things have another life in DVDs and on cable television.
Thus, the culture of many people is shaped by eras in which they did not live themselves. Of course there is always a nostalgia for a Golden Age that never actually existed, in the USA it tends to be the Eisenhower era of the 1950s and in both the UK and USA there is now nostalgia for the 1970s with people forgetting the terrorist activity, the inflation, the wars, the nuclear threat and in the UK the strikes and power cuts. John Major, UK prime minister 1991-7 tapped into this successfully when he referred to a fuzzy kind of 1950s Britain with district nurses cycling home and warm beer in pubs. The sense that if these things were recaptured the plagues of the modern day such as crime and drugs would be dismissed. Of course Britian had those things but they too were in the context of unpleasant things that are now forgotten: continuing rationing (legally the Second World War did not end in the UK until 1955, 10 years after the actual fighting stopped and the last rationing remained until 1956), few items for consumption, Britain being shamed by the world for its imperialistic pretentions, the sliding of competitiveness of British industry, the increasing division of British society and the rise of race riots.
I have no problem with people looking back and in particular, actually learning from history, what my problem is, that does this have to be the only place you can glean some sense of pride in your country. Britain is struggling for an identity and one which is not racist or nationalistic and all it can draw on to give it pride seem to be out-of-date events. This is why the British cling so tightly to medieval hang-ons such as the monarchy, the House of Lords, imperial measures, scraps of empire, though none of these things benefit 99% of the UK population. Being able to rely on these dated things seems to take the pressure off actually seeking to have something to be proud of now. Why can we not strut around saying 'we've got the best health service/education system/transport network/tolerant society/combating of poverty/curing of diseases in the world' now, any one of those I would be more than happy to chant with pride. Let's get out of the past and make the UK a country to be proud of, legitimately, in 2007.
Wednesday, 9 May 2007
Weighing Up Imperial Attitudes
This post is not about neo-colonialism. It is about the British obsession with the imperial measurement system, this is still in use in part in the USA (though not in the same form as it is in the UK, we use stones where they use pounds and our gallons are a different size), but has not been used in most of the world since the early 19th century. It covers measures such as inches, feet and miles in length; acres in field sizes; pints and gallons in liquids; onces, pounds, stones, hundredweight and tons (as opposed to tonnes) in weight and so on.
The key problem is that each measurement relates to the other differently even when measuring the same thing. For example there are 12 inches in 1 foot; but 12 feet make 1 yard and 1760 yards (or 8 furlongs) make 1 mile. 2 pints (larger than the US ones) make a quart and 4 quarts makes a gallon; 16 onces make 1 pound, 14 onces makes 1 stone and 8 stones make 1 hundredweight and 20 hundredweight make 1 ton (which is slightly heavier than 1 tonne). Unsurprisingly this makes calculations very difficult and error creeps in. As a result, since the 1970s every child going to school has been taught the metric system and fortunately all things in shops now are shown in these measurements. However, street signs, pints of beer, etc. all use the medieval, imperial system, much to the confusion of visitors. Aside from Liberia, Burma (aka Myanamar) and the USA (though they now permit metric road signs and most products have metric as well as imperial labelling) every other country in the world uses metric.
Despite almost 40 years of teaching children about the metric system (and I believe all schools now do this, though I know in the 1980s some private schools still taught the imperial system) yet again in the media there has been calls to stop 'Europe' (by which people in the UK means the European Commission of the EU) from imposing metric measures on market stalls. The EU has given in and this is portrayed as a 'victory' for the British. It is only a victory for those who perversely want to keep us stuck with difficult, archaic methods of doing things. One reason why traders fear the change is that using imperial measures makes it harder for British people to compare costs with other countries. In the UK food (cars, rent, etc.) is very expensive but having to go through into metric conversion, calculate in the Euro, etc. makes easy comparison hard.
It is argued that the imperial system is a distinct part of being British. Well, it shows how stuck in our ways the British are, which is certainly a characteristic. More embarrassingly (and I will return to this obsession with history in the future) it suggests that they only thing the UK has to be proud about is all in the past; that there is nothing in 2007 Britain that we can point to and say 'we did that; we're proud of it'. So, ironically, all of those who bang on about keeping imperial measures are not really patriots. This attitude has long persisted. It took until 1971 for the UK to move to decimal coinage, before then there had be 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in 1 pound, so 1 pound consisted of 240 pence. The only countries not having decimal coinage are Mauretania and Madagascar, hardly economic giants of the world, and even they worked on multiples of 5 rather than 12 and 20. The British obsession with holding on to old things meant that even the sixpence (actually worth 2.5 pence under the new system) was not withdrawn until 1980.
Imperial measures are difficult, confusing and are not something to be proud of. The British obsession with them does not help the UK economy at all. It might make us distinct, but not for something positive, rather for something which is peculiar and eccentric. These things are fine as tourist attractions but tens of millions of people have to work with these things on a daily basis in order to live their lives. Anyone 40 years old or younger has been trained in metric, so stop old fashioned attitudes and a mistaken sense of what is worth being proud about, hold back the UK any longer.
The key problem is that each measurement relates to the other differently even when measuring the same thing. For example there are 12 inches in 1 foot; but 12 feet make 1 yard and 1760 yards (or 8 furlongs) make 1 mile. 2 pints (larger than the US ones) make a quart and 4 quarts makes a gallon; 16 onces make 1 pound, 14 onces makes 1 stone and 8 stones make 1 hundredweight and 20 hundredweight make 1 ton (which is slightly heavier than 1 tonne). Unsurprisingly this makes calculations very difficult and error creeps in. As a result, since the 1970s every child going to school has been taught the metric system and fortunately all things in shops now are shown in these measurements. However, street signs, pints of beer, etc. all use the medieval, imperial system, much to the confusion of visitors. Aside from Liberia, Burma (aka Myanamar) and the USA (though they now permit metric road signs and most products have metric as well as imperial labelling) every other country in the world uses metric.
Despite almost 40 years of teaching children about the metric system (and I believe all schools now do this, though I know in the 1980s some private schools still taught the imperial system) yet again in the media there has been calls to stop 'Europe' (by which people in the UK means the European Commission of the EU) from imposing metric measures on market stalls. The EU has given in and this is portrayed as a 'victory' for the British. It is only a victory for those who perversely want to keep us stuck with difficult, archaic methods of doing things. One reason why traders fear the change is that using imperial measures makes it harder for British people to compare costs with other countries. In the UK food (cars, rent, etc.) is very expensive but having to go through into metric conversion, calculate in the Euro, etc. makes easy comparison hard.
It is argued that the imperial system is a distinct part of being British. Well, it shows how stuck in our ways the British are, which is certainly a characteristic. More embarrassingly (and I will return to this obsession with history in the future) it suggests that they only thing the UK has to be proud about is all in the past; that there is nothing in 2007 Britain that we can point to and say 'we did that; we're proud of it'. So, ironically, all of those who bang on about keeping imperial measures are not really patriots. This attitude has long persisted. It took until 1971 for the UK to move to decimal coinage, before then there had be 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in 1 pound, so 1 pound consisted of 240 pence. The only countries not having decimal coinage are Mauretania and Madagascar, hardly economic giants of the world, and even they worked on multiples of 5 rather than 12 and 20. The British obsession with holding on to old things meant that even the sixpence (actually worth 2.5 pence under the new system) was not withdrawn until 1980.
Imperial measures are difficult, confusing and are not something to be proud of. The British obsession with them does not help the UK economy at all. It might make us distinct, but not for something positive, rather for something which is peculiar and eccentric. These things are fine as tourist attractions but tens of millions of people have to work with these things on a daily basis in order to live their lives. Anyone 40 years old or younger has been trained in metric, so stop old fashioned attitudes and a mistaken sense of what is worth being proud about, hold back the UK any longer.
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