Of Belonging, Membership and Being An Utter Tool!

The human being is a social animal. Anyone who doesn’t belong to a group tends to be viewed with caution by those who do. The demands made by the group of its members often influence the modes and the degree to which loyalty is expressed. Demands such as a membership subscription may enable the group to carry out its intended purpose and such shared payments can smooth the way in enabling the group members to take part in their shared activity. Pretty much stating the B.O.!

The human species also espouses contradictions. It’s a part of being human. Even fully paid up members of a group may consider themselves free-thinking individuals no matter how much of their individuality they have surrendered to the group. “I am a member of this gang because I think this or that" can so easily become "I am a member of this gang and so I shall think this or that". Some organisations, including religions and political parties exact a penalty for daring to deviate from the group's aims and priorities. I was raised in a high demand religious cult and coming out in much later life prompted the local ecclesiastical authority to request a meeting and accuse me of flouting the "law of chastity". I hope he felt as demeaned as I felt annoyed. I had known him since he was a child and in all that time I had never done anything more than sit in church to help my then wife with the children. I certainly had not professed any belief, since that had abandoned me long before. I did not consider myself a member of the flock, nor did I accept he had any position of authority in my life. Church had become simply a place I had to be to keep relative peace in the family. My wife and I had met and married as teenagers. Within six years I had come to the realisation that I no longer believed, but I had made what I thought was a serious commitment. I tried to support her priorities until I could no longer do so. I found myself as co-babysitter in church for more than a decade.

I joined the Ecology Party in the 1980s and was a member when they changed their name to the Green Party. I even stood for election in a borough council election in 1986. I was surprised to receive as many as 59 votes but very relieved not to be elected to the borough council. That left me free to start looking for jobs doing something I much preferred to do, namely music. When I moved out of the town to another part of the country I let my Green Party membership lapse and have never rejoined. I have felt almost tempted since Zack Polansky was elected leader and has been incredibly articulate in espousing many of the same thoughts as me on so many issues. However, I have decided that being a member of a gang is really not all that great when they start to make demands that one should think the same thoughts. I'm happy enough to add my ballooning weight to the throng in demonstrations and at rallies, if I can see the point of an action, but I'm not tempted to join or rejoin a gang. I will admit to a twinge of something approaching nostalgia every time someone calls for people to join up to increase the numbers in the party and add to the money available to fight campaigns. One of my favourite people, a kind, articulate and caring medical professional, a town councillor near where I moor much of the time, had their party membership revoked after using their professional knowledge and research to offer a different point of view to the prevailing group think on T issues in LGBTQIA+ matters. I don't know the details, but the party lost a good member who was willing to stand up for the main principles in the Green Party manifesto. As I understand the situation my friend wanted to explore nuance, but hardliners in the party would not tolerate nuance. The current leadership has said that the Party can be inclusive as long as any member is broadly in accordance with established principles. That is fair enough. Otherwise what is the point of people joining together for a common cause? My friend's expulsion went beyond this consensus. It was a witch-hunt and we've seen the same kind of expulsions happen in other political parties as well as organised religious groups. 

Does the same thing happen in the worlds of sports, the arts or other fields of human endeavour? They are certainly tribal enough. From time to time I have found myself parrotting a phrase or idea I have heard from someone else. Perhaps it seemed apt or amusing or poignant. I'm not always convinced I fully subscribed to the actual idea and it is only when someone takes the trouble to express their thoughts on something I have said that I may have been forced to confront my assertions and revisit them. Our society is all the poorer when nuance is seen as betrayal and something to be punished. A change or reconsideration of a thought may be derided as a u-turn. Whether the simplification of ideas is a deliberate ploy to mislead or an honest attempt to make an argument accessible to all, something is frequently lost in the reduction. It makes me sad when people seem not to be able to talk ideas through to find a place where different priorities might meet. "My way or the highway" leaves little room for the power that argument can offer to sway a decision. The way leaders express themselves gives permission to members of the gang to behave in good or bad ways. Why is it so often in bad ways - storming the senate, wearing masks to root out and expel people of other cultures, standing on cliff tops to gesture and shout at the sea to repel so-called "invaders" who are not invaders at all, but simply fellow humans in need a safe place to live? Were I going to "invade another country" I would probably choose a more robust method of travel than an inflatable raft. However invading a neighbouring country, manipulating the law to recruit the internal forces of law and order into dragging people away to the courts for merely sitting in a public place and holding a handwritten sign to express dissent are all crazy power games. Under threat of losing their membership, their citizenship, their jobs or their pensions the powerless will feel emboldened by the size of the gang and pride themselves on their ability to follow orders. The largest mob with the most amount of power wins and a thought-through argument does not figure in the process. I wish I saw more evidence of people who could and should know better following orders to enforce some sometimes arbitrary rules to a good purpose, but it feels somewhat rare. Maybe it's simply that the good examples happen in the background and aren't deemed worthy of attention. Only one political leader has actually discussed priorities that moved me to something other than dismay or anger. Hearing Mothin Ali discuss his passion for gardening was rather lovely. Hearing him described by those who disagree with his point of view as a dangerous terrorist is very upsetting, but I'm still not rejoining the gang.

Being the contrarian that I am, I have signed up to membership of a couple of waterways support groups that campaign and work for facilities I feel may be of benefit, but I'm still not joining the gang!

Of A New Direction In A Third Age

I have a new career! The months of lockdowns, scaremongering, lies, isolation, separation from my partner and barely believeable truths in the news media have taken a toll. I had no idea that I had lost so much of myself during this pandemic. As already reported, all the work I had in the diary disappeared over a three-day period in March 2020. It was not replaced and 2021 has been very bleak professionally. 

I have always been a nervous performer and every gig I have ever played has involved an effort of will. Of course, once on stage some inner monster takes over and, once it's all over, I have been glad to have seen it through. I rather thought that making an effort to perform online like so many others have managed to do might help, but it didn't ... not at all. If anything it compounded my sense of insecurity. Pretending to project to invisible people was frustrating because I made just as many (if not more) mistakes. I tried recording videos to share online, but that hasn't worked either. The same holes in my memory manifest themselves no matter how well I think I know the material. I can lose a word, a whole line, a chord, even a rhythm and the whole edifice wobbles alarmingly. Any improvement has come with the speed at which I can manage to recover. Strangely, these losses are not predictable. They never appear in the same places. I've come to the conclusion that it's not actually having to face the audience that I find difficult, but something much more subtle and I have never really been able to pin it down. This is one of the reasons busking in the street has always seemed a masochistic way to behave. I have always admired people who have the courage to do it and wished I could be one of them, but I'm not ... or so I thought. 

A couple of years ago I was booked to play on a busker's trail for a local festival. I was surprised to find I enjoyed it, but I could never undertake it again without having somebody's "official" permission to set up and play. Then, ten days ago, something snapped. I had a moment of insight and sadness that so much of me that had been invested in working as a musician had been stripped from me. I had also lost what was left of my mojo and creativity. Very few new songs have been completed and only a few new ideas have been started in these lockdown months. I have been becoming even less visible than the singer of "Grey". No new work was being offered and I was slipping into retirement as an ex-musician. 

It was a beautiful Saturday, so I loaded up a guitar, drumkit, harmonicas and guitar-stool and drove the twelve miles into the town where I no longer hold the monthly Songwriters & Poets evenings of the pre-pandemic era. By the time I arrived the market was packing up. I thought I could just set up outside the Bookshop, but when I walked across town, the Town Square was almost empty and, better still, not on a slope. I rolled out my Ghanaian mat, made from recycled plastic bags, set up my drums and stool, slipped on my harmonica harness tuned my guitar and, for the next couple of hours, sang and played to my heart's content. It was such a liberating experience and I was not expecting that. This felt like the start of a new chapter. I cannot believe how much fun I had playing to mostly indifferent people. A few of them took a few minutes to sit on some nearby steps or on a bench just within earshot. Some people stayed for a few songs. Small children danced and jiggled, one was pulled on to the dance floor by a grandfather. A few people dropped coins into my hat and in that couple of hours I earned enough to cover the cost of the fuel for the van to drive there and back again to the boat or nearly enough for my next order of organic vegetables. I had gone over much of my current repertoire and I was thrilled. This was the first time I had played in such a long time that my voice was going and my fingers were sore. When I arrived back at the boat I realised I was also physically very tired. Although most people walked across the Square completely ignoring me that actually felt significant and important. They were completely at liberty to listen or not as they wished. Additionally I was not beholden to any promoter or event orgamiser and had no cause to feel the overwhelming responsibility of trying to ensure that whoever had engaged my services was getting their money's worth. I have always felt this responsibility to be a huge burden over decades of performing and I think it has been a big factor in ensuring I never sleep well the night before any booking. 

In the nine days that followed that experience I have been out busking six times and have loved each experience. I also took up an unexpected offer of a pub garden gig. Each time I've gone out I've met many new and interesting people. Some days have brought unexpected reconnection with old friends. Some people want to come and chat, to discuss my unusual instruments or tell me about themselves (Pink Floyd's lighting engineer, anyone?). Some people walk jauntily through the precinct in time to the music and with a spring in their step; some acknowledge with a nod, a smile, a wave. In addition to some generous coinage from a few passing folk, I have been offered food, stories of incredible adventures, the aforementioned gig (no money, but food and great publicity ... oh right, that old chestnut 😆), an ice lolly to cool me down when it was very warm yesterday and one person even bought some merchandise! Quite by chance one of my oldest friends, who's been living in Eastern Europe for years, happened to walk across the town square in West Norfolk on Saturday while I was singing. We first met some forty-nine years ago when he lived in London and this was the first time he'd been to Downham Market ... 

I'll never make my fortune busking, but it is good the days I break even. Only one day saw no money in the hat. Unfortunately I had to part with all the previous day's earnings to pay for parking. However, with magic like I've experienced so far I shall keep this new gig going while the weather is in my favour. 

Frustratingly, my van has developed a fault, which cannot be addressed until at least the end of the week, so I'm stuck on my mooring at the moment when I want to go out and play in the street. However, at least I can take some time to tell you about it all. For the first time I feel I am able to acknowledge myself as a musician rather than a fraud with musical aspirations and I love being completely independent as a performer. I have also started work on a couple of new songs. They may even get finished ...

Of TGIF, Monumental Weeks And A Move Afoot.

Friday is the day I go to an organic farm a few miles away to collect my week's order of vegetables. Most Monday evenings an e-mail arrives detailing what will be available that week. The weather has been challenging over the past few months and on this last day of April the ground in the Fen is caked dry and cracking. This follows the very wet and sometimes very cold winter. We've had very little rain and the temperature has been dipping into low single figures for weeks. 

Not a satellite view of an alien landscape, but the farm near here

Gardeners will know that they have not been able to risk putting out anything liable to be affected by low temperatures. I collected my order of carrots, cauliflower, beetroot, celery, spinach, purple sprouting broccoli, kale, leeks, rocket, turnips and potatoes, most of which were plucked from the ground yesterday. When I had a garden I never managed to grow anything nearly as interesting. There is an increasing variety available. How can I choose between the amount I can eat in a week and the variety I would like to buy?

Since lockdowns began over a year ago, my weeks have not really changed, but just occasionally a week crops up with a few differences. This week has been one of those different kinds of weeks. In short the following happened:

I had my second covid vaccination. I am now among the growing population quoted in the nightly news bulletins. I know of and have read about people who have experienced painful, debilitating symptoms after either the first jab or the second. I noticed nothing at all after the first and about twenty-six hours after my second one earlier this week I felt tired enough to retire early to bed. All now seems as back to as normal as anything gets in the marsh. 

I applied and paid for my boat licence six days ago. This is nothing new for most boaters, but it is a new requirement in the Fen and it is my first time. Licences only became mandatory here following the Middle Level Act (2018). I have mentioned many times the disagreements I have had with the stewards of these waterways, The Middle Level Commissioners, and the fun and games I have had taking my grievances to both Houses of Parliament. If you've forgotten you can try to pick up the pieces here. The Byelaws with which I also take issue have still not received the approval of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It has been my contention that the licence cannot be imposed until the byelaws are in place. I've taken soundings from a number of authoritative sources and my contention may be built on sandy foundations according to some. The whole miserable process has been drawn out over the past few years. I had some pre-conditions which I felt were fair before I parted with my money. While the Byelaws are still not in place, including some dangerous requirements for single-handed boaters, there is evidence that work has been carried out to make safe some dangerous public moorings, while the navigation authority has actually constructed its first public moorings. These are four "rural moorings" - overnight stopping places in four locations. It will be interesting see how these are maintained. They do not consist of solid landing stages, but rather a reasonably straight piece of riverbank with the normal jungle of reeds and nettles cut back and into which five stakes have been driven - hopefully at a depth to hold fast when mooring ropes are tied to them. Here's how the one on the Sixteen Foot Drain, far from anywhere, looked last weekend.

 

The Rural Mooring on the Sixteen Foot Drain

At an estimate there should be enough space for two boats the size of mine to moor. I'll give it a go sometime soon I hope. The fact that similar moorings have apparently been constructed near Ramsey Forty Foot and further away from my home mooring and adjacent to Yaxley Lode and New Lode near Holme give me reason to venture further into areas hitherto unexplored, boat engine permitting! I just hope there are places to turn the boat round, because those last two places don't actually lead anywhere.

International Workers' Memorial Day was a couple of days ago. I was one of six people who gathered at the foot of the Thomas Clarkson Memorial in Wisbech to remember our fellows who have particularly suffered as a result of the covid pandemic. Socially distanced, restricted in number and fully masked we observed a one-minute silence and listened to some short deliveries of heartfelt sentiments. Last week I was working in a school for the first time in five months (which was itself the first time in nine months), so I wanted to remember in particular school staff who have worked right the way through the pandemic, putting themselves at risk with no sense of government priority in terms of protection for the workers, just the shrill cries of politicians wanting to get schools open again. Well here's the thing - for the children of non-school-based frontline workers, schools have never closed. Teachers have worked right the way through and many have had to learn new ways of working to provide remote learning opportunities for those pupils who stayed at home. I also felt I wanted to continue to draw attention to self-employed, sole-trader musicians who have not been allowed to work and are among the three million workers who have fallen through the safety nets of the furloughs, grants and loans the government has made available to the employed. My work supporting a teacher last week meant that the total of my earned income since January 2020 has come from four hours work and half a dozen album sales. I am lucky to have had sufficient savings to help me survive. Next month I'll be old enough to receive my state pension.

This week I have been working on a Marshlander website. Until now I have only been using Bandcamp, a couple of social media platforms and this blog. The new website is a new venture and coming along very, very, v-e-r-y slowly. Eventually I plan to migrate this blog and other information to the new place and, if I can get my head round how to do it, open up a Marshlander shop too. It's one of those "don't hold your breath" situations. When it's ready to share I'll put a notice to that effect on here.

Of Safe Vigils and Seeing Off Incinerators

Yesterday morning seemed almost normal. I had to get up in time to be in town for 08.45 - I was going to take part in a demo. It has been a long time since I have been able to express my feelings in person about some injustice or other, but this was a real demo, albeit a rolling demo with bubbles and "social" distances and face masks. Yesterday was the first morning. There'll be another demo with six people tomorrow, three more next week. On some days there will be two or more groups around the town. Of course the masks made it seem like a very serious demo. I've been on some demonstrations where masks have been considered anti-social. It's funny how times change and that I find myself attending a demonstration/vigil where the wearing of masks is now seen as more responsible than criminal.

Of course, as with any demo, one wishes one wasn't forced to do it. Sometimes though, there just doesn't seem to be any choice. If I don't get involved why should I expect anyone else to?

I've been here before. Cory Wheelabrator, an American company wanted to build a mass-burn incinerator in King's Lynn some ten years ago. They managed to get Norfolk County Council to agree to guarantee £20 million in compensation if the plans fell through. That was £20,000,000 of the taxpayer's money extracted from the public for the provision of public services. The council vastly underestimated the strength of local opposition. To cut a long story short a concerted campaign lasting some years, multiple vigils and rallies and a public enquiry eventually saw Cory Wheelabrator leave without building their precious.   

Yesterday we were alerting people to MVV, a company from Germany this time, that wants to build a waste incinerator in Wisbech. Not just any waste incinerator, but a massive construction with a chimney that would tower some ninety-five metres above the capital of the Fens. This is a much larger proposal than the one for King's Lynn. To put this in perspective, if the chimney stood next to Ely Cathedral the cathedral would be dwarfed. For all sorts of reasons this is not an appropriate development for Wisbech. The toxic output would poison the town and surrounding countryside, much of which supplies fresh fruit and vegetables for the nation's larder from the most fertile soil in the country. The Wash, with what's left of a fishing industry, would also be in the path of prevailing winds and no longer be capable of supplying shellfish and delicious samphyr. The proposed incinerator site is close to a high school and primary school and there is not sufficient road infrastructure to cope. Summer already sees the busy A47 jammed into or out of Norfolk with holiday traffic and the mega-incinerator would see an additional 750 lorry movements every twenty-four hour day bringing in toxic waste to burn from all over East Anglia and the East Midlands. Were such a beast to be built it would demand to be fed 24/7.

Marshlander with banner, mask and new hat at the aptly named, Freedom Bridge.

What a socially distanced demo looks like

Further details can be found on the WisWIn (Wisbech Without Incineration) website

Yesterday's demo took place in freezing fog and it was COLD! There is clearly a lot of support in the town already for this campaign judging by the number of drivers who tooted their horns and waved as they were driving by. Of course there are still many people who don't know what the campaign is about, some who've never heard of it and some who don't understand why we should oppose the project. MVV have been clever. More recent government rules mean that projects above a certain size cannot be accepted or rejected by local councils or planning procedures. This proposal is on such a vast scale that it has to be decided on at central government level despite the fact that every local and county council and our MPs are in opposition to the plans. 

Of course one cannot be complacent. So many things have happened in recent years that many failed to foresee. As part of the King's Lynn campaign a decade ago, several musician and poet friends got together to contribute to a CD of songs which was sold to raise money towards the legal costs of the campaign. We raised a modest amount and even sold out the stock of CDs. I nearly missed the deadline for adding a contribution, but after a lot of thought I decided to use the form of a traditional song, "Who's The Fool Now?" I changed the content and lyrics as well as the melody. Under normal circumstances such changes would be sufficient to disguise any song completely and create something original. However the origin of my song, "Who's The Fool?" is very easily recognised by both the form of the song and the archaic language of the refrain. I looked for alternatives to the old words, but sometimes tried and tested is still best; besides Fie! is exactly the right comeback. The song takes the shape of an argument between two people. One, falling progressively deeper into his cups makes wilder and wilder boasts while the other responds with sarcasm refuting the veracity of every barmy claim.

In those days I had only attempted to record one other song. I hadn't yet established how or even whether I was going to be able to perform my songs. I knew I wanted to be a d-i-y operation and used my home recording studio to make music I could not possibly recreate live on my own. The monoband idea gradually developed over the next few years. We did go out into the street and serenade the public with our work. I sang "Who's The Fool?" a cappella. It was generally met with a mixture of indifference and irritation by Saturday shoppers in King's Lynn. I, on the other hand, was smugly content with the way the song turned out.

🎵 Listen to Who's The Fool? by Marshlander (2010) from the "Smoke On The Wash" CD 🎵

Cory said to his man, “Fie, man, fie!”

Cory said to his man, “Who’s the fool now?”

Cory said to his man, “Top up your pension while you can!

Twenty million in my hand!  Who’s the fool now?

Who’s the fool?  Who’s the fool now?”

I heard his man tell the truth.

Fie, man, fie!

I heard his man tell the truth.

Who’s the fool now?

I heard his man tell the truth and I grew a sparrow’s tooth!

You’ve drunk a skinful, man!  Who’s the fool now?

Who’s the fool?  Who’s the fool now?

West Norfolk folk believe the lies.  Fie …

And a baby never cries. You’ve drunk a skinful, man …

Sixty-five per-cent agree …

Sixty-five per-cent agree ComRes, so trustworthy …

I saw the mouse lead the pack …

I saw the mouse lead the pack squeaking orders from the back …

I breathed the air so sweet and clear …

I breathed the air so sweet and clear and saw a squirrel brewing beer …

Emissions too small to count …

Emissions too small to count do no harm in such amounts …

I saw the town all employed …

I saw the town all employed and asthmatics overjoyed …

I saw his man win the day …

I saw his man win the day and a tiger feast on hay …

Cory said to his man, “Fie, man, fie!”

Cory said to his man, “Who’s the fool now?”

Cory said to his man, “Top up your pension while you can!

Twenty million in my hand!  Who’s the fool now?

Who’s the fool?  Who’s the fool now?”

Music and lyrics by Marshlander

copyright dP2010 

There is one more song from "Smoke On The Wash" that I have found in the public domain. The John Preston Tribute Band (or rather half of them) recorded "No Incinerator" one evening in Filth And Fury recording studio. It's a jolly little number that allowed the inclusion of the whole street crew in the outdoor performances. I really like the opening line, how typically John Preston ... "I don't want to be a dioxymoron ..."

🎵 Listen to "No Incinerator" by The John Preston Tribute Band (2010) from the "Smoke On The Wash" CD 🎵

Of course, whatever happens next there is another conversation that needs to be had. We have some consensus on what we don't want. We don't want a mega incinerator polluting the area. At some point we are going to have to come to terms with deciding what we do want. We cannot continue to consume at the present rate and expect the inevitable problems to go away. We need a considered lead by us, the people, by elected members and by officers employed to devise and enact truly democratic and sustainable solutions. We need to be responsible for reducing the waste that is suffocating and poisoning the planet.

Of Virtual Pride

June marks the beginning of what, in some places, is known as the Pride season. While it feels daft to have a special season for celebrating the freedoms we have to be who we are all year round, I guess the press needs some way of keeping focussed.

My feelings about the purpose of Pride (in the LGBT+ sense) are sometimes seen as anachronistic and possibly even controversial by some. Naturally to me they are not anything of the sort. I am not trying to be controversial. I do have something to celebrate and, COVID notwithstanding, the freedom to do so ... at the moment.

I was born eleven months after Alan Turing took his own life and a few years before the Wolfenden Report recommended the removal of criminal sanctions for the so-called "crime" of homosexuality activity even though it was nearly another decade before those recommendations were implemented. I grew up through the years when being gay led to prosecution and imprisonment. I actually remember the Sexual Offences Act (1967) being passed into law. Many people thought that meant the end of persecution for being gay, but what those people may not know is that the number of prosecutions for homosexual behaviour actually went up in the decade that followed. I experienced an attempted entrapment by two good looking young constables in the early 1970s. Luckily I did not take the bait. There was something that felt very wrong in that situation. They weren't in uniform, but their clothes certainly made me suspicious. They were dressed alike with exactly the same type of very shiny black shoes. I was right to be suspicious. I saw newspaper reports later of men having been caught out by pretty policemen in that exact same cottage. I found out a few years later that a teacher colleague had been caught out in an entrapment. He was charged and tried for gross indecency and, while awaiting sentencing, he committed suicide.

Although deeply in the closet at the time I was a school teacher through the years after Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government brought in the notorious Section 28 of the Local Government Act (1988) with its deeply insulting homophobic language. This was in the midst of the devastation brought about by the AIDS crisis; a time when many reactionary forces seemed to believe that if they left us to get on with it we would wipe ourselves out and save them the trouble. I lost friends. P. lost friends ... and his brother. Governments all round the world were slow to act and were partly responsible for too many deaths.

I have lived to see countries slowly become open to the idea that same-sex relationships could be formalised and recognised in law. I finally climbed aboard the bus when I helped campaign for equal marriage.

I have also seen that many people who want to be left alone to live their lives freely in consensual same-sex relationships are subject to the most terrible abuses depending on where they happen to live. I have marched, rallied and demonstrated on behalf of some of those people who have no voice. I have stood shoulder to shoulder with people whose dedication to human rights I greatly admire outside many embassies in London, including Iran, Nigeria, India and (several times) the Russian Federation.

I have marched among hundreds of thousands in London many times and in tiny embryonic Pride events outside the capital to see them grow year on year. Perhaps my own personal favourite Pride moment has been to lead the band at the head of the first Pride event in my local town.

I march because I can. I have had many discussions with young people who do not know the history of the struggle to get where we are. To too many of them, Pride is party time. They see my reasons for marching as if they were regarding some artefact in a museum. While there is still one person in the world oppressed for being in a sexual minority the marching and the rallying need to carry on. If we are free to celebrate what we have achieved we have a responsibility to continue to march for those who can't. The European Union seems to be very quiet while many municipalities in Poland are illegally, but with impunity, declaring themselves "LGBT-free zones". The death penalty and life imprisonment is still all that people in some countries can look forward to. I'd like to think that everyone remembers why we can dance in our Pride parties to our X-Factor wannabes, but that seems to be not always true. I cannot turn my back on my own past or the present and future of too many other people. The peace is fragile and, for that reason too, the struggle must continue.

Sadly, COVID has seen to it that there will be no marching this year. I looked back through this blog to try and capture a photograph of a past Pride to put in a discussion forum, but maybe I didn't get round to writing about them. Anyway, here are a few photographs of some of those moments.

Me 'n' P at Norwich Pride a few years ago

Performing on the bandstand at the first West Norfolk Pride. (Photograph by Sas Astro)

Of People And Their Voices

I went to the People's Voice March on Saturday along with some 699,999 others give or take. I travelled with a couple of friends, real life brother and sister T and K. We drove down to the town north of London, where I opened for the Pink Fairies in 1973, met a couple of my friends' friends, J and D, and we all travelled into Central London by public transport. On our return K posted some photographs up on her Facebook page that she had taken during the day. One of my cousins responded with the usual kind of "the people have spoken" response. J called him a troll and it all came a little unwound. I wanted to write a response to Frank, my cousin, and take an opportunity to work out why I thought it was important to go to this event. What I wrote turned out to be too long for a Facebook post, so here it is instead.

Hello, Frank. Thanks for your thoughts on this. I attended yesterday’s march, not because I want to undo the democratic process, but because I believe in it. The June 2016 referendum struck me as being informed more by emotion and feeling than understanding or knowledge. Real information was hard to come by. Having got this far, we now know more about what is likely to be involved with leaving the European Union. As far as I am concerned yesterday’s march was an expression of desire for people to be able to vote on whether we prefer the negotiated deal after we know what it is over the bluster and myths concocted in advance by politicians and media moguls who had no idea or who seem to have a vested interest in misinformation. Your contribution gives me an opportunity to try and gather my thoughts. My reasoning for staying within the Union goes along the following lines. 

Firstly, the referendum itself, which I believe was an ill-advised tactic on behalf of David Cameron to hold on to power, was “advisory”. The documents made that clear. I believe it was a test of the country’s mood to try and prove to the Euro-sceptics in his party that there was no appetite to leave. Nowhere was it stated that the result would be binding. He should have got out more and talked to people round the country to find out what was worrying them. Somewhere along the way, though, Theresa May got caught up in the excitement and decided that “advisory” really meant “binding”. 

The referendum is not like an election where we would have a chance to change course every five years. It would result in a fundamental change to what passes in the UK for a constitution and lead to changes in our relationships with every other country in the world. In such a case it is imperative that this be got right first time. 

Fundamental changes, such as these would involve, are rarely left to a simple majority. Other important decisions in all sorts of organisations rely on at least a 60/40 majority. I would have preferred to see a much higher threshold for change considering this requires the unraveling of some 750+ treaties painstakingly negotiated over the past forty years. Two years was never going to be long enough to ensure a smooth changeover. Think back to when you bought your house. I bet the sale wasn’t completed in one day and I doubt you would have wanted it to be. You would have required your team to do its work properly. 750 treaties sorted out over two years amounts to about one a day in the time available. 

The figures were also interesting in that while very close, the 52% majority represented just 37% of the electorate. I can see any number of reasons why people didn’t turn out to vote. Many who were likely to be most affected, such as the young and those living abroad (thanks to the freedom to live and work anywhere within the EU) were excluded. Then there was the paucity of quality in the arguments for and against. I tried really hard to make sense of it all and failed. There must have been many who did not have the opportunity to give the time I gave in order to research to try and work it all out. No wonder many felt compelled to leave it to chance or simply ran out of time to make a decision. After all, people like Liam Fox assured us negotiating new treaties would be a doddle, while Boris Johnson pulled figures out of his ... wherever to try and fool us that money being given to the EU would simply be channeled back into the health service. They have both since been thoroughly discredited. 

Although my gut reaction was to be consistent and vote as I did in 1975, I wanted to give this matter serious consideration and was prepared to vote according to what appeared to me to be the evidence presented by credible witnesses. Without going deeply into the personalities involved I did not trust the noisiest politicians. In some cases I had good reason not to trust them based on the way many have treated experienced professionals when they held cabinet offices. Dogma over evidence doesn’t sit well with me. I researched, read widely, sat and watched many YouTube lectures by experts in many appropriate fields. I was looking for reasons to vote leave that actually had some substance. I found very few. One that almost convinced me was the so-called Lexit argument - based on the way countries like Greece had been held to ransom by the European bankers. In the end I decided that even this was insufficient to justify the chaos that would inevitably result if the leave result polled a majority. 

There are many shortcomings in the European Union, but I felt that there would be nothing we could do to change the situation from the outside. In 1975 I voted to remain within the Common Market. The accumulated effects of the successive treaties of Paris, Rome, Maastricht and Lisbon have, over the years, changed the nature of the arrangement. If we were to make the Union work for everyone we had to be part of the gang. Come election times I would prefer to vote for a government that is prepared to engage with the rest of Europe in the pursuit of the best interests of us all, specially in the face of challenges from further away. Instead, we have had to witness decades of arguments amongst politicians within parties while we try and make some sense of the constant drip-feed of propaganda spouted in the mainstream media by the moguls who are fighting to maintain their vested interests as they stash their millions in overseas bank accounts. 

Had someone, anyone, been able to articulate sound reasons for leaving, based on evidence of what would actually improve after leaving the EU I could have been convinced. I have a mistrust of large organisations and have always found myself drawn to a “small is beautiful” mentality. In practical terms acting locally while thinking globally requires us all to be more involved in grass roots affairs. This simply doesn’t happen. Even in my village the politics are too diverse for me to keep any kind of handle on what’s going on. I have personally spent a lot of time over the past two years (including eight days this year attending and speaking to committees of MPs and Lords in Parliament) as I have campaigned against a Bill that will cost me money and make my home less secure. This Bill will advantage those who have land, money and power already. It was nearly impossible to get support from others in my situation who would be similarly disadvantaged when this Bill receives Royal Assent. No doubt they will complain heartily when they see the new demands roll in to take their hard-earned cash. I don’t expect any thanks for an unprecedented twenty or so amendments and undertakings we forced through. However I don’t have the time or the inclination to be involved in the political process on this all-absorbing level. I have to leave it to others and hope that sometimes they do the right thing by the rest of us. I found nothing of sufficient substance in the “leave” argument that was compelling enough to sway my decision to vote in favour of leaving the EU.

Contrary to evidenced reasoning we were bombarded with platitudes that harked back to some imagined notion of Empire and how things were better in the past.  I was a child in the 1960s when post-war confidence and optimism finally seemed to gain some traction, so of course life was better then. However, there were massive problems with attitudes and priorities in society that have required thought and legislation to put right over decades, much of this actually encouraged by the European Parliament. This has inevitably brought us a more complex society and things are unlikely ever to return to the way we thought they were, but in truth probably weren’t. The rise of the Information Age and globalised industry has meant things are unrecognisably different from our childhoods. 

The issues that were raised as problematic by the leave campaign did not make sense to me. We never lost our precious “sovereignty”. We always had an option to agree or not with new legislation. New laws came from Europe because the UK government of the day agreed to them. We were never part of the Euro-zone and retained the pound, much to the delight and profit of the same bankers who were responsible for the crash. Every time I go to France I pay to change currency. This could have been avoided. Freedom of movement applied to all, including the Brits who take their pensions and relocate to Spain or Portugal. Objections to immigration seemed mostly based on prejudice and inaccurate information as far as I could see. We always had control of our borders. It was not the EU, but our own governments who set quotas or not. If we were concerned about immigration or asylum from beyond the EU, it was our own governments who helped create the chaos and bring destruction down on those in suffering societies by dropping bombs on them!

The referendum itself was deeply flawed. I am sure both sides stretched the truth to advantage its own message. The leave campaign, however, has been found to have broken the law in the way its campaign was funded. There is evidence to suggest that many messages spread by the leave campaign would not have gained the traction they did had the rules been applied honourably and rigorously. We all know that the despicable advertising showing queues of people from other ethnicities appealed to British xenophobia and not to any sense of accuracy and fairness. There’s also that small matter of £350,000,000 a week that was promised to keep the NHS afloat. That sounds pretty hollow now as we watch Richard Branson head the queue to buy up the profitable parts of NHS ahead of any number of US based insurance companies. Successive governments have sold off the UK and raided our pension funds at the same time as they sell licenses for speculative mining companies in which members of the families of our government and the judiciary appear to have shares in the companies that have brought at least nineteen earth tremors to the north-west in the past week as the process they employ also poisons the water. None of this is down to being part of the European Union. In contrast, the European project began, and may have had some success, in keeping a Third World War from beginning in Europe. 

So, with twelve years left to keep global warming down to an unprecedented 1.5°C increase, a target we are likely to miss which will result in catastrophic climate change and death to millions, increased migration and many species being wiped out, we argue about where the DUP want to put a border as we flounder about trying to withdraw from the treaties to which we have voluntarily signed up over the decades. 

I could go on, but this is long enough to give you some flavour that my path has attempted to follow a certain logic. 

By far the worst aspect of the whole miserable process has been the name-calling and abuse that has split the country. I have friends who voted to leave, and thankfully we have been able to maintain a civil discourse as well as our friendship, but even so most of them cannot give me one single reason why it has turned out for the better. It has mostly appeared to have been down to a hope that we’ll do better on our own somehow. I personally think it unlikely that we are going to be able to pick up where we left off in 1973. The rest of the world may have moved on and there are families of farmers in Australia, who have still not forgotten how we abandoned them when we joined the Common Market. I don’t think they are likely to welcome us back with open arms. Perfidious Albion indeed.