Taking to the Streets

As a child, when I still imagined that television was interesting, I sent a great deal of my time ensuring I would not have to go to bed too early by watching the adult programmes; that is, those documentaries and news bulletins which I equated with being an adult, as opposed to what we now understand to be adult (sexual / violent) content. I gained, over several years, a very solid view of what the world was like: Thunderbirds was never going to be able to rescue us in an ordinary suburb of the capital city; Belfast was a hotbed of continual violence and hatred; all comedy was based around the idea of women being in various states of undress; the French were always on strike. Looking back, I suspect that this evaluation was not quite as naive as it might appear; this was pretty much our world, plus the miners, Thatcher, Wilson and power cuts.

I also realise now, with a certain degree of hindsight, that I lived a very sheltered, secluded and privileged life. At about the time when I began going to secondary school – in my case an independent boarding school which liked to present itself as being exclusive – I discovered that what I saw on the flickering screen was something akin to reality, and that real people were involved. The strikes, especially the power cuts, began to intrude into my life too, and not just the lives of various sitcom actors or anonymous people being interviewed, briefly, by one or another of the few news channels. And I also discovered the innate meanness – to put it mildly – of other people when confronted by someone different. In my case it was the typical haircut, which would have been more suited to the Fifties, National Health glasses, and my accent. I was a marked person from the moment I walked into our dormitory and was seen by those who had arrived and made themselves at home, as best they could under the circumstances, first.

It was a hateful six years. And while I would not wish such a period of childhood, of coming of age, to anyone with any form of intelligence or normal sensibilities, it was an education I needed. My sheltered life was shattered, and reality reared its ugly head. I saw the world around me, and further afield when I began travelling, with new eyes. The first thing that went was the television, with its bias, misogyny, and hate of others. The second thing was the family, with their privilege, seclusion, ignorance of the real world. And the third was any illusion of a settled life, a career, a quiet nine-to-five with a house in the suburbs, dog, partner, children, car.

There are many ways to travel, mine was mainly – as a youngster – on foot or with my thumb outstretched. A minor change of clothes in a small rucksack, a sleeping bag, water, some food. Back in the day there were showers for travellers; I remember those at Euston Station in London fondly, and mainly because of a dead cockroach in the otherwise very tasty takeaway tea I had bought, which bobbed up after a while, banging against my teeth. I remember a large slab of Cheddar cheese, probably forgotten in an open kitchen at the youth hostel in Malvern. I remember drinking a quarter pint of Scrumpy, and having to be reminded to wash out my milk bottle before handing it back. I remember the stink of urine in the car park stairwell next to the Gare du Nord, and visiting the Musée d’Orsay before it became a museum, packed with dust and dirt, and workmen trying to make it into the pristine, art-filled building we know today. Too many memories for one post. Different streets to the ones my post title might suggest as, when we say Taking to the Streets, we mean demonstrations and strikes, civil unrest, fighting for what should be basic human rights against the privileged and over-rich.

That is where I am now, in my life, back on the streets, but without the rucksack, the hardening cheese, the sleeping bag and Kendal Mint Cake. What happened after Sixty-Eight? What was it that turned those who went out onto the streets to fight for their freedom, in so many different forms, into suburban dwellers with a small terrace house, a dog, a car and children? Why did they give up when the battle was so clearly not yet won? And why, above all else, have they – have we – allowed those who should have been brought down then the opportunity to climb back up, and assume an even stronger position than before? Finally: what have we become that we criticise the youth of today, as they pile out onto the streets fighting for our climate, our world, our education, our health? We should be there with them; it is not just their world, their lives we need to save.

Image © Urban Camera.