Not All There

I have been fascinated by the documentary series The Vietnam War on BBC, watching open-mouthed as the scale of destruction and the ultimate futility of the war are revealed. Especially jaw-dropping was the revelation of the depths of duplicity plumbed by President Nixon, who committed his own troops and subjected millions of Indo-Chinese to bombing in order to ensure his re-election. While in America last month, I saw a recording of the 1960 Presidential election debate between JFK and Nixon and commented afterwards on how polite, well-spoken and civilised they both seemed compared with those in the last election debates – which goes to show how gullible I am. If the evidence of his duplicity as presented by Vietnam is reliable, Nixon ought to have been too ashamed ever to appear in public again. Compared with him, President Trump seems a harmless bumbler.

To a somewhat lesser degree I bear a burden of shame myself: shame that I took little or no notice of the Vietnam War at the time, even though in 1965, when the Americans first piled in, I was the same age as the youngest US recruits. The lack of interest on my part can be explained, of course: it was someone else’s war in a distant part of the world; the information we received was thin and/or manipulated; my education was too limited to enable me to comprehend the enormity of the events; I was simply preoccupied with looking towards my own future. Any and all of the above might apply, but my conscience remains troubled and is worsened by a failed attempt to exonerate myself. I once told someone that, in October1968, having finally seen the light, I joined the anti-war demonstrators in Grosvenor Square. However, on checking the few scraps of archived material I retain from the period, I see that I was actually in a remote part of the Sudan at the time. I have heard it said that people forget years and remember moments or, as in this case, mis-remember them. My shame may be mitigated only by one small act of solidarity – the sheltering of a US draft-dodger at our London flat between 1972-4 (a fact that is verifiable by third party collaborators), at which point I moved to Manchester.

The Vietnam War was over by the time I had settled into my new home, though I am sure that dreadful wars, of which I took no notice, raged in other parts of the world. Here in Manchester, meanwhile, conflict took a more parochial form. The bulldozing of old housing stock in Moss Side disrupted communities and exacerbated both racial tensions and gang rivalries. My engagement with the process was purely tangential. These were the dark days of alcohol licensing when pubs closed early and the only way to get another drink was to go to clubs, some of which were of dubious legality and located in Moss Side. It was advisable to be on best behaviour at such venues, respectful and even grateful, but the edge of danger lent them some excitement. The eventual relaxation of licensing hours led to their closure, though by that time I had outgrown the use for them. There is news, however, of a sort of resurrection: one of them, The Reno, which was demolished in 1986 and has lain undisturbed since, is now being excavated by a group of former frequenters and archaeologists. They obtained permission to excavate the site, arguing that such places are as important to social history studies as are those of any former era. They have found a few interesting items – a pair of flares, a record sleeve and a block of Red Leb(anese) marijuana. The flares and the record sleeve are definitely not mine.