The Party's Over

          Because we have the surname in common, my interest was piqued by a Guardian article about Ethel Carnie Holdsworth who, despite being in full-time employment at a Lancashire cotton mill from the age of 13, became an active socialist, feminist, poet and the first working-class woman to publish a novel. But any hope I may have that that I am descended from such a heroic bloodline glimmers dimly; Ethel acquired her last name when she married the poet, Alfred Holdsworth, whose work appears not to have survived much beyond his passing. And whether or not Alfred is an ancestor of mine requires research too thorough for my butterfly mindset.

          It seems that Ethel forged her own destiny from innate intelligence and rugged determination. Her successful escape from poverty and what she described as the “slavery” of employment cannot be ascribed to chance or to an advantageous marriage. The schooling she received was the same as that of her peers, basic and limited, predicated on the assumption that girls of her class needed nothing more. Perhaps she was inspired by role models. In any case, her early allegiance to both the Cooperative Society and the Labour movement would have given her a glimpse of the picture on the box of life’s jigsaw puzzle, enabling her to position accurately the few pieces she had been tossed.

          This came back to me last Sunday afternoon, when I was at a family party, at which two generations were gathered – a sibling group of parents and their children, all of whom are in the process of flying their respective nests. I mingled happily but, as a childless brother/uncle in-law, was wary of offering advice to the young folks, since I believe that advice freely given tends not to be valued by the recipient. (Nor may it have been appreciated by the parents.) I was pleased, therefore, that a niece-in-law, who is about to go to University in Manchester, asked me to recommend live-music venues in the city – and gratified that she made a note of them on her phone. Sure, the information I passed on may not qualify as wise counsel, but I hope it helps her complete her jigsaw puzzle.

          With the advantage of age, experience and hindsight, I could have chipped in quite a lot more useful information and advice, mostly in the form of aphorisms, such as “Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.” (George Bernard Shaw) and “Everybody knows if you are too careful, you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.”  (Gertrude Stein).  However, with James Baldwin’s insight in mind, “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them”, the question is not who will they listen to but who will they copy? And if Nicolas de Chamfort was right when he said, “We take our colours, chameleon-like, from each other”, then an escape from the bosom of family to the more expansive environments of university and subsequent independence is likely to broaden the youngsters’ vision and challenge their resilience. The educational channels at their disposal far exceed those that Ethel had access to, but such an advantage does not guarantee success – innate ability notwithstanding. Though if, like me, you hold that the highest expression of success is happiness, then life is simplified – according to Ogden Nash, at least, who quipped, “There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all”.

          But I didn’t say any of this. I just hope that, in years to come, they will remember that Uncle Joe, though he may not have been much of a role model, at least refrained from giving them unwanted advice.

Mere Distractions

 

          Sometimes, when you put on a different jacket, you find a surprise in the pockets – a tenner, perhaps. Last week one such pocket yielded up, not a bank note, but a post-it note that I had plucked from a lamp post in St. Ives two months previously. On it was a shakily written message, “Bingo! You have won me! (saucy winking emoji) tel. 07597 777 3660.” I slipped it into my pocket, though to what purpose, other than curiosity, I cannot say. Since I don’t really need to win a person, I have not called the number and, come to think of it, I now feel rather guilty for having deprived someone else of the opportunity.

           In any case, it’s just another distraction from the world’s troubles. When the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last week declared a “code red” climate emergency, it occurred to me that the likes of Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion, the WWF and others might justifiably put up a few banners saying, “We told you so”. Thus far, however, they have refrained from smugness, perhaps because people don’t like it. But they might have calculated that this is good time to ram home their original message. In October, the UK will host the COP 26 climate conference (hands up whoever heard of the previous 25), where, in the light of the IPCC report, politicians/fossil-fuels lobbyists must surely abandon the smoke and mirrors they have previously deployed to dodge their responsibilities.

          On a mundane level, those of us who have until now imagined ourselves exempt from the consequences of the climate catastrophe may also wish to reconsider our plans for the future. I, for one, am regretting having just had a new garage door fitted. If the sea rises by half a metre, the expense will have been wasted. I console myself with the possibility that disaster will be avoided at the last minute by a combination of corrective action and technological fixes of the sort described in works of science fiction. In such a dynamic world as ours, inevitability is not a given. Which reminds me of my now deceased uncle, Albert, a staunch Jehovah’s Witness, whose certainty concerning the imminent demise of humanity was unshakeable. Believing that Armageddon was due in 1975, he eschewed the notion of owning a house or any other substantial property – with the notable exception of his piano. A ghost of Uncle Albert appeared to me last Monday in the form of a proselytising circular, unconvincingly faked personal letter from another JW, Liz Turnbull. JWs have given up on predicting the exact date of the End of the World, since it didn’t work out for them on previous occasions, but they haven’t abandoned their plan to save us all from damnation by recruiting us to their ranks. This latest pitch from Liz is an appeal to logic that falls down on…logic. Her first line poses three questions about faith: What is it? – a discussion point; Do we need it? – debateable; and Who should we put faith in? – a jump to the conclusion that we do need it and there is a candidate and, as is stated in the next sentence, he is called God. I considered, briefly, writing back to Liz to point out the flaw but experience tells me that JW reasoning starts and ends with their beliefs.

          It always seemed beyond uncle Albert’s comprehension that I was not seeking a god to grant me an afterlife or to serve as a substitute for a convincing explanation of the mystery of the universe. For me, faith is a blind alley, another distraction from the world’s troubles. Unequivocal evidence is more useful, as in when it demonstrates that if we all go up in smoke, it is we who are responsible, not some vengeful god.

If Only

 

          I’ve been reading Paint Your Town Red, a study of the social and economic benefits that accrue when local authorities wrest back control of wealth-generation from the extractive clutches of globally inclined corporations. Preston, in Lancashire, is the celebrated model for this movement in the UK, but there are examples in other countries too. It would be simplistic to define the strategy as “buy local”, but the phrase gives an idea of the power it has to rejuvenate communities that have suffered the socio-economic privations of de-industrialisation and, subsequently, central government’s austerity programme. The argument for following Preston’s model is so convincing that I am disappointed it has not been adopted universally. Perhaps there is a lack of imagination at Town Hall level. Or too many vested interests. Or is it the “Red” in the title that scares conservatives off?

          On a day-to-day level, don’t we generally want to feel at ease in our locality? Are we not reassured by familiarity with our surroundings and a degree or two of intimacy with our neighbours? And if the local economy is flourishing, so much the better. As a recent incomer to my neighbourhood, I am working on fitting in personally and on getting to grips with the socio-political scene. I also engaged with the local economy last week, when it was time to get the campervan’s MOT certificate renewed. I took it to the garage at the top of our street which, despite its ramshackle appearance (I had been assured, by a friend), is reliable and honest. The experience was very 1960s. At one end of the open-fronted workshop were two signs fixed above the folding doors, “OFFICE” and “NO SMOKING”, though the office was not visible and several of the men coming and going were smoking. Nobody volunteered to assist me, so I asked someone who looked as though he might be an employee (uniforms having yet to be adopted) where the invisible office was. He pointed inside and round the corner. I donned my mask and entered. The ageing proprietor sat behind a counter, defended from covid by a Perspex screen. All around him was a blur of spare parts and paperwork. In a casual, friendly manner he urged me to remove my face mask, introduced himself as Frank and asked, specifically, for my first name. Then, having established where I live, what I do and how I fit into the scene, assured me that the job would be done promptly. Frank later phoned to advise me there was remedial work to be done, it would be ready the following day and his terms were cash only. When I collected the van, he gave me the computer-generated certificate and a receipt, handwritten on an old-fashioned tear-off form the size of a sheet of toilet tissue. To conclude the deal, he insisted on bumping fists through the gap in the Perspex. I could not help liking him and admiring his determined approach to old fashioned small-business principles: make sure the customers return and don’t spend the profits on fripperies, take them home!

          Frank provided me with good customer service, a welcome to the community and an opportunity to fuel the local economy. By contrast, I got none of these things during my recent dealings with TalkTalk, the Internet Service Provider, who, like most big utility companies, are reluctant to engage personally with customers. When I did manage to speak to one of their reclusive agents, their main concerns were whether I could pass security (TalkTalk has history here) and whether they could fob me off back to a web-based solution. I also tried the “chat” line, a sort of email communication, but I gave up after two hours of going round in circles with an unempowered call-centre operative. That night, I dreamt that a polite, smartly dressed young man with a suave manner called at our flat. He said he was from TalkTalk and had come, personally, to resolve my problem. I couldn’t swear to it, but I thought he said his name was Frank.