S4743

I am a retired middle class female age 64 living in Brighton (East Sussex) with my husband, B; formerly employed in the Higher Education sector, still doing a bit of freelancing, writing and research. Saturday 2 June: Up very early as usual – did some domestic chores (quite happily), brought B coffee in bed. He has to get up early on Saturdays as he goes to his pilates class in Hove. He leaves and it’s a scramble for me to get sorted so I can meet him in town at 11am. Can’t now remember why! Walked along to top of Preston Street along the sea front which was very pleasant and very busy. Town is buzzing but it always does at weekends and at Bank Holidays. Saw lots of police around and wondered whether it was Mods and Rockers time in Brighton (but isn’t that at Easter?). Some union jacks and red white and blue on display in shops for the Jubilee but nothing very conspicuous. Didn’t see any street party signs but maybe that’s not on Saturday? Unsure. Met B at a shop I’d been told might buy my old iphone from me but alas, the nice young man pointed out two tiny hairline cracks on the casing and said he couldn’t buy it because he wouldn’t be able to offer a guarantee on re-sale. Tried two more shops who said the same thing. First time I’d noticed how many second hand phone and electronic goods shops there are around on Western Road! Annoyingly they offered B £90 for his old ipod touch. We adjourned to a nearby (new) Café Nero and I nursed my disappointment with a skinny cappuccino. The shop people had been very sweet and the last young man said try selling privately eg on Gum Tree. I’ve never used the Gum Tree website. Last time I nneeded to sell sokmething (a coffee machine) I used the Friday Ad. Walked down to M&S and I went up in the lift and used their loo, bought flowers and chocolates to take to friends tonight, plus some veg for us at home, and then a pair of white linen trousers. The sales assistant at the till said to me, unprompted, that she hoped it wasn’t going to rain as she and her friends were going to London on Sunday for the Jubilee celebrations. She chatted away quite amiably without for a minute thinking that I wouldn’t be totally sympathetic. That’s the thing about the Jubilee – a bit like when Diana died. People just assume you are supportive of the Royals. I didn’t disabuse her – just smiled. I don’t feel any malice just a bit miserable about how isolating and joyless-seeming it can be opposing the status quo. When I emerged from M&S, the police presence was overwhelming. Every shop front had at least two police officers guarding it and there were huge and beautiful police horses parading down the main road. B and I met up again- he’d been texting a friend about meeting up – and took our place in Churchill Square by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign stall. We knew now that it was the threat of a visit to Brighton from a fascist organisation called the “Casuals” who seem to be an offshoot of the English Defence League. There was a big crowd of lefties in Churchill Square in addition to the rather older, more heterogeneous, more respectable looking PSC crowd. They were the “UK Uncut”/Occupy followers in black hoodies, plus the anti-cuts campaign people. Quite dramatic. They held a Street Party outside BHS. I suppose that’s a nod to the Jubilee! We chatted to friends for a while but all seemed quiet. It was spitting with rain. One person I met, a history lecturer, said her intelligence was that the Casuals had been in a pub in Hove but were coming down to beat up lefties. I am not keen on this violent confrontation. Does nothing for our image and anyway ever since my experience at the anti-Vietnam War demo at the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square in 1968, I’ve been afraid of police horses. We met up with a good mutual friend and chatted for a while. He was very critical of my taking part in a TV documentary about the 1952 Coronation and about the Today programme on the Jubilee: Here’s our exchange of emails: 1. From him.... Hi, Well done for being involved in this. First I must say sorry for what I am going to say. But I feel I have to say it as it’s what I was thinking. I did listen to some of the item but not to all of it as most of it (other than you) made me feel uncomfortable. So I may have missed the most radical parts. I am afraid I struggle with any link of the monarchy to notions of democratisation or even popularisation. Every time the monarchy is sited in our lives or in our media it does 'work'. It does work that is anti democratic and anti equity. I am sure there is an important job to show what people "really" think about it but the discourse around the monarchy is such that the responses are predictable. Any discussion of it seems to add to this discourse. Even the Guardian's discussion between Rosie Boycott and Joan Smith last week was so shallow it just reinforced the dominant discourse on the monarchy. You did well but the framing of the item meant in my humble opinion that there was no place to talk radically about the monarchy's destructive influence on the values of our society. Sorry again 2. My reply: Knocking against an open door. It wasn't possible for me to know how exactly it would be used (not that I am naive enough to think it could be republican or more challenging). The context of the interview was MO not royalty per se and it's the 2nd of 5 items due to be broadcast on future Today progs. However I'd stand by my claim that by collecting day diaries you can capture a moment in time and the stuff we have collected in the past has been used by writers and others to understand the political & ideological trends of the country in the 21st century in a more nuanced and complex way than any opinion poll could. We need to understand why people behave as they do. I like to think that you'd see this in the wider context of my political life - my growing involvement in Palestine solidarity, my anti-cuts activities and my attempts to use my role at Sussex to promote a radical view (eg in a student film, I took SF head on on whether protest should ever be 'reasonable' as he argued - the film won 3rd prize in a competition!) I also gave a lecture last month to lots of history undergrads using the blog written by a Palestinian woman doctor in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead and I am still corresponding with some of the students about it weeks later. I was told they'd found it very stimulating. You'll probably laugh at me trying to establish my socialist credentials but I think you and I, partly through our backgrounds, have much in common politically. It hurts me just a little when you seem to assume I don't share your analysis or that I am somehow lacking in political sense. We may differ tactically of course. You are right to say that there would not be a place in the Today prog for a radical analysis but I would rather get my mildly oppositional voice onto national radio and use that as a platform and as experience for other things (eg I did a workshop for the women against the cuts group recently on handling the media based on my own experience). It's tough finding ways to make a difference but feel I am doing more than I used to! Let's keep up the discussion. 3. His reply to that: As you correctly assumed it was not my intention to hurt you at all. I agree that we have a lot of similarities in our ideological positions and I think of you as an ally in many debates and discussions. So I apologise if my comments felt in any way undermining or humorous. They were meant as a serious contribution to a discussion about what things we do do. As good friends neither of us really have to justify what we do, to each other. Though it is interesting to discuss what we do and how we understand it and where we put our political energies. So for example going to a play by G about a Jewish betrayer during the second world war raised similar issues for me about the ways that dominant discourses are created and reinforced (here about Jews suffering in the war and therefore everywhere as victims). As I recall it B was quizzical about me going to it. This maybe similar to the way that discourses have been created over monarchies. I emailed G about my take on her play after the play and although she was hurt (it was her own writing which we know is a deeply personal thing) she has asked to discuss my thoughts more. Not sure whether this will happen or what it will achieve. But like yours G's play is in a public space with potential contact with many people and the potential to shape discourses and the opinions of many people. . Lets talk it's easier than e mailing. And it's more friendly. Hugs XXX Back to Saturday and let’s speed this up a bit: We came home by bus. I left to go out again at about 3.45 but forgot where I’d said I was going to meet this other friend whom I call J. Went to the wrong cafe but hadn’t yet sat down when I realised I needed to be back in town again so whizzed up the hill and jumped on a No. 7 bus which only got as far as the bottom of Edward Street when the driver said that if anyone was in a hurry they should get off now. The traffic was all jammed up on the Old Steine and when I walked along facing the pier, I could see a sea of police and police vans. A police women told me that there’s been a small confrontation between the fascists and their left wing opponents. Not much was happening when I got there but there was an air of heightened expectation and lots and lots of people were just milling about. The police were blocking entrance to St James’s Street perhaps because it’s a known gay community and there are rainbow flags everywhere, no doubt red rags to the fascist bulls. I phoned B to have a look on the website. The local police have a twitter feed on their activities as part of their community relations policy. My friend inside the cafe was oblivious to all the excitement in the street. I had some tea with him and we chatted a bit and then The street was opened again and I caught a bus home. We had a very pleasant evening in Lewes with our friends who cooked us a lovely meal. We went by bus and again I saw no special references to the Jubilee nor did I hear any conversations about it. When we were coming back past the Amex stadium at Falmer, again in the bus at about 11.45pm, the road was crowded with revellers overflowing from the Fat Boy Slim gig in the stadium. The bus we were on didn’t stop at Falmer because its upstairs was cordoned off due to broken glass. Not sure what had happened. Again there was a heightened level of excitement everywhere. The police had their hands full. Was the Fat Boy Slim gig related to the Jubilee celebrations???? Who knows. Sunday 3 June: Facetime on my new iphone4 with son in Oz: mentioned the Jubilee razamatazz here but didn’t discuss much. Breakfast as usual; weather not too good; read paper and noted Guardian coverage of Jubilee. Am curious of course about what’s happening in London. Thought about getting away by taking a daytrip to France on Tuesday so we spent ages looking up all forms of travel to France but trains and ferries booked up. I felt disappointed. B and talked about holidays later in year and decided to go to France. Did some emailing including to the director of the BBC4 documentary on the 1952 Coronation. Put advert for my old phone on the Gumtree website. Sunny weather – briefly so went out. Did some of my political work (online) and in the evening, watched a ‘Norwegian noir’ with husband on BBC4. Quiet day. Mon 4 June: At my desk very early to sort out a printer problem that had flummoxed me last night. Things are always easier in the morning. Did a reference to support a funding application for a friend who’s a retired prof at the Open University. After breakfast while the weather was pleasant, took some measurements of the front garden with B. Another quiet day just catching up at home (things had been very hectic during the festival in May). Late afternoon, went into town where most shops were open and bought a birthday present for my sister, some new toner for my printer and then sat for a while in Waterstones bookshop reading a book about Cuba and a book of recipes for cooking in a campervan. I bought a novel for a very dear friend who is going into hospital for an operation this coming week. Apart from shop displays in red white and blue, there was little to remind me of the Jubilee. However at the group meeting I attended in the centre of town, several of the women talked about street parties they were planning to attend or organise and several of them said they’d seen roads closed off for street parties. As I hadn’t been along any residential streets apart from my own, I hadn’t really come across much of this. Took a taxi home as it was getting late (after 8pm and I was hungry). The taxi driver was from Afghanistan. We had a good chat – he spoke at least five languages including Russian and English. His mother tongue was Pashtun. I was impressed. We talked about what life was like in Afghanistan today. After supper, B went out and I wrote a long letter to a friend in Australia. Went to bed at about 10.30 and listened to accounts of events in London until B returned. Heard that the Duke of Edinburgh had been taken to hospital. Was interested in the crowd roaring in response to Prince Charles’ tribute to his mother. Contined to read my novel on my Kindle – Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square. Tues 5 June: Up at 5: desk work again (am trying to write a paper); looked at Jubilee concert in pictures online on BBC website. Listened briefly to Annie Lennox on iplayer and chortled at Cliff Richard. B went swimming at the gym before breakfast. We found ourselves (unplanned) making the most of the dry weather and doing a huge prune of the bushes in our tiny back garden. Just taking off a few branches which overhung next door’s garage seemed to produce masses of greenery so instead of having an outing to Wakehurst Place as we’d planned, we used the car we’d hired for trips to the recycling dept to dump the greenery, and then to the garden centre to order pebbles for the patch in the front garden (also tiny). By the time we’d done all that it was raining and anyway a bit late for an outing, so I carried on working in the garden until the rain and wind put me off. B returned the car. My ad for my old iphone went live on GumTree at lunchtime and I was inundated with emails expressing interest, much to my delight. By 6pm, I had sold it for £80 cash to the first person who called by. I was very honest about the casing cracks too. The young man who bought needed a bit of a tutorial about what it could do. He’s not had a smart phone before. I couldn’t help thinking about the assumptions people make that young people know more than their elders about new technology! Later that evening he texted me to say he’s got it all working with his sim card and he was delighted. I sent a copied response to everyone else who’d expressed interest (some of them very insistently) saying it was sold and I took the ad down. One person thanked me for letting him know “You are a very kind lady” he said. I think that’s testament not to my kindness but to the fact that the internet is a rough place to be and ordinary common courtesies are uncommon. That evening after supper, we went by bus to the cinema at the Marina and with about 6 other people in the auditorium, watched the latest Mike Leigh film: “Angles’ Share” which I quite enjoyed though it wasn’t quite as ‘feel good’ as I’d hoped and although I have lived in Scotland, I did at times find the Glaswegian accents hard to understand. There were some excellent moments in it and the acting was terrific. So I am not a very good Jubilee Observer. Firstly I am uncomfortable about royalty anyway and see the Royal Family as emblematic of a society that is hugely divided in terms of wealth and human rights. Secondly I managed to remain pretty remote from most events related to it. When I opened the pages of our local paper later and it was headlined something like “Brighton goes overboard on the Jubilee” I was somewhat surprised as that hadn’t been my impression at all. Certainly there was much commercial display of red white and blue in shop windows and in adverts on the TV and in the press. On my route back from the bus stop to my home, I walk along a street of about 40 terraced houses. Only two had any kind of Jubilee decoration and they were side by side with a bit of bunting on their windows. I don’t feel any animosity to the members of the Royal Family as people. In fact I think the Queen is quite an impressive woman not that I really know her at all. I have been struck by how beautiful she was as a young woman. I am intrigued by royalist support and the tedious argument that we wouldn’t be better off with an elected president instead of a monarch because Stalin and Hitler were both elected. I never did believe elections were the be-all and end-all of democracy anyway. I was amused but a bit indifferent at the criticism later of the BBC for their coverage of the Thames flotilla with unexplained references to Dunkirk. It seemed to me to be no different from the way much news on television especially is completely dumbed down and trivialising anyway with silly glamorous female presenters and boring old farts of older male presenters. And then I read about the unpaid volunteers from – was it Glasgow – who’d been bussed to London to steward the Jubilee festivities and who’d been left to sleep under one of the Thames bridges. It justified everything I’d thought about the divided society we live in that they couldn’t even have been given hotel rooms. Jubilee? A sham! Oh dear... I’d better stop!