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Post by Dan Dare on Mar 3, 2024 15:18:44 GMT
Spending your formative years in a tenement slum in Glasgow would make it difficult for you to believe such things ever existed.
You forgot the bit about long shadows on county cricket grounds, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist.
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Post by sheepy on Mar 3, 2024 18:02:02 GMT
Tommo is getting into a bit of a lather about being British, something he doesn't have any control over poor lamb. Not me dan. I didnt start a thread to whinge about village lawns and warm beer under the sun in the fifties. you will have us all crying in a minute about Dunkirk. True but you forgot to mention Scots Nats also rely on a sense of community which has to have distinct lines from a collective identity. |
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Post by Pacifico on Mar 3, 2024 18:47:26 GMT
Which leaves you with no conclusion - yet you seem to have come to a conclusion. I'm trying to explain how you are using bad reasoning and you are responding with bad reasoning. I don't have a conclusion because like everyone else I don't know what the future holds, but countless past gloomy predictions have proven unfounded and from what I've seen the next generation seem very capable.They are going to need to be. The kids today have drawn the short straw - in almost every conceivable measure they will have a harder time of it than we did. The past might not be golden but it was a damn site better than what the future holds now. |
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Post by Red Rackham on Mar 3, 2024 19:27:07 GMT
Zany has already posed the question about whether we should still be proud to be British. It seems that the prevailing sentiment here is that there is no longer much to be proud about. Several members have looked back nostalgically to their childhood, whimsically remarking on how things were better then.
I'd like to get Zany's reaction to exercise in radical nostalgia, the author relating childhood experiences that would not have been uncommon in the 50s and 60s. In fact it has many parallels to my own.
I'd ask him if he views that 'turning the clock back' so that more of today's young folk might experience such a childhood is not something that we should all be striving for. After all, it seems to articulate what many politicians promise.
...I now see, on reflection, how fortunate I was in my early childhood. I grew up in the heart of England, in an extended community of home, village, parish, town and sublime shire countryside. This was a community at ease with itself, proud and protective of its heritage, full of self-confidence and naturally optimistic for the future. As youngsters we took wonderful things for granted. We had yet to acquire the grown-up wisdom that knows life is not constant – that good times are special and precious; that they should be treasured and nurtured. We lived in a world of unconscious enchantment and openhearted emotion.
Our young lives were infused with a rich cultural heritage of extraordinary variety and profound relevance. At school we would listen, enchanted, as stories of the faerie world were recounted to our eager upturned faces – stories of betrayed innocence, of cruel exile, of selfless valour, of kindness behind ugliness, and of wickedness masked by flattery and deceit. We sang songs with unrestrained gusto of courtship and love, of the land and of the sea, of life and death, and of both the golden age and of times of cruel darkness (‘ring a-ring of roses’). And we danced with joy to the music of pipe, fiddle and drum.
In our school lessons we were shown the actuality of our world; why we had food in our bellies, clothes on our backs and a fire in the grate. We were shown the lives lived in the wider community – of the tough grimy underworld of the coal miners; of the brave trawler-men, their boats and the fish of the cold grey sea; and of the toiling farmer and the crops in the soil and beasts of the field. We were taught to read carefully, write beautifully, and do our sums without mistake. School outings were extended family adventures to redbrick labyrinthine palaces and sun-dappled parks, lazy Thames’ boat trips through Goring to see heron skim and hear the lock keeper’s beery tales. And once, I now recall, we even journeyed to far away Greenwich to marvel at huge telescopes of brass and wood, and gaze up at aged paintings of sail-ships at war. A precious heritage was being passed on for safekeeping.
The reality of nature was all about us. We moved through a landscape of sympathetic cultivation – of carefully pruned orchards, managed woodland, tilled fields and well tended livestock. This was a familiar landscape; we knew the names of the trees, the flowers, and the wildlife of meadow, spinney and brook. The hedgerows and fields were our own secret larder – blossom, berries, fruit, nuts and mushrooms marked out the year. We felt the all-enveloping hush of the night, saw the darkening frost-hardened fields ghost-lit by an infinite sky of stars, and heard the first whisper of snow on icy pane. We were drenched by sudden spring showers, browned by summer sun; stung (much too frequently) by angry bees, and chased by the farmer’s ill-tempered old ram. We saw animals born, animals mate and animals die. We knew the truth of the countryside – in all its bloody directness.
Permeating all of this was the experience of community, embodied by the ‘ordinary’ people, characterised by the custodianship of custom, tradition, and common decency. A network of gossip linked housewife to housewife, to deliveryman (grocer, baker, butcher, milkman, coalman, fishmonger), to the village midwife, the schoolteacher, the farm labourer, the village ‘bobby’, the postmistress and the postman.
A living web of wise-council and common knowledge existed throughout the community, self-adapting to best concentrate local information to the immediate area – few things of local importance would (for long) go unnoticed. A sense of both permanence and steady improvement pervaded; newcomers to the community were rare, but made most welcome (my own family being just such an example, having moved down from far-away Lincolnshire). Change was mostly from the ‘inside’, predicated on local experience and local wishes.
There was an assumption of safety and responsibility in this community. I recall walking home from junior school, often by myself – and why not? We trusted adults, and we lived in a community that expected that trust never to be betrayed. Children were given the time, space and protection to be children, to learn good things and to grow into wise adulthood. They were acknowledged and treasured as the community’s future.
This place, the Vale, the town and the countryside was, for us children especially, a place of natural enchantment. And it is the people of this place that, over very many generations, largely determined the form and function of the town, and of the surrounding countryside.
We grew up without anguished self-doubt, we lived our identity and had no thought of having to explain who we were (who would want to know?). Our Englishness was not elective or even consciously reflected upon – it was our actual being, of our belonging in an ancient realm of Middle England – of community, history, culture and place. We were who we were.I may not be studying for a philosophy degree, but having read Lucy Baileys thesis, or this small sample of it, it certainly reminds me of many aspects of my childhood. Like her I also feel fortunate to have grown up in a rural setting, and the longer I think about it, the more the memories come back. Unfortunately, I'm not nearly as gifted a wordsmith as Lucy, but I will be forever grateful we grew up in that village. I don't live far away from it now, less than 15 miles probably. In spite of the memories I wouldn't go back because it's not the same. Nowhere ever is second time around. Besides, it's no longer a village, yes it's called a village because it keeps property prices up, but it's not the same. |
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Post by johnofgwent on Mar 4, 2024 7:20:40 GMT
Anybody else noticed how nobody ever lives in a golden era, they just remember one? Ok. I'm going to have to edit this a few times to say everything. The phone is playing up FIRST as Thomas will acknowledge I see myself as British and the Welsh can go to hell. Most are already there. As such I did not place upon the descriptive tale of an English youth the narrow focus of the bitter nationalist who burns cottages in anger and their great great great (twenty six more) grandparents running and living to sire their ancestors instead of standing and dying at the hands of mine as WE came off OUR boats. But I was struck dumb at the similarity of that tale to my bringing up. Substitute the Welsh Valleys from where my mother's family hailed. Now add the fact that a good friend once told me if I watched Daniel Craig in Layer Cake I would find in that film a member of Blaina, the village in which that friend still lived, matching every main cast member and that included one whose part I myself could portray with zero acting required. But I would also say in Dylan Thomas' "Dan Yr Wenallt" which my grandmother taught me enough of her first language to read in his, I see in his fictional Llaregub a person from Rhiwbina, the village of my youth, for every one of his villagers living Under Milk Wood. Now I only lived in that village for five years, I spent the next 17 in a suburb of Cardiff apart from time abroad while dad did some of his secret squirrel stuff I would have no idea about until I took over from him in my own small way. But again the things I remember match closely to Dan's opening I feel sorrow and pity for those who mock those if us who remember such times and such experiences in stark clarity, for it can only mean they themselves never had such amazing experiences. EDIT I said this phone would play up. The point I would like to finish on is simply this. I remember my childhood and my VERY early adulthood as a golden age because it offered so much hope and opportunity, which successive governments if both colours have destroyed. I weep for the fact neither my grand daughter nor her grand daughters will have it so good as I did, and the anger that causes us tbe stuff that empiwers ISIS and none of tbe stupud fuckers in SW1A 0AA and less still the twats in tbe bay care about this being the case. When their head is removed and stuck on a pole they will have an expression of utter astonishment |
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Post by thomas on Mar 4, 2024 7:55:45 GMT
Not me dan. I didnt start a thread to whinge about village lawns and warm beer under the sun in the fifties. you will have us all crying in a minute about Dunkirk. True but you forgot to mention Scots Nats also rely on a sense of community which has to have distinct lines from a collective identity. dont get your point sheepwash. I grew up among the Pakistani muslim community in govan , and many of them as ive said were more Scottish than what we were , and supported Scottish independence. didnt you notice Scotlands first minister ? Yousaf is more Scottish than house jocks like gordon brown. |
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Post by sheepy on Mar 4, 2024 7:58:27 GMT
True but you forgot to mention Scots Nats also rely on a sense of community which has to have distinct lines from a collective identity. dont get your point sheepwash. I grew up among the Pakistani muslim community in govan , and many of them as ive said were more Scottish than what we were , and supported Scottish independence. didnt you notice Scotlands first minister ? Yousaf is more Scottish than house jocks like gordon brown. Well, call me crazy, but I gathered you didn't get the point from your first post, it doesn't change the fact that you were part of a community. |
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Post by thomas on Mar 4, 2024 8:04:55 GMT
Anybody else noticed how nobody ever lives in a golden era, they just remember one? I feel sorrow and pity for those who mock those if us who remember such times and such experiences in stark clarity, for it can only mean they themselves never had such amazing experiences. John I simply said I dont recognise dan dares navel gazing , and his cultural description of some quaint English village lifestyle in the fifties is alien to me. Im asking what it is we are supposed to be looking back fondly to ? On the old forum , do you remember I once talked about Raymond depardon? Depardon was a French photographer , who was commissioned by the times newspaper to take pictures of Glasgow in 1980. This was one year into the thatcher government , 50 years of continuous labour councils , labour held 44 Scottish seats , we had just had five years of a labour government in Westminster , so the blight decline and decay you see in the pictures can't be laid solely at the feet of thatcher. Labour were and remain a big part of the problem not the solution. The pictures were judged that bad the times never published them. This is the `wonders` I remembered from my childhood . The idea I want to go back to this is fucking laughable. ![]()   |
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Post by thomas on Mar 4, 2024 8:06:17 GMT
dont get your point sheepwash. I grew up among the Pakistani muslim community in govan , and many of them as ive said were more Scottish than what we were , and supported Scottish independence. didnt you notice Scotlands first minister ? Yousaf is more Scottish than house jocks like gordon brown. Well, call me crazy, but I gathered you didn't get the point from your first post, it doesn't change the fact that you were part of a community. Aye. Scottish and European. |
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Post by sheepy on Mar 4, 2024 8:08:25 GMT
Well, call me crazy, but I gathered you didn't get the point from your first post, it doesn't change the fact that you were part of a community. Aye. Scottish and European. Make up your mind, just a minute ago, it was Pakistani Scottish. |
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Post by thomas on Mar 4, 2024 8:14:23 GMT
Aye. Scottish and European. Make up your mind, just a minute ago, it was Pakistani Scottish. I think the confusion is all on your part sheepy. |
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Post by sheepy on Mar 4, 2024 8:16:40 GMT
Make up your mind, just a minute ago, it was Pakistani Scottish. I think the confusion is all on your part sheepy. Well, you would, but you hadn't even noticed that in the British governments efforts at the time to break down communities they also created Scottish Nationalism to a new peak. Which in actual fact you showed us the pictures. |
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Post by thomas on Mar 4, 2024 8:27:09 GMT
I think the confusion is all on your part sheepy. Well, you would, but you hadn't even noticed that in the British governments efforts at the time to break down communities they also created Scottish Nationalism to a new peak. Which in actual fact you showed us the pictures. How did they ? Scottish nationalism as a movement is three centuries old , the first home rule bill went though parliament in 1714 , and there was armed uprising and rebellion for the first 120 years of union. for some reason , people in your country seem to think it began with thatcher , Salmond and sturgeon. If your community is being broken down , it's not our fault. We aren't breaking it down. Your government apparently is. Its keir starmer who is about to take you populists back into the EU , not muslims jocks or anyone else. |
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Post by sheepy on Mar 4, 2024 8:30:49 GMT
Well, you would, but you hadn't even noticed that in the British governments efforts at the time to break down communities they also created Scottish Nationalism to a new peak. Which in actual fact you showed us the pictures. How did they ? Scottish nationalism as a movement is three centuries old , the first home rule bill went though parliament in 1714 , and there was armed uprising and rebellion for the first 120 years of union. for some reason , people in your country seem to think it began with thatcher , Salmond and sturgeon. If your community is being broken down , it's not our fault. We aren't breaking it down. Your government apparently is. Its keir starmer who is about to take you populists back into the EU , not muslims jocks or anyone else. Now you are rambling, I said a new peak. |
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Post by thomas on Mar 4, 2024 8:35:03 GMT
How did they ? Scottish nationalism as a movement is three centuries old , the first home rule bill went though parliament in 1714 , and there was armed uprising and rebellion for the first 120 years of union. for some reason , people in your country seem to think it began with thatcher , Salmond and sturgeon. If your community is being broken down , it's not our fault. We aren't breaking it down. Your government apparently is. Its keir starmer who is about to take you populists back into the EU , not muslims jocks or anyone else. Now you are rambling, I said a new peak. im not rambling. Those pictures were from 1980. Ive explained why I posted them regarding dans navel gazing. Fuck knows what they are to do with independence support being taken to a new peak when indy support was still around the 20 odd percent mark nearly thirty years later.? When you voted for Brexit , you probably did more damage to the union than Maggie thatcher ever did. |
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