Back to Back the Bid

There's a very good reason why there have been no posts on this blog for months.  I've spent most of the summer on a 600 mile narrowboat journey from Stoke-on-Trent down to Godalming in Surrey and back, punctuated by intermittent returns home by train to cut the front lawn, top up the tomato watering system and work my one day per week (usually as two together per fortnight) at Citizens Advice.

On my travels, I've sketched out plots and made navigational notes for some more adventures for Daphne Randall, my narrowboat-dwelling amateur sleuth, and completed the first draft of her next, an old-fashioned whodunit which unfolds along the Trent and Mersey Canal between Fradley Junction and Shardlow.  With Stoke-on-Trent bidding to be City of Culture 2021, here's an extract from the first chapter in which Daphne and her crew set off through Stoke-on-Trent, in the spring of 2015, en route to the last match of the season at what was then the Britannia Stadium.  I hope it gives a flavour of the canal corridor through the city and its under-appreciated charms!

    Harry brought my tea up as we were chugging through Longport, passing the first of the bottle kilns visible from the canal, which peeps out from behind a tumbledown brick factory and stands in a squalid yard scattered with junk. Under the road bridge, boats line the wharf of a busy boatyard, some for brokerage sitting on blocks out of the water, showing their dumpy black hulls. Beyond the stone-faced chandlery is Steelite’s robust, modern, red-brick factory, quiet for the weekend and thoughtfully reflected in the still pool of a wide winding hole. No old-fashioned potbank this although, only a gentle curve ahead, is Burleigh’s Middleport Pottery, a Victorian survivor rescued from redundancy.

    ‘Did I ever tell you that was where I first saw this boat?’ I asked Harry.

    ‘You did, duck. At least twice. And that funny story about your mum and the coach party.’

    Just past the restored pottery, the waterside warehouses fall to desperate disrepair again, the fine brickwork braced with iron struts yet still crumbling. I gave the building as wide a berth as I dared, knowing the cut beside it was full of debris.

    ‘Take the tiller for a bit, pet. I’ll wash the mugs up and look in on the dog.’

    Custer was snoozing contentedly in the cosy warmth of the cratch, betraying Harry’s soft-heartedness with the dusting of dog-biscuit crumbs by his snout.  I couldn’t be angry with either of them.

    Harry brought us around the long, sweeping curve to Festival Park, through an open post-industrial landscape which once blazed with hot light and fire as the Shelton Bar steel works. He checked his watch. The carvery pub by the marina does all-you-can-eat breakfasts and Harry was feeling peckish, but he opted to press on.

    ‘I’ll get an oatcake from Kay’s boat when we get to the Brit,’ he decided, steering us on under the noisy A53.

    Before we reached the first lock, the deep one at Etruria, I fetched Custer from the cratch and brought him back to the rear cabin. Harry and I are both careful boaters and take locks cautiously but you can never eliminate all risk of mishap in them and I was haunted by the thought of the poor little chap being trapped where we couldn’t reach him in the event of a problem. When I dropped Harry off with his windlass, I moved Custer into the engine room, closing the doors of the stern hatch with me outside.

    There was a boat coming up. Harry was chatting to a woman as they worked the paddles together, filling the chamber and lifting her boat and partner up to my level. Harry opened the gate and the woman stepped back onto her narrowboat. The couple waved as they passed me.

    ‘Where are they off to?’ I asked Harry, as I drew level with him.

   ‘Through Harecastle and out into Cheshire as soon as they can. They’re doing the Four Counties.’ He seemed downcast. ‘I was telling them about some of the things there are to see here - the potteries, the museums, the pubs - but they weren’t really interested. They said other people told them Stoke was a dump and they shouldn’t hang about.’

    Harry seemed to take that personally. As he wound me through the deep lock and the one below, he made a point of showing me the pale and pretty briar roses in the hedgerow which flanked the towpath, of listening appreciatively to the clear songs of the blackbirds and smiling at the dainty, cheeping blue-tits fluttering through leaves made luminous lime by the sunlight shining through them. He praised the restoration of the bone mill at the museum and the devotion of its volunteers, the quality of the towpath, upgraded as part of the national cycle network, and even the artistic merits of some of the graffiti. I hadn’t the heart to point out that on every other run through this section, he had been the first to grumble about the litter, dog mess, speeding cyclists, tumble-down buildings and mindless spray-painted tags.

    Harry was still maintaining this spirited defence of his city when we reached Lock 37, a desolate sight as it cowered in the shadow of the paint-daubed railway bridge. I thought he would be thwarted by that but I had under-estimated him.

    ‘It was about here that I first figured out that I fancied you,’ he said with a grin of fond reminiscence, pushing the gate closed behind me. ‘I reckon I’ll always have a soft spot for this place.’

He leaned across and kissed me.

    I smiled as I watched him set his windlass to the spindle and await my signal to turn. If Harry could find a place in his heart for lock 37, there was surely nothing that could make him fall out of love with his home town. I was lucky to have earned a similar level of devotion.

.

Catching Up (Part 5) - A long-awaited Decision

    'I think this is it, Luvvie...'
    Lyn Walker held the brown envelope her husband had brought in from the hall with the daily junk mail.  Her hands were shaking slightly.  She needed to know the decision it contained. She had been expecting it for weeks.  It meant so much she was almost too afraid to read it.
    Her so-called medical assessment for Personal Independence Payment, which had taken place more than two months earlier, had been an awkward affair.  The assessment centre had been awkward to get to, with too little parking and that too far away to walk and then a steep, uneven path to the door which Terry had to push her up in her wheelchair.  The young woman who carried out the assessment, who Lyn thought introduced herself as 'doctor' someone - Lyn had been too nervous to remember her name, even though she meant to make a note of it - scarcely raised her eyes from her keyboard and seemed to be finished very quickly.  Lyn was certain it had gone badly on that evidence alone, although none of the workers at the Solent Welfare Rights Project seemed to know who the slightly-built young doctor might be.  She wasn't one of the usual suspects whose ill-considered reports were at the root of so many legal challenges.
    While she waited for her PIP claim to be decided, Lyn continued to receive her Disability Living Allowance; the middle rate for daytime care needs, the higher rate for mobility as a Motability car.  She checked her account anxiously on the days it was due to be paid, half-expecting it not to have gone in.  She had seen people when volunteering who knew nothing of the decision on their new claims until their DLA payments unexpectedly ceased.  So much hinged on her getting DLA.  Terry, her husband, now loitering awkwardly at her side, claimed Carer's Allowance for looking after her, although he didn't receive a penny of it.  It overlapped with his Employment and Support Allowance.  To their great relief, that had recently been reviewed and awarded without a face-to-face medical.  Terry was still in the Work-related Activity Group but, as a carer, he didn't have to do any actual work-related activity. 
    Lyn had explained that too him when he started to get aerated about the prospect of being sent on courses or to do work experience.  That was just as well, since she would never be able to manage at home all day without him.
    'I'm glad you understand all this, Lyn love...'
    Lyn did understand it, far better now than she had ever done.  She worked alongside the advisers who had helped Terry and herself through several crises, representing others just as she had once needed to be represented, at least when her health allowed.  Her colleagues were generous with their support, quick to share their knowledge and experience, and happy to step in if she was too unwell to see a case through to the end.  If what was in this envelope was wrong, she knew they would stand by her through every battle she needed to fight to put it right.  That would almost inevitably mean facing a three-member tribunal.  It was rare for a poor decision to be corrected at the reconsideration stage; in fact, the team had recently learned that there were perverse targets within the DWP which actually mitigated against them putting things right at the first opportunity.
    'Open it then, Lyn love!' urged Terry.
    She was sure he wouldn't be happy.  Her own expectation was that she might get the enhanced rate for daily living, if she was lucky - thirty pounds more than her current middle rate care - and the standard rate for mobility.  That would be thirty pounds less than what she got for mobility now and would mean she couldn't get a leased car through Motability with it.  Terry, who almost always did the driving, would be really angry about that, even if they were no worse off overall.
    Lyn picked a corner of the envelope open and ran her finger along the top, opening it with a slightly ragged tear.  She took out the letter inside, the usual dirty grey paper the DWP used for letters, which was meant to show they didn't waste money on fancy stationery but, according to Hilary's husband who had worked there, cost no less than white.  She unfolded it anxiously, still trembling.
    'Oh!'
    'What?'  Terry snapped.  'If those buggers have...'
    'I've got the enhanced rate for both!'  Lyn could scarcely believe her eyes.
    'Blimey!' said Terry, peering over her shoulder.  'So you have!  Well done, Lyn love!'  He kissed the top of her head.  'Let's have a brew!'
    Lyn smiled grimly to herself.  It was a sad state of affairs that the maximum award of a benefit for severe disability was cause for celebration.  She looked on through the letter to see where she had been awarded points.  There were four for needing assistance to cook a meal, three for needing assistance in and out of a bath or shower, two for needing an aid to use the toilet and four for assistance to dress her upper body; thirteen points, where twelve were needed.  On the mobility side, she was judged able to stand and move more than one metre but no more than twenty; twelve more precious points.  On good days, she could do better than this but fewer than half of her days were good days.
    'It'll be weird, not battling the old Social for once,' laughed Terry as he brought their mugs in.  He had opened the new pack of chocolate biscuits as part of the celebration.
    'I'll still be battling them, Luvvie,' said Lyn.  'I'll just be battling for someone else rather than me!'      

Daphne's General Election Dilemma (or "It's Déjà Vu All Over Again")

Another 'which way to vote?' conversation between two old friends, Daphne Randall from the 4mph Thrillers and Welfare Rights Lit's Hilary Carrington.  In case you're new to this blog, their previous discussion is here.

    'Hi Hils!'

    'Daphne!  How lovely to hear you!  Are you well?'

    'Never better, pet.'

    'And Harry?'

    'No worse than usual.  We're out at the Brit for the match tomorrow, then off to Coventry and the Ashby Canal for a week.'

    'I'm really rather envious.  I could do with a break myself.  It's all go at the Project.  We're still, trying to get to grips with this new fully digital Universal Credit system.  Our work is more IT helpdesk than welfare rights at the moment and, as you might imagine, the Community Café - especially the foodbank - is dreadfully busy.'

    'We're spared that until next spring, thankfully - and maybe longer, if the bookies have called it wrong with the Election!'

    'Wouldn't that be a relief!  I have to say, I'm surprised Harry's able to take a holiday just now - I would have thought he'd be hard at it, with an election to cover.'

    'He's hard at it, alright - his garden hasn't looked so tidy in years and, with it wet today, he's even started decorating his spare room.'

    'However does he have the time for that?'

    'He's resigned, pet.'

    'Resigned!'

    'Aye.  On local election day, the Gazette carried a Tory election flyer as a four-page wrap.  Our Harry's not always on our wavelength, Hils, but he prides himself of taking an even-handed and independent line, so he told his editor this tacky ad had cheapened the paper and undermined his neutrality and integrity.  He came home in a blaze of righteous indignation, had a whisky, took his shears to the brambles out the back, went through them like napalm then borrowed a rotavator of the old lad next door and churned up the lawn.  It scared the daylights out of the dog!  He's got it all laid out as flower beds and a kitchen garden now and, when it gets dark, he's either catching up on Gardener's World on the iPlayer or Googling "Constructive Dismissal", unless I take him round to the pub.'

    'He must almost be old enough to retire, though?'

    'Only a couple of years off, pet.  He hoped to keep working a while yet.  He's not got much saved up, after his divorces and such like and I cannot keep him on my wage.  He'll have to get a job of some sort.  He was joking about putting up for Council last night.'

    'That's ironic, considering how you two met!  He's certainly got the political knowledge but which party would he support?  You're always pulling his leg about him being a Tory - he isn't really, is he?'

    'After this business, I'd say not.  He was even cheering Jeremy Corbyn on Channel 4 last night, though that was when he said he'd keep his allotment if he became PM, rather than for anything he said on defence.  I cannot see him joining the local Labour team, mind.'

    'Out of loyalty to you?'

    'Partly that.  Partly because he cannot forgive them wasting so much money on those new offices.'

    'I rather liked the multi-coloured one!'

    'That's easy to say, Hils, when it's not your public services being cut to pay for it!'

    'Fair point, Daph.  Poor old Harry, though!  He must be missing the buzz around the General Election.  I see a couple of your local seats are officially marginal and at risk of going Conservative this time around, if UKIP votes go their way.  I always assumed yours were all safe Labour.'

    'Far from it, pet.  There's a rogue right wing up here that does all kinds of strange stuff and the left is no more predictable.  I'm not even sure how I'm voting myself.'

    'Really?  I would have thought that, nationally anyway, Labour had done quite a lot to win you back.  If the leaked manifesto is anything to go by, they'll pick up any of my colleagues' votes not better used tactically.  Finally, some proper pledges on reversing more of the benefit cuts than just the Bedroom Tax!  Whatever is stopping you this time?'

    'Well, you know how the BBC cannot seem to hit town anywhere without finding some old lad or lass to say they've always voted Labour before but cannot vote for Corbyn?'

    'Indeed!'

    'I'm the equal and opposite reaction to that.  I've been reluctant to vote Labour - except as a lesser evil - but now, under Corbyn, it's finally looking like a genuine force for good again.'

    'I do agreed, Daphne.  And I am starting to get really rather suspicious of those interviews.  I wonder whether they show people saying that more to encourage others to think it than because it's so prevalent.  They never ask what exactly these people don't like, or which actually policies they disapprove of.  And they interviewed a couple in York who carried on about working during power cuts in the nineteen-seventies but looked younger than us - and we were still at school then!'

    'Plenty of voluntary sector organisations are afraid to speak out and tell the truth for fear of losing funding.  Is it any wonder if the BBC is the same?'

    'If you feel that way, Daph, what's the problem with voting Labour?  Is it Brexit?  We were both awfully upset with the Referendum result and I would love to be able to vote again, when people can see what a mess it really all is and that they haven't got extra money for the NHS, just fewer doctors and nurses - but at least Labour seem keen to keep us in the Single Market, like Norway.'

    'It should be an easier call this year but my worry is that I'll vote for the local Labour lad, he'll get in - but nationally, Labour won't - then he and the other so-called "moderates" will go off to form a new version of the old SDP, blaming Corbs for the collapse of the party and taking no responsibility for creating the split narrative the media have been running throughout the campaign.  It won't be the 1970s all over again, it'll be the 1980s!  I'm not even sure they'll stand by their leader if, by a miracle, Labour wins.  What if they still form their own party, or vote with the Tories to keep benefits low or the railways in private hands, or for a "no deal" Brexit because it's the will of the people?  I'm not sure I can trust them not to.  I'm still feeling the only way I can demonstrate what I really believe is to vote Green.'

    'Which is fair enough, unless your Labour-lite candidate's position is so precarious he gets defeated by a Tory.  You fear your Labour candidate might renege on these promises or even quit the party, but you know a that Conservative MP would oppose everything you hold dear.  I think you have to chance it.  Blairite or Thatcherite isn't a happy choice but it looks like the only safe one.  Mind you, I'll probably be holding my nose and voting LibDem.'

    'Just as long as we get a second Referendum and not a second coalition, Hils.'

    'They did promise not to.'

    'They're politicians, pet.'

Schrödinger's Fox and Other Animals

I was stopped on my way into the office this morning by a pleasant, studious-looking chap with a microphone, who introduced himself as being from Radio Stoke, before asking courteously if I had heard about Theresa May's plan to give MPs a 'free vote' on fox hunting and what I thought about that. 

Unfortunately, in addition to making me sound like Darth Vader's long-lost sister (I'm sure he has one, with Star Wars having almost as complicated a series of misplaced relatives as Classical Greek tragedy), the cold I am currently fighting off has dulled my wits slightly, so I did my best to actually answer his question. 

With hindsight, that was a mistake.  Not because I don't have an opinion - I do.  It's further down and will explain the title of this post.  My mistake was not responding by questioning why he hadn't been loitering about outside the CAB in December last year, when the local rate for the Benefit Cap was slashed by £6000 (Child Tax Credit/ Child Benefit for two kids), or whether he had taken his trusty vox pop microphone out on the streets to find out if people approved of the cuts to benefits for widows and orphans last month? 

My point, in short, should have been that I find it bizarre that it's so much easier engender debate and elicit sympathy when the issue is cruelty to animals.  Cruelty to humans - whether that's through sanctions, the Bedroom Tax, cuts to disability and sickness benefits or the new 'two child limit' and 'rape clause' for CTC and Universal Credit - raises barely a shrug of the shoulders.  Moreover, we're told it's generally popular with voters, who approve of cutting benefits to encourage the workshy to take jobs and the feckless to stop having kids.  Animals are defenceless, they would argue, so we have to protect them. I get that: I don't disagree.  But human children are also pretty defenceless and last century we started taking serious measures to protect them too, by making sure their parents had enough money to keep them in the necessities of life and to put a roof over their heads.  Now, we often don't - indeed, if we cap a family's benefits, the first thing stopped by the state is a slice of the rent money. 

How are people content to let that happen?  I will take a great deal of convincing that the fault doesn't lay at the door of media representation of people on benefits.  Imagine if instead of the usual seasonal celebration of British Wildlife we had Bad Springwatch, where we saw foxes going berserk in chicken coops and ripping up new-born lambs - but not hunting wild prey and absolutely never their pretty, joyful, gambolling cubs.  Birdlife would be represented by chip-thieving seagulls hanging about seaside resorts and feral pigeons crapping on statues of national heroes, not chirpy blue-tits or majestic kestrels, while the evil alter ego of Chris Packham (a Richard Bilton for animals) would exhort people not to put seed and scraps out for the birds, or snacks for hedgehogs, on the grounds that it encourages dependency. 

That, folks, is the equivalent - in animal terms - of the TV output about claimants. 

What about the foxes, though?  Well, I'm not in favour of fox-hunting.  To me, not only does it seem barbaric to the wild animal to chase it for fun, it's surely cruel to both dogs and horses to ride them at speed across a route that hasn't first been checked for hazards, such as barbed wire fences, slurry pits and broken glass, and dangerous for them and their riders.  A planned drag hunt, following a scent trail, mitigates these risks and prevents the risk of trespass onto land where a troop of horses and hounds aren't welcome.

What never fails to amuse me is that if the subject arises amongst people with divergent views (I sometimes go horse-riding, so do encounter people strongly in favour), two completely contradictory defences of the practice are offered.  I'm either told 'the fox usually got away' or, alternatively, I'm assured that fox-hunting is the most effective way of controlling the rural fox population. Hence, 'Schrödinger's Fox' - simultaneously alive and well, having cunningly outwitted the pursuit, and dead.

Perhaps the pro-hunt lobby should pause to consider the effect of their preferred method of control.  Those foxes that do get away are the swiftest, the sharpest, the 'fittest' in the most Darwinian sense.  Those killed by the hunt are the slowest and the least fit.  You are, therefore, breeding a cleverer, faster rural fox, a wiser and wilier foe, generation by generation.

You should be worried.

Politics and Principles

I'm not always kind to the political figures who have walk-on appearances in my novels.  If you've read either the welfare rights lit stories or the 4mph thrillers (or even both - hello, greatest fan!) you'll know what a venal, conniving, disloyal and unscrupulous bunch of villains scuttle through the corridors of power in my fictional councils.  There are a few valiant exceptions - after all, did not the redoubtable Daphne Randall hold a seat on Stoke City Council in the parallel universe of Grand Union?  However, in the aftermath of the Local Government elections - and some very local in particular - perhaps the grounds for my cynicism have become more apparent.

In the village where I grew up, the first borough councillor I recall seeing elected was a LibDem, right up to the point where the Tories seemed to be in the ascendancy, when he swapped his gold rosette for a blue one and retained his seat.  A few years later, as the tables turned, he threw the blue rosette away, blew the dust off of the old gold one and regained his seat in the council chamber.  If you were being charitable, you might argue that he found common ground with the Tories in the John Major years only to return to the liberal fold when the likes of Michael Howard and IDS were Conservative leaders.  Alternatively, you might think he was merely an unprincipled opportunist. 


I find myself uncharitably disposed towards those who jump straight from holding elected office with one party to campaigning to be elected for another without a decent period of transition and reflection in between.  Perhaps that's because my own political journey moved at positively narrowboat pace, from leaning towards Labour before I could vote (late 1970s), becoming interested in the case for nuclear disarmament (early 1980s), voting Labour the first time I could vote (1983), joining the Labour Party and meeting my husband at a Labour Party event (1987), campaigning for the Labour Party (late 1980s to mid 1990s) and being a local candidate for an unwinnable borough council seat (1988), giving up my party membership (mid 1990s), voting Labour in a General Election for the last time (2010), voting Green for the first time (2015), joining the Green Party (2015). 


With a lot of overlap between the values of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour and the policies that have drawn me to the Green Party, I find myself with a foot in both camps, hoping that the Greens will prevail where Labour are historically unlikely to do well (and against avowed Blairites), while hoping Labour will hold firm and make gains too.  In the short-to-medium-term, the only vaguely realistic hope of preventing further NHS privatisation, further social security cuts and the immoral waste of precious resources on Trident is a left-leaning Labour Government requiring SNP, Plaid and Green votes for a Commons majority.  To me, being triumphalist about Labour's poor showing this week would be like engaging in an exuberant goal celebration after scoring against your old side in front of their fans, even if their losses had come at the expense of progressive - rather than regressive - opposition. 


So I really don't get how any politician of integrity can, overnight, defect straight from holding office for Labour to doing the same for the Conservatives (or, for that matter, vice versa).  I find it extraordinary that anyone can switch right to the Tories in the light of their assault on the NHS, public services generally and the most disadvantaged citizens of this country - including children.  If you are desperately unhappy with Jeremy Corbyn as your party leader, maybe you might step aside and consider whether to change your voting allegiance.  But surely, if you are so much more comfortable with Theresa More-UKIP-Than-UKIP May as your party leader that you're now willing to represent her party, you should never have claimed to be a Labour councillor - unless, of course, Labour and the Tories really got so close in outlook and policies in the Blair years that their policies and candidates were interchangeable and natural Tories were comfortable flashing red rosettes to steal working-class communities. 

What the big picture hides are all the small local disputes that muddy the waters of local politics.  Apparently, Labour losses in the Welsh valleys are attributed locally to issues with bin collection, a strictly local issue of the 'tough on dog poo, tough on the causes of dog poo,' variety favoured by that chameleon former councillor from my youth.  The Tories may crow about winning one local seat around here and Labour right-wingers mutter darkly about their national Party leadership, but there isn't a great deal poor old JC can do if two former Labour councillors - now running as a Tory and an Independent respectively - face off against the new official Labour councillor on the basis of local, not national, feuding.  When drawing conclusions from Local Government results, absurd situations like this get lost in the bigger narrative although, where they arise from personal rather than policy differences, they bring politics as a whole into disrepute and stoke the general mood of cynicism. 

The fictional Gerry Matthews would fit in nicely; he'd just have to swap the purple rosette on his shiny suit for a blue one.  I'm sure plenty of real Kipper councillors will be quick to do just that.

#NotPortsmouth #NotSunderland

As an adopted Potteries resident originally from Southampton, who occasionally takes time off from benefits geekery to write 4mph thrillers staring a Geordie lass, discovering that the current joint front runners for City of Culture 2021 are Portsmouth and Sunderland was something of a call to arms! 

It's not that I wasn't already backing the bid - I am and I genuinely believe a win would be a huge boost to this misrepresented city - but seriously, Portsmouth...?

So here are a pair of characters you might (or might not*) recognise, at the Stoke-on-Trent for City of Culture 2021 launch event...

    'I cannot see a thing from here.  Why do I always get the tallest bloke in the crowd, carrying his kid on his shoulders, standing in front of me?  I'm moving round a bit, pet.'
    Daphne Randall had thought she had picked a prime spot to watch the show, with a clear view of Hanley Town Hall.  Five Pierrot-faced drummers in illuminated suits were pounding out a samba beat and exhorting the crowd to clap along in unison.   Daphne stretched and craned her neck for a better view.  There seemed to be movement up on the balcony above the front door.  As her companion had remarked, the eerily floodlit Victorian Gothic edifice bore more than a passing resemblance to the Addams Family's mansion.
    'That's the new MP for Stoke Central, duck.  Gareth Snell.  I might try and grab a quote for Monday's edition.  Ruth Smeeth is over there too.  I reckon she'll have a word...'
    Daphne grabbed his arm.  'Not so fast, Harry Biddulph - it's your day off and we're on a date!  One of your mates from the Six Towns Gazette will be on the case; don't you fret about that.  Stick with us, or I'll lose you in this crowd.'  She steered him away.  'Why are all the MPs in this city so tall?  They make me feel like a hobbit!'
    'We might be getting some new ones soon.  They might be nearer your size - or even shorter!'
    'I'm happy enough with the Red Giants, thanks!  They're better than Blue Meanies, anyways.'
    'It would be headline news, duck.  A good story...'
    'A good story indeed!  Get away with you, Harry!  I know when you're winding me up.'
    The drumming ceased.  The Town Hall glowed in fiery tones and, from the balcony, a young woman began singing a lament.
    'Well, that's brought the mood down and no mistake!' grumbled Harry.  'What was that all about?'
    'It was the story of the Little Mermaid.  The Hans Andersen fairy-tale, about the sea princess who becomes human to woo a prince but is doomed to die if he marries someone else.  Not exactly a favourite with us feminists!'
    'What's that got to do with Stoke?'
    'Nothing.  No more than an electric samba band.  It fits with the theme of the performance, I suppose - Something in the Water.'
    Harry scowled.  'That's the trouble with these arty events.  They're all put together by blow-ins from out of town who know nothing about local culture.'
    'What local culture is that then?'  Daphne bit back, smarting at the blow-ins reference.  'An out-of-key chorus of Delilah in a football ground named after a telephone betting chain?  You know perfectly well there's more to it than that, and that your culture is made by born-and-bred Stokies and the people who've moved here.  That Northern Soul show you had on the radio driving in, for instance - it's local culture all right, but with Black American roots, and the gems in your Staffordshire Hoard are from all over the known world.'
    'Give over with the equal ops lecture, woman!' Harry sighed.  'I aren't getting at you.  It's just all this weird stuff will go over the heads of ordinary folk.  And it's all going on Up 'Anley, as usual.  It's about time they took these things out to Bentilee or the Abbey, Fegg Hayes or Blurton.  What do you reckon those lasses outside the bingo hall are making of this funny bloke in the dressing gown?  And what the fook is he up to now?  It looks like he's stripping off!'   
    'Mind your language, pet - there's bairns about!'
    'They didn't think of that when they included this lad.  If it weren't for that shell, he'd be leaving nothing to the imagination!'
    The performer was standing on a classical plinth wearing a white body-stocking, a wreath of gold leaves on his head and a gold scallop shell at his groin.  Another man, dressed as a butler, seemed to be inserting a hose into his bottom.
    'That'll get the attention of your ladies by the bingo hall, pet!' laughed Daphne, as a stream of water jetted from the shell.  Moments later, fountains were erupting from the golden crown and from the man's outstretched arms as well.
    'Well, that's different,' Harry remarked.  'I conner manage that, even on seven pints of Titanic!'
   'Do shut up being snarky.  They're building up to the finale.  Don't you think that's rather beautiful?'
    The man on the plinth had stopped spouting water and stood with his head bowed.  Dancers in white with pale umbrellas fluttered around him.  Against the darkening sky and blue-toned projections, they luminesced under a shy crescent moon, peeping between the clouds.
    'I suppose so, duck.'
    Daphne frowned at him.  'You'll never win if you cannot be more enthusiastic than that, man!'
    'Why does it matter to you if we do?  I'd have thought you'd be set against pouring money into this when essential public services are being cut.'
    Daphne watched the strange tableau before them.  The almost ghostly figures, fountains behind and around them and streaming from their fingertips.  Wasn't it all an extravagance this city couldn't afford?  The City of Six Towns was an outsider for the accolade anyway.  The cost of this show alone would probably employ a couple of social workers for a year, or keep a Children's Centre open, or even secure her own post and that of several colleagues.  On the other hand, what was life without art, laughter and fireworks?  Why shouldn't there be enough for both in a rich, first world country - even in Stoke-on-Trent?
    'We cannot have Sunderland winning it, pet.  I'd be mortified.  I have to do whatever I can to stop that!  Stoke can do it.  It just doesn't know it yet.  So you sometimes need outsiders like me to tell you how much beauty and talent you have here.'
    Harry bent forward and kissed her, just as the first of the fireworks ignited.  She jumped, accidently smacking him on the nose.
    'If you say so, duck,'  He put his arm around her shoulder.  'I'll back this bid.  I saw what happened in Hull, though.  If the buggers think I'm taking all my kit off and letting someone paint me blue in the name of art, they're very much mistaken!' 
     

*If you haven't met Daphne and Harry yet, the Kindle version of "Grand Union" is free today.

Catching Up (Part 4) - A Progressive Alliance

Another little short story from the Solent Welfare Rights Project and their allies, as some of them contemplate an early General Election...

    'Put the TV on,' Martin Connolly instructed the priest.  'There's something big happening.'

    'It's a little early yet, son, and we don't usually put it on at lunchtime anyway.'  Father Cornelius remained unflustered, despite the adviser's sharp tone.  'I prefer people to chat with each other or be allowed to sit and eat in peace.'

    'But May's supposed to be making an important announcement,' Martin argued.  'There's speculation that she's calling a snap election.'

    'She can't be doing that,' Father Cornelius answered patiently.  'They passed a law to stop it and she's said, time and again, that there won't be one.'

    Nevertheless, he switched on the television in the lounge corner, where people waited for their turn to 'shop' at the Foodbank when it was busy.  The picture was indeed of a podium outside 10 Downing Street but there was no sign yet of the Prime Minister.

    'Something good on, nipper?' asked Terry Walker, pausing on his way to the storeroom with a little trolley stacked with plastic crates.

    'Martin says Herself is after calling an election.'

    'We're having one in a couple of weeks already, aren't we?' Terry said.  'Paula and the kids have been out leafleting for something or another, anyway.'

    'That's the Local Elections,' Martin explained.  'This is a General Election.' 

    'Right,' said Terry.

    'A chance to get the Tory's out and stop this Hard Brexit bullshit!' Martin insisted.

    'Right,' said Terry again.

    To Martin's amazement, Terry shrugged and shuffled away to the storeroom without waiting to see what Theresa May actually had to say.

    'Well, I suppose we should be grateful that it wasn't the Four Minute Warning, with the way things are in the world right now.'

    Mike Walker reached out and switched off the radio in the site hut as a gentle cue for the Construction Co-operative workers to finish their teas and return to their tools.  Despite the news and its implications, he couldn't help smiling at the makeshift poster John 'Johnno' Jones had stuck on the cabin wall.  It was a screenshot from an advert of a massively built woman with frizzy red hair wearing a hard hat, high-vis vest and safety boots with the words She's So MoneySupermarket! printed underneath.  Mike hoped Sally Archer would see the funny side when she returned from her honeymoon. 

    Despite her size and the flaming red hair, the big woman in the advert didn't really look like Sally, although the strapline certainly worked.  Sally had  recycled a surprising amount of her wedding and improvised the rest, arriving in a horse-drawn carriage revealed as a made-over Traveller's pony racing cart by its rubber tyres, in a vintage dress that once belonged to one of her numerous Irish aunties which had gained an extra 300mm of lace around the hem and almost the same to the sleeves.  Wedding guests and Foodbank 'guests' mixed at a reception in the Community Café, munching samosas and wedding cake and dancing to a scratch ensemble lead by brickie Joe Lennon, who styled themselves The Blacklisted Beatles.  It had been a delightfully artless, somewhat anarchic celebration. 

    'Who do you reckon you'll vote for, Mike?' 

    John Archer, who had been a proud if sometimes bemused father-of-the bride, rose to his feet rather stiffly.  Only a couple of years from retirement, he was clearly finding the contortions required in his trade a challenge.

    'That's a tricky one.  I guess it'll have to be the LibDems.'

    'They sold us out to the Tories in twenty-ten.  And they're against Brexit.'  

    Despite working happily alongside a couple of colleagues from the EU, John had voted 'out'.  Mike, firmly in the Remain camp, decided against rerunning that debate.

    'I know but they're still the only party that can beat them in this seat.'   

    'Chip said that.'  John always referred to his daughter by her nickname.  'Last time she voted Green and I voted Labour, but she said we ought to have voted tactically and that if we all had, the Tory woman wouldn't have got in.' 

    'She's right, in a way,' said Mike.  'If I voted with my heart, I'd probably do the same as she did.'

    'Really?'  John's expression suggested he thought Green politics was for youthful idealists, still his perception of his astute and practical daughter, rather than for working men.

    'Absolutely.  I've got my children's future to think of.'  They were growing up so fast.  Even little Sophie was at school now.  'The problem is, what if the UKIP vote goes to the Tories?'

    'I can't see that, mate.  Most of the blokes I know who voted UKIP were Labour men before.'

    'Will they be this time, though?'

    John Archer shrugged.  'Buggered if I know, nipper.' 

    'That's so unfair!'

    Shane Walker had divided his Easter holidays between revising for his GCSEs, gaming with his friends and leafleting for the Labour Party with his mum, sister and, occasionally, his Dad.  Mum's Borough Council seat wasn't being contested this year but the neighbouring two were and Mum seemed to think they were in with a chance of winning at least one of them, as there was a block of student flats in it.

    'She's a Tory,' said his mother, turning the car engine on again and preparing to pull out of the Co-op carpark.  'Of course it's unfair.  She knows we've spent most of our funds and energy fighting this election so we'll struggle to find the resources to fight another one so soon.  If we can stop fighting each other, that is.'

    'I mean it's unfair that she's called it now when I'm still too young to vote!  It was meant to happen after I was eighteen!'  Politics was like everything else; Shane felt like an adult but got treated like a child, with other people - his parents, his teachers and politicians - making decisions about his future and shaping his life for him.  He was going to say 'fuck' but knew his mother would tell him off if he did.

    'I know, Shane,' said his mum.  'It was the same for me in nineteen-ninety seven.  I wanted to vote then, but I was too young.'

    'We still won.'  Shane felt that his denied vote was more crucial this time around.  'Can we win this time, Mum?'

    His mother didn't answer straight away, then she said, 'I don't know.'

    'Is Jeremy Corbyn really crap, or is it just the media putting him down all the time?'

    'What do you think?'

    She had always encouraged him to think for himself but Shane knew she was a fan of the party's elderly leader and didn't want to upset her.

    'I think he is a bit crap sometimes,' he started, cautiously. 'Like when he reads out questions from people.  They're good questions, sometimes, but he lets the Tories wriggle out of answering them properly.  He reminds me of Mr Garton, my maths teacher.  He tries to treat the kids like grown-ups, but the idiots in the class take the piss and Garton has no idea how to handle them.' 

    'So you think he should be more aggressive?' asked Shane's mum, presumably meaning Jeremy Corbyn not Mr Garton.

    'Not like rude-aggressive.  He needs to be tougher, but in a good way.'

    'Is he a poor teacher?'

    Shane was surprised at that question.  He'd thought they were still talking about politics.

    'No, he's alright.  He's got a way of explaining stuff that I get.  I should get a B in it.'

    'So is the problem Mr Garton, or the kids that don't want to learn?'

    'I suppose it's the bad kids, really.'

    'So what do you and your mates do when the bad kids give him a hard time?'

    Shane could have lied but his mother wasn't stupid.  'We laugh.'

    'Don't you think that encourages the bad kids?'

    'Yeah, but...'

    'Rather than improving your own chances of getting the grades you need?'

    'I suppose...'

    'So you're making life difficult for a decent man and spoiling your own chances rather than standing up against the bullies?'

    'You don't understand!'  It wasn't fair.  He was helping her and, instead of being grateful, she was giving him a hard time about school.

    'I'm not getting at you, Shaney.  I'm answering your question about Jeremy Corbyn.'

    'Uh?'

    It took Shane all of the drive home to work out what she meant.