London Diary 28/10/22
Not London.....The Norf!
(Diary entries are off-the-cuff ruminations, not to be equated to an article, opinion piece, or analysis, even if they might resemble them at times - ed.)
“Yes, I know. I am an absolute shit. I agree.”
I pre-empt Brits by repeating the refrain above when I inform them that I have never been north of Cockfosters in London (the most northern tube station in Greater London), never further south than Gatwick, never further west than Chelsea, and never further east than Canary Wharf (until my Ramsgate sojourn last month) despite having been in this country dozens of times over the past twenty years or so. “You haven’t seen the REAL England!”, they insist. And they would be right.
They have been right up until yesterday. I hopped on a train (the only way to travel on Blighty) and headed Norf to parts unknown….well, somewhat known due to the horrific amount of British culture that I have absorbed over the years via books, magazines, television, and film. Hip to the many stereotypes about the Norf and northerners, I braced myself for impact upon arrival at destination.
The rudimentary understanding of the Norf for the casual involves scenes of post-industrial wastelands populated by obese footie fanatics on the dole who supplement their income by way of petty drug selling, surviving on McDonald’s and lager. This is an insult to a region that has provided so many cultural titans over the centuries (search the internet if interested, this is a diary entry and is purposely low-effort). The Norf is also THE historical home base of the Industrial Revolution, specifically Manchester. At the same time time, Blackburn was the Saudi Arabia of coal, and Blackpool had Europe’s largest train station.
The Norf IS the story of de-industrialization. When the UK moved away from industry towards a finance-based economy, Britain’s manufacturing centres first collapsed economically, and then socially. A good paying job at a long-established factory was replaced with minimum wage service economy gigs for those that could not get a position in government work sorted out for them. “Figure it out yourself”, was the motto (I just made that up, but it’s true regardless).
Overnight, future prospects disappeared for the less educated, but also for those with somewhat better schooling. At least for the latter, London was calling as the booming capital sucked out whatever talent it could from whichever corner of Britain talent could be found in. For the proles, tough luck.
“Shit luck” was what I thought when I put my first foot down in places like Warrington, Preston, Blackpool, and Blackburn. These were the engines of empire, powering the British to their 19th century zenith, leading the world in invention, innovation, technology, and capitalism. And now?
Nothing is permanent and the world does change. I just used two cliches in one sentence and should be executed on live TV for doing so. Put me in front of the wall and I’ll shout out these same two cliches until I bleed out because they are true and purpose-fit for what has happened to the Norf. Americans will instinctively understand what has happened here because it is the exact same thing that has happened to much of the Midwest, particularly the Great Lakes region. All the same social maladies are present: armies of elderly on motorized scooters weaving in and out of shopping malls, parking lots, and shopping mall parking lots, single mothers on benefits, people far too obese for their age waddling around, advertising their piercings, their tattoos, their ill health. Unfortunately, the list of obvious poor indicators goes on and on.
Maybe the situation in larger centres like Manchester, Liverpool, or Leeds is different? The Conservative-led UK Government is actively investing in the Norf1 in order to complete the demolition of the “Red Wall”, that band of northern cities and towns that has reliably voted Labour until very recently. Those cities have a mass all their own, one that can and has somewhat shielded them from the ravages of de-industrialization.
Instead of visiting those places, I wanted to focus on smaller locales as I’d be able to gain a greater understanding with much less time investment. Preston, Blackpool, and Blackburn were all known to me thanks to footie, and they are just the right size to contrast and compare with one another, to get a proper first snapshot of the Norf(west). The people are absolutely lovely, friendly to a fault. “Where are you from?”, they’d ask me upon hearing my accent and trying to match it with my name. A genuine and innocent curiosity emanates from them, leading to them asking questions that can get you cancelled nowadays in many other places. “Life’s not too good up here”, they’ll say to me, but with a natural cheeriness almost entirely absent from those living in wealthier places, and who have ‘more important’ jobs than do these people.
“You want to help these people!”, shouts a voice in my head.
I’ll return in due time to continue my cultural anthropology of The Norf for your reading pleasure. In the meantime, back to London.
At least it was while Boris Johnson was still at 10 Downing Street
Hit the like button to like this diary entry and consider subscribing if you haven't already done so.
Saturday column is next, and a new interview to follow.
My wife and I took a bike ride yesterday on a newly-finished bike path that ends near the ocean north of Boston at the still gritty city of Lynn.
Lynn, Lynn, city of sin
You never come out the way you came in
You ask for water, but they give you gin
The girls say no, yet they always give in
It is like those cities in the Norf still reeling from the loss of manufacturing and, while close to Boston, has been able to avoid the White Collar Plus updraft of hospitals, universities, and tech.
But. as you say of the Norf: the people!
We wandered into a bar for a beer and a bite to eat. The aging but cheerful barkeep said to go to the deli next door and order food, and it would be passed through a hole in the wall and brought to us at the bar. I got a lamb shank the size of Mike Tyson's upper arm with potatoes and cabbage for 15 bucks, and that was more than enough for the two of us. A pint of Pabst Blue Ribbon on tap was three bucks. All the while we were being chatted up by the regulars, already a few drinks in a little after noon. Where were we from? Did you know this is the oldest bar in Lynn? Come back later when you don't have to bike home and order a *real* drink here--Betty basically fills a tumbler with booze, thinks vaguely of a mixer, and that is that.
Indeed, at mid-day, Betty already had two handles out on the bar--scotch and vodka--so as to be easily accessible for the needs of the regular customers.
It was like Cheers., where everybody knows your name, except that Cheers was of course essentially fake and this was the real thing. Meaning, among other things, that along with the honest good cheer there was the unmistakable aroma of desperation, too. Look closely and you see that many of the friendly locals have seen their share of hard times.