Searching for London’s soul

Reflecting on the UK’s long, hot summer, Clayton Goodwin finds a welcome new era of racial harmony mixed with right-wing bile. Which will prevail?

London and, indeed, the whole of the United Kingdom has been hot this summer. Very hot. Those of sufficient memory look back to 1976 for comparison – a whole half-century before.

It’s not too difficult, too, to sense a warming of the mood of the people after the frosty blight in relationships which preceded, and then followed, the country’s decision to quit the European Union a decade ago.

This morning I looked out onto the small patch of earth forming our garden, and saw butterflies and bees flitting among the flowers. It gave me some understanding of how the poet Robert Browning felt when he wrote God’s in his heaven – all’s right with the world. The ambience was enough to warm even my heart, chilled by recent ominous social and national trends.

A few days ago my wife and I took a trip with her Caribbean seniors group to Southend, a popular, traditional coastal resort, which I remember well from childhood excursions. This wasn’t the Southend of old, however. The present friendly diversity and inclusiveness were striking from the moment we set foot there, and were as integral to the nature of the place as the starlings scurrying along the seashore in search of scraps of food.

At the café where we stopped for a belated breakfast, we were joined by a group of youths with various disabilities, including Down’s Syndrome, and their carers. They were not shunned as they would have been not long ago, but welcomed and brought into the conversation. The temper of a community can be judged by how it treats its disadvantaged.

On the beach and in the amusement park, African and European day-trippers mingled freely without friction. Muslim women in conspicuous black veils helped their children onto the attractions, sitting next to their Christian and other counterparts, and then, without let or hindrance, joined the other mothers chatting together.

Groups of school-children of all known ethnic origins engaged in chasing, running and catching activities without distinction of difference. Right before us, a couple of young girls, Black and White, gleefully played the ‘pat-a-cake’ hand-game, and they were not alone.

Could this really be Southend in Essex – a county synonymous with right-wing, even racist sentiment, where since the time of Margaret Thatcher the terms ‘Essex Man’ and ‘Essex Girl’ had come to define a specific type of person?

Pouring bile

Only a few miles along the coast is Clacton-on-Sea, the Parliamentary seat of Nigel Farage, the politician mostly held responsible for the surge of threatening right-wing influence since Brexit. This is the world into which media, ‘influencers’ (whatever they are) and politicians seeking headlines and soundbites release their bile to pollute the air.

We didn’t see, at Southend, any sign of the small boats bringing in illegal immigrants said to bespatter the East Coast. It isn’t only here, however, that the truth has been traduced.

Never in my long life have I known London to be as socially harmonious – of course, there are the inevitable problems that beset every large city – as it has been under the leadership of Mayor Sadiq Khan, in spite of the mud-slinging and threats to his personal safety from a ‘certain section’ of society – and, by the way, I am not usually a supporter of his party.

The country, too, has been united with itself and the wider world this summer in its support of and interest in the Commonwealth Games,  which took place in Glasgow, and football’s World Cup.

Through the Games, the British public has been made aware of the significance of Africa and, with so many African-heritage athletes in the Great Britain (and Northern Ireland) team, of the integrity of the African diaspora within the national community.

While Nigerians led the African nations in athletics honours, there were first-ever medals for Rwanda and Gabon (and Tuvalu), showing how the scope of the Commonwealth itself is expanding. It cannot be mere coincidence that calls for the dissolution of the Commonwealth are now muted.

Incidentally, it is a pleasure to notice that Jeanette Kwakye, the former sprinter, is now one of the country’s most accomplished television sports commentators.

Sport has always brought the country together. It’s 60 years since, in 1966, we were graced by the presence in the same months of three all-time sporting greats – footballer Eusebio set the football World Cup afire, boxer Muhammad Ali defended his world heavyweight championship twice, and Garfield Sobers produced one of the most outstanding individual cricket all-round performances ever to lead West Indies on their triumphant tour. Could there have been a greater gathering of sporting genius of African heritage, or, come to that, of any heritage, in one place at any one time? The great Pélé, too, was present, ready to play, but was waylaid by injury sustained from persistent fouling by his opponents.

A gathering of greats

Poignantly, Sobers passed away, a few days short of what would have been his 90th birthday, while the World Cup was in progress, and was granted a State Funeral in Barbados, his homeland.

Sobers is regarded as the greatest cricketer ever to have played the game because of his excellence with the bat, the ball, and in the field. With his rise to this pre-eminence from humble circumstances, having lost his father in wartime action as a child, and his achievements matched by modesty and good humour, he has served as an example and inspiration for youngsters of similarly disadvantaged backgrounds in countries far removed from the Caribbean (as well as those nearer home). When he passed, sports fans everywhere felt they had lost a friend, as well as a mentor and master.

Earlier, as this summer started, our family had a party to celebrate my wife’s 80th birthday, and my 50th year in full-time journalism. It took place in Bexleyheath on the outskirts of London and was held on the Conservative association premises, put on by people who are Liberal Democrats, and the guests included the Labour Mayor of Gravesham. A visiting taxi-driver remarked he had never seen such a diverse gathering – in ethnicity, age and political opinion.

Bexleyheath – remember that name. Here a generation ago the local police inspector resigned to become an agent/candidate of the ultra-right and racist British National Party, whose national headquarters were then just a short distance away. It is close, too, to where Stephen Lawrence was murdered and our own mixed-race, then teenage son suffered a horrendous racist attack.

Which is the real London? The real UK? Does it have the harmony and diversity we witnessed in former hotspots of intolerance, or is it the viciously nasty place that is still portrayed by those who wish our values ill?

To some extent it depends on the example set by the country’s leader – though ‘leader’ is hardly appropriate for those who have held office over the last decade. Two years ago Keir Starmer won a sweeping electoral victory, a mandate for change and a more progressive attitude, which he threw away immediately by aping the policies of right-wing extremism. For whatever reason he did that, he deserved to fail, and did.

As for the new man in charge, Andy Burnham, only time will tell. At least he has started his innings batting on the front foot and, unlike his predecessor, he seems to enjoy the job.

In the new era, will people still be able to go on a break and enjoy a beach-side game with little children of contrasting ethnic backgrounds, or share in the fairground chat with mothers of different religions and cultures? Will the country still welcome the disadvantaged into its midst, support major sporting occasions in which all participate, and encourage a diversity of ethnicity, age and political opinion – or will the haters, the bigots and the downright liars have their way again?

At the end of Dr Faustus, Christopher Marlowe’s most famous play, the eponymous character, facing damnation, calls out to his paramour: “Come, Helen, come – give me my soul again”. And so should we. I think I know where that soul can be found. It lies not within the corridors of power or the mendacious media but among people doing the ordinary things of life … in cafes, on the beaches, during social occasions, and at the great sports events. We have seen it there this hot, hot summer, and, believe me, it works.

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