I need a holiday, a nuclear holiday
May. 10th, 2006 12:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaI've only just got round to reading the details of the local election results in Oxford. I voted, but I have to admit I found it terribly hard to care very much about these recent elections. My ward re-elected its Green councillor, but even had there been a switch to the close-running second (Labour), I doubt it would seriously have affected my life. Somehow it's difficult to believe that even had the council changed from NOC to one party that there would have been any appreciable impact on day-to-day life.
Whenever elections come round, I'm always reminded that I've only ever cared deeply about the result of an election once in my life, and that was the general election in 1987. I waited for the outcome of that vote in utter terror; I was ten at the time.
Junior school kids have a rare talent for picking select facts from the news, and making their own story to fit. In 1987, "the Yorkshire Ripper will get you" was still a common phrase in my class - for years Darlington was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea in the area between Yorkshire, where the murders occurred, and Wearside, where everyone "knew" the Ripper lived. That Peter Sutcliffe had been behind bars since 1981 had somehow passed us by. To us, he was still a very real threat.
I presume some similar process of logic, which I'm now utterly unable to follow, led to the firm belief among the "top class" of Cockerton School that if Labour won the '87 election, world war three would immediately follow. WWIII would, naturally, be a nuclear show. Brought up on Action Man and toy guns, the boys in my class thought that war would be great fun and were looking forward to it immensely. I can still see four of them walking round the playground the week before the election, arms about each other's shoulders, chanting 1-2-3-4, we want a bloody war. One of the dinner ladies told them off - but only for saying "bloody". They changed it to we want a nuclear war and everyone was happy.
Nuclear war in the late 80s was, to me, a very real prospect. Although I never saw things like the Protect and Survive film, much of that thinking was still in people's consciousness. Occasionally one still saw tips for how to survive or protect, although people were moving round to the idea that nothing would help. It was barely a year since the disaster at the Chernobyl power plant.
References to the nuclear threat were common - for years one of the ladies' toilets in our local Arts Centre had a scribbled message on the wall:
In the event of nuclear attack:
Close all doors and windows
Loosen tight clothing
Put your head between your knees and kiss your arse goodbye
Hardly original, but yet another thing that reminded me that said attack was imminent.
I remember being on holiday in Whitby one year, and CND had staged a demonstration to coincide with the rowing regatta. They handed out photocopied leaflets which read:
They'll give you four minutes warning. We're warning you NOW.
To get to Whitby, of course, we'd driven past the "golf balls", the three huge, white, geodesic domes of RAF Fylingdales which at that time formed the British arm of the nuclear early warning system. I was horrified to discover that all they'd do was give us enough time to send off "ours". I knew that my dad, then a British Telecom employee, had been travelling the area for months fitting the black boxes which would actually relay the alarm to rural areas. The system was in place, ready and waiting for when we needed it. I always saw it as a when, not an if.
Of course, I didn't know what the alarm would sound like. Nor did anyone else, so I guessed that in towns there might be some kind of speaker system. The summer evenings in '87 featured many cars driving around broadcasting loud canvassing - and every one made me jump, straining my ears until it told me about a local candidate instead of delivering a warning to get inside and wait for attack. Even these days, if I hear an unfamilar type of alarm, it is still my first gut reaction to wonder if it's the early warning system.
So, the war was imminent, and all this hung in the balance of whether Labour won the election. I wasn't sure what benefits Labour were offering which might outweigh such a disadvantage, but clearly some people were prepared to risk it - Darlington was (and still is) solid Labour country.
Although I know broadly what my parents' politics are, I have no idea how they voted in 1987. Our household wasn't an overtly political one, and I really knew very little about the situation of the day. Apparently my main contribution to political opinion thus far had been, on hearing Yesterday in Parliament, asking why the backbenchers' mummies let them behave like that. If I'd asked my parents about my nuclear fears I'm sure they'd have given me a much more realistic picture - but I didn't, because it hadn't occurred to me that what I'd heard might not be true. Hearing my parents talk about it would just make it seem all the more real, so I kept quiet.
My political grasp just about extended to understand that Mrs Thatcher had stolen our milk, caused the miners' strike, and closed so many of the pits which employed people in the north east. Yet the news that she'd been elected for a third term was nothing but a relief - war wasn't on the doorstep after all.
Whenever elections come round, I'm always reminded that I've only ever cared deeply about the result of an election once in my life, and that was the general election in 1987. I waited for the outcome of that vote in utter terror; I was ten at the time.
Junior school kids have a rare talent for picking select facts from the news, and making their own story to fit. In 1987, "the Yorkshire Ripper will get you" was still a common phrase in my class - for years Darlington was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea in the area between Yorkshire, where the murders occurred, and Wearside, where everyone "knew" the Ripper lived. That Peter Sutcliffe had been behind bars since 1981 had somehow passed us by. To us, he was still a very real threat.
I presume some similar process of logic, which I'm now utterly unable to follow, led to the firm belief among the "top class" of Cockerton School that if Labour won the '87 election, world war three would immediately follow. WWIII would, naturally, be a nuclear show. Brought up on Action Man and toy guns, the boys in my class thought that war would be great fun and were looking forward to it immensely. I can still see four of them walking round the playground the week before the election, arms about each other's shoulders, chanting 1-2-3-4, we want a bloody war. One of the dinner ladies told them off - but only for saying "bloody". They changed it to we want a nuclear war and everyone was happy.
Nuclear war in the late 80s was, to me, a very real prospect. Although I never saw things like the Protect and Survive film, much of that thinking was still in people's consciousness. Occasionally one still saw tips for how to survive or protect, although people were moving round to the idea that nothing would help. It was barely a year since the disaster at the Chernobyl power plant.
References to the nuclear threat were common - for years one of the ladies' toilets in our local Arts Centre had a scribbled message on the wall:
In the event of nuclear attack:
Close all doors and windows
Loosen tight clothing
Put your head between your knees and kiss your arse goodbye
Hardly original, but yet another thing that reminded me that said attack was imminent.
I remember being on holiday in Whitby one year, and CND had staged a demonstration to coincide with the rowing regatta. They handed out photocopied leaflets which read:
They'll give you four minutes warning. We're warning you NOW.
To get to Whitby, of course, we'd driven past the "golf balls", the three huge, white, geodesic domes of RAF Fylingdales which at that time formed the British arm of the nuclear early warning system. I was horrified to discover that all they'd do was give us enough time to send off "ours". I knew that my dad, then a British Telecom employee, had been travelling the area for months fitting the black boxes which would actually relay the alarm to rural areas. The system was in place, ready and waiting for when we needed it. I always saw it as a when, not an if.
Of course, I didn't know what the alarm would sound like. Nor did anyone else, so I guessed that in towns there might be some kind of speaker system. The summer evenings in '87 featured many cars driving around broadcasting loud canvassing - and every one made me jump, straining my ears until it told me about a local candidate instead of delivering a warning to get inside and wait for attack. Even these days, if I hear an unfamilar type of alarm, it is still my first gut reaction to wonder if it's the early warning system.
So, the war was imminent, and all this hung in the balance of whether Labour won the election. I wasn't sure what benefits Labour were offering which might outweigh such a disadvantage, but clearly some people were prepared to risk it - Darlington was (and still is) solid Labour country.
Although I know broadly what my parents' politics are, I have no idea how they voted in 1987. Our household wasn't an overtly political one, and I really knew very little about the situation of the day. Apparently my main contribution to political opinion thus far had been, on hearing Yesterday in Parliament, asking why the backbenchers' mummies let them behave like that. If I'd asked my parents about my nuclear fears I'm sure they'd have given me a much more realistic picture - but I didn't, because it hadn't occurred to me that what I'd heard might not be true. Hearing my parents talk about it would just make it seem all the more real, so I kept quiet.
My political grasp just about extended to understand that Mrs Thatcher had stolen our milk, caused the miners' strike, and closed so many of the pits which employed people in the north east. Yet the news that she'd been elected for a third term was nothing but a relief - war wasn't on the doorstep after all.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 06:12 am (UTC)When I was 10 I had absolutely no awareness of party politics. But then, in Guernsey the system is very much different. We moved back to England at the end of 1979 - a few months after Mrs Thatcher became prime minister - and in the early 80s I took quite an interest. I was a bit miffed that the '83 election came shortly before my 18th birthday so I could not vote, but I did get involved in canvassing and the like. I can't imagine it now: partly an age thing, I guess, but partly because there is so little division in politics now compared to then.
My recollection of the early 80s is that the nuclear armament issue was as big then as international terrorism is now and opinion was sharply divided between those who wanted unilateral disarmament and those who wanted multilateral disarmament. These opionions roughly corresponded to the political left and the political right. So yes, you know now that your impression as a 10 year old was a bit simplistic and there were huge social issues at the time as well - but I think you picked up on a very real issue at the time: there _were_ people saying that if labour won and we disarmed then WWIII would surely ensue (and there were also people saying that if the conservatives remained in power and we did not disarm then WWIII would surely ensue!)
no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 07:56 am (UTC)Blimey, yes. I'd actually forgotten all about that. I shall have to get reading, as I've no real idea what made that issue go away. It certainly wasn't disarmament :)
no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 08:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 08:57 pm (UTC)That's very polite of you. I'd say the divide was between those who wanted disarmament and those who didn't. Multilateral disarmament as conducted in the 80s was about reducing nuclear weapons, not eliminating them. No leader of a nuclear power has yet doubted the doctrine of nuclear deterrence (with the arguable exception of F.W. de Klerk, who canned South Africa's probably-single-digit secret nuclear weapons). As for the unilateralists: we're currently led by a former CND member who wants to replace Trident.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 06:47 am (UTC)The Cold War was always there, nucelar annihilation an ever-present threat throughout my childhood and early adulthood. The first time I took Viv anywhere was to see "When The Wind Blows" at the Liverpool Playhouse (my birthday, 30/6/1984, but I digress) which today would be an even odder choice of first date.
Other events we went to included concerts by Lindisfarne, who had a political side to their music. I also followed a lot of the more political music, you'll know the sort of stuff well.
The 1987 general election was the first one in which I hadn't taken an interest, as I had left home by then, away from the political activism of home - my mother was election agent in several elections and constituency party secretary.
Move forward to the present, or just a couple of years past. My sons have no expectation of the Russians (or Americans) blowing us up. The underlying theme of Lindisfarne's "Cruising to disaster" leaves them baffled. They have no concept of the fear with which we grew up. They have never heard the tests of the sirens which were a part of weekly life where I grew up, and which I haven't heard for many years...or even heard mentioned.
I think I'll stop now before this ramble turns into a trek.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 07:01 am (UTC)And this is even before one takes into account the curious illusion where it never seems like it's worth voting because my one vote never changes the result.
I've never yet got as far as actually not bothering to vote, but mostly because the short walk to the polling station is usually quite welcome.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 07:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 09:48 pm (UTC)But you should be right: constituencies, and hence majorites, in general elections are much larger, so ties and single-vote margins ought to be much rarer.
If you like this sort of thing, you could try moving to Ireland or Malta: they use STV (as does Northern Ireland for MEPs), which ensures that only about 1 in (n+1) votes are "wasted" in the sense of being counted either for a candidate who has already been elected or for a candidate who is not elected at all (n is the number of seats in the constituency). By comparison, in FPP the number of non-wasted votes is only equal to the tally of the second-placed candidate, plus 1 (so always less than half).
Of course you pay for this by voting for someone who isn't your first choice (because your first choice either is elected without your help, or else fails despite it). And it's actually quite difficult to work out who you voted for, especially with split votes. But in some abstract sense, you probably made a difference, because the chances are that at least one of the eliminations will be close.
Turnout in Ireland is not much higher than in the UK.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 07:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 07:31 am (UTC)I think your schoolmates were a bit behind-the-times though -- Labour had renounced its commitment to unilateral disarmament by 1987.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 07:39 am (UTC)See comment about the Yorkshire Ripper :)
I did wonder, actually, as I was writing whether I did mean the '87 election. I'm fairly sure I did, but I guess it could have been '83 and me blurring various childhood memories together.
Rambling...
Date: 2006-05-10 01:14 pm (UTC)Mrs Thatcher was all right because it was good to have a girl being Prime Minister. (Hahaha.) Also, the milk-stealing wouldn't have meant anything to me, even if I knew about it (which I don't remember); I had to bring my own (soya) milk in to school, and nobody liked their milk, anyway, they all just flicked straws at each other.
The first election I remember was the 1992 one; I was at a private school, and everybody said that if Labour got in they'd close down all private schools. (Hahahahahahaha.) Therefore, the argument went, if you supported Labour you should just fvck off out of the High School and go to Humphreys (the state school, which had a reputation for being pretty rough) instead. I had by that time absorbed some kind of vague idea (from my parents, and from trying to read the Independent) that Labour were better, without really knowing why, and I probably wouldn't have cared enough to stand up to other people over it on my own; but Debbie-who-I-had-a-crush-on also supported Labour so I sided with her against the true-blue majority.
We had a mock election one lunchtime and wrote the results on the blackboard in coloured chalk. Out of the class of 30 everybody voted Conservative except me and Debbie who voted Labour, a daft girl called Alex who voted MRLP, and a bitchy, bolshie half-Polish girl called Isobel who voted Plaid Cymru just to be awkward. (She ranted a lot about Solidarność and I don't think anybody else really knew what she was talking about; she was attractive and confident, and a lot of people admired her, but from a safe distance. She wasn't the sort of person who people sided with, partly because she didn't seem to want or need any support.)
In the run-up to the mock election, Debbie and I wore scrappy "Vote Labour" rosettes that we'd made out of scrap paper nicked from the Art room and safety-pins nicked from the Sewing room; people made fun of us, and that was okay, because there were two of us. But then a Young Conservative sixth-former called Jessica (who, I believe, later Went Into Politics) came and dragged me out of the classroom at lunchtime to "debate" with me. Having argued me into the ground without much difficulty (conclusively proving that a 13-year-old's dimly developing political awareness couldn't stand up to an 18-year-old's real-life experience of debating and canvassing and so on), she proceeded to shout at me for a while longer (long after reducing me to tears) about how I had no right to voice opinions about politics if I didn't understand it.
It's a message that stuck with me (and I suspect she was right about the message, though not the method), and even now I have horrible politics-related conversations with people (even
I do still vote, for all the good my vote does, even if it's mostly because even louder and scarier people than Jessica Whatever-her-name-was have told me in no uncertain terms that I have no right to live here if I don't, and that it doesn't matter if you don't know anything, you should vote anyway. :-/ I know more than I used to about what the different parties stand for, enough to feel I'm not just pulling names out of a hat, but it's still not something I feel comfortable talking about except in kind of vague and un-arguable-with terms.
School, eh. What larks.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 11:24 pm (UTC)A Labour Voter Quibbles...
Date: 2006-05-12 11:04 am (UTC)Ahem! In 1987 Michael 'Handbag' Fallon of the evil Conservative Party got in in Darlo for the 2nd time in a row... I was of quite the opposite impression to you guys re Labour, evidently. My nightmares came true post that election... Not that my dreams came true in 1997, but for one glorious night...
Alan Milburn never exactly struck me as being an especially sympathetic type, but Michael Fallon was an ARSE.
Re: A Labour Voter Quibbles...
Date: 2006-05-12 09:44 pm (UTC)Re: A Labour Voter Quibbles...
Date: 2006-05-16 04:03 pm (UTC)I agree with you entirely that, where possible (and it truly ought to be) an MP should live at least within spitting distance of his constituency, especially if s/he is to have any chance of comprehending quite what issues trouble his electorate, who, believe it or not, he is supposed to represent. I think that, on average, MPs earn their 60k per year, but an awful lot cannot really see beyond the money and power that such a career can bring. On the other hand, who ever said that politicians were nice and decent in actuality...
Re: A Labour Voter Quibbles...
Date: 2006-05-21 05:39 pm (UTC)Good idea: if Blair had to live in Co. Durham, he wouldn't have nearly so much opportunity to run the country.
Re: A Labour Voter Quibbles...
Date: 2006-05-21 06:06 pm (UTC)Blair, however, does at least return to Trimdom occasionally. I expect the previous poster was particularly bitter because Darlington's MP doesn't even have a notional base in the constituency, and is practically never seen there (he lives in Newcastle).
Re: A Labour Voter Quibbles...
Date: 2006-05-24 12:53 pm (UTC)Of course, laxity was especially demonstrated to me when I lived in ther London Borough of Lambeth (get the string section ready). No candidates AT ALL whether for the Council, the European Parliament, the Borough Tiddlywinks Assiociation so much as stuck a flyer through the door or on a local lamp post at election times. Back in Darlo, forms are delivered to make sure that people are on the electoral roll, canvassers go around and around and all kinds of leaflets and pamphlets appear in order to inform the electorate of various policies, pledges and misdeeds of the rivals. 'Twere the same in Oxford when I lived there as a Proper Person. But not a sausage in Lambeth. Makes me wonder if they actually wanted people to vote... I was actually in the odd twilight world of wondering who the heckers my local MP was let alone if they lived anywhere near the constituency...
Re Mr. Millburn. Violent agreement.