Merry Christmas! Fröhliche Weihnachten!¡Feliz Navidad!

 Its been a while hasn’t it?! I’ve been learning Bengali and knitting, watching Tolstoy performed live above pubs and meeting many friends for festive meals. I thought given the season I might share a little festive anthropology with you on Christmas Traditions.

The nights are closing in and its so cold you’re losing touch with your toes! It must be nearly time for a winter celebration; for a Merry Christmas! Ever since I first travelled to Europe as a teenager I have been fascinated by our shared European heritage and the way it is expressed in such different ways. Never was this truer than with our divergent celebrations of Christmas. So I decided to explore three different expressions of Christmas; from English, German and Spanish perspectives.

Disclaimer: Every family is different and doesn’t necessarily do the things listed below. In no way is this supposed to be an exhaustive description.

England

Christmas is quite a contracted celebration in England. Although children mark advent with Advent Calendars most of the focus in on 24^th-26^th December. The Christmas Trees are put up in family homes from the start of December. On Christmas Eve traditional families might go to Midnight Mass but most families start preparations for Christmas Day. Christmas Eve (24th December) is the time when Father Christmas visits overnight leaving presents for good children in stockings (large socks). He and his reindeer are often made welcome through the provision of food items laid out for them such as mince pies and a carrot for the reindeer. Both Christmas Day and the day that follows (Boxing Day) are national holidays in England. The 25^th December is the central event and the day on which presents are given and received. Christmas Day is also the day when the large Christmas meal is eaten, typically including; Turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce, ‘pigs in blankets’ (chipolatas wrapped in bacon) and Brussels Sprouts. These are followed by mince pies, a Christmas pudding (a fruit dessert) which is often set alight with warm brandy as part of the ceremony, and sometimes Christmas cake. Modern English Christmas Days are also accompanied by lots of seasonal television such as The Snowman.

Germany

The way other countries celebrate has always interested me and having a few friends with connections across Germany I asked them what made Christmas. One of the most popular activities was going to the Christmas Fair and drinking warm spiced drinks with friends. This activity has not been missed by the opportunistic tourism boards in England who advertise flights to German markets; where you can apparently buy authentic wooden toys and eat mountains of wurst, Stollen and gingerbread.  The Christmas Tree is an important tradition introduced by the Germans to European Christmas accompanied by its companion, mulled wine. Christmas extends out as far as St Nicholas Day, a day unrecognised in England. In some areas, the gifts from St Nicholas arrive on St Nicholas Eve. If presents have not been given on St Nicholas Eve, then it is on Christmas Eve, the focus of the Christmas time, when gifts are shared. Christmas also stretches out to Epiphany in January; when people, particularly children, join parades and other activities around the town dressed as the Three Kings. German Christmases seem much longer than English ones.

Spain

Spanish Christmases begin with the celebration of their patron saint, Mary on December 8^th, the day of the immaculate birth. As a thoroughly Catholic country the celebration of Christmas follows the church calendar quite tightly. On Christmas Eve (Nochebuena) the main Christmas meal is eaten often featuring lamb or seafood; quite separate from the American influenced Turkey. On the subject of Christmas food, Spain is famous for its turron or nougat. Most homes will feature a beléne or nativity scene and in some areas the scene also features the El Caganer, or defecating shepherd. The origins of this unusual onlooker to the nativity are cloaked in the mists of time. The Spanish never miss out on a chance to dance and so unsurprisingly have a Christmas dance, called the Jota. The modern world has had its impact on the Spanish too with the El Gordo Christmas Lottery. The 28^th December is also a celebratory day on Santos Inocentes which acts a bit like ‘April Fools’; often a child is made mayor for the day and his/her wishes are honoured as if they were the real mayor. This is just as well as children have to wait until the feast of Epiphany for their gifts in Spain. The night before there are processions of children dressed as the kings. The reindeer and St Nic are replaced by tired camels and kings who are the present givers. The camels are placated with straw left in shoes; a little reminiscent of the German tradition of food left in shoes. The 6^th of January is also a national holiday celebrated with hams and seafood.

The contrasting traditions of the three nations are neatly summed up in one little tradition; the Christmas Cracker. In Spain they appear not to exist. The first Christmas Crackers probably contained sweets and the ‘cracking’ feature was decidedly secondary. In England they are contextualised by their season, ‘Christmas’ and have lost all reference to sweets. An archetypal cracker would include; a Christmas hat, a tacky toy and a cheesy joke – the joke is meant to be bad, that’s the point! German Christmas Crackers are called ‘Knallbonbon’ a name which reflects both the ‘cracker’ and sweet components of the tradition. Although I have to admit I’ve never seen a German Christmas Cracker!

So, that’s my little walk around Christmas traditions in Europe; there are some interesting similarities and peculiarities I think you’ll agree! What do you do in your home that’s unique to your family, or country? Do you know where those traditions come from? Why not ask a family member or a friend about their traditions?

Have a very Merry Christmas and see you in 2012!

Top Boy: Good exposure for East London?

Recently I have secured a full-time job working with young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) in Tower Hamlets, London (this is a deprived part of England’s capital city). Working in this environment has made me view media on the subject of London's East End with quite different eyes.

Over the last two weeks Channel 4 have aired a four-part drama called ‘Top Boy'. It follows a few months in the life of a thirteen year-old boy called Ra’Nell. Ra’Nell’s life is far from easy; his Mum is hospitalised with a mental illness and his best friends get caught-up in selling drugs. Not every drug-dealer is stereotyped; there’s Heather, the pregnant mum seeking a better life for herself and her baby and will grow cannabis to get there, or the twelve year old pushers who join the gang for a little bit of pocket money and kudos. Neither is it wall-to-wall violence; the plot-line is nuanced, and addresses issues such as missing father figures and the desire to belong as well as the ‘reality of London life’.

The writer of the series, Ronan Bennett says he got the inspiration for the programme one afternoon walking through his neighbourhood in Hackney when he saw a twelve year old selling drugs outside the supermarket. Two-years of research followed, meeting all-sorts from dealers to journalists, social workers and school-children. The programme is deliberately not preachey. In the Guardian, Bennett writes, ‘We don’t want to discuss the issues thrown up by what I’ve seen and heard. That’s not drama. Drama is story, character, the creation of a world. We want to take viewers viscerally and emotionally to a place they have heard a lot about but don’t really know’. So in many senses it is a work of fiction, but it is going to provoke a reaction.

The photo at the top of the page was taken outside my work place in Tower Hamlets. Here it is almost as if the poster were a mere window onto the world. From my own new knowledge of this world I’ve ‘heard a lot about but don’t really know’ I’d say the characterisations were fairly accurate; the characters sound like East Londoners and their stories of broken families and peer-pressure are familiar. This is, however, only half the story. As Phil Hogan’s generous Guardian Review puts it, ‘the neighbourhood remained strangely benign: community thrived, kindly voices filled the market, mothers went to church and kept a tidy house. The sun shone on this picture of hardship’. And this is exactly my point, amid all the disaster there is great hope, rising from the streets of East London. When speaking to one local resident about the programme, interestingly he felt it was really unhelpful; when I asked about it he just said, ‘its not like that for everyone; its a bit too dramatic’. If this is a world we ‘don’t really know’ are we being informed by this programme or are we just being given new prejudices?

Today has been an interesting day for me in terms of East London and its reputation. Two young men from East London have been confirmed as dead, after being hit by a train on the line I use to get to work in the mornings.
This is a tragedy.
Two lives cut short by walking well-used railway lines. It has had a big impact on the local community who knew these lads and grieve for them. On the other hand; three Tower Hamlets heroes have today been received national recognition for their extraordinary progress into employment at the London European Social Fund Awards. All three winners are over-comers who battled against the odds of personal circumstance to achieve great things. We can choose which of these events we choose to publicise, record and turn into docu-drama and I know which one I’d rather talk about.

So, whilst Bennett did plenty of research to get his authentic East End it is important to remember that this, indeed, a dramatic representation of the truth; squished into just four hours of television and designed for impact. But is it sending the right message? And is any publicity good publicity?

You can watch Top Boy here.

St Paul's Tent City - whose voice is being heard?

This week I was set the task of setting up an online discussion on current affairs, aimed at 16 year olds in just 500 words. 

Here is my attempt:

Since mid-October, some 200 tents have sprung up around St Paul’s Cathedral. The tents represent the English version of a worldwide occupation movement with satellites in New York, South Africa, Rotterdam and Athens. The movement claims that the aim of the occupation is to reclaim public spaces, for the public, but has a strong ‘anti-Capitalist’ theme in London. The occupation represents a shift in the way the public protest, away from marches towards occupation or sit-ins. Although the genesis of the St Paul’s site came from the Occupy Wall Street campaign it is quite transformed by the location of the site, outside one of London’s most significant landmarks and religious sites. As there has been plenty of discussion as to what should happen to the tent city it is interesting to think about who has the right to have their own voice heard and why?

Protesters

The protesters outside St Paul’s have been non-violent and are camped on public property; as such they cannot be easily removed without a specific sanction. With increasing levels of legislation being applied to traditional methods of protest, criticism of the government has arguably become more difficult. Many of the protesters camped outside St Pauls continue to go to work and have created a learning environment. Is the occupation just an innovative way of getting through a legal loophole providing accountability for banks and governments?

Local businesses

For many local businesses the situation looks quite different! The tent city occupies a large space in the heart of the city from which it criticises, amongst other things, capitalism. This has had a detrimental effect on the sales of many businesses, but this occupation is particularly lethal for the small businesses. Local businesses often do not have the support of other outlets across the country or investors to support them like their larger counterparts. One of the occupation aims is to criticise these big commercial enterprises; is it possible that the protestors are actually having the inverse action to that which they planned, by cutting off small businesses and barely denting the sales of the big firms?

St Paul’s Cathedral

The location of the protest is just outside one of the most internationally recognised church buildings in the UK, St Paul’s Cathedral. When the tent city arrived the church had to shut its doors for health and safety risks. It has been shut for nearly two weeks now at a daily cost of £23,000! Buildings like St Paul’s cost a lot of money to maintain and £322,000 will take a long time to raise alongside ongoing costs. It is the first time the church has shut since the Blitz (1940’s) and tourists and worshippers alike have missed out on its services. Should protestors gathered for political reasons be able to stop other people from religious worship?

As the tent city looks set to stay, maybe it is time to consider whose voice is being heard?

What do you think? And what role do you think social networking plays in our understanding of these events? Write your comments below, but remember that only polite messages will be posted. Anything deemed offensive to any party will not be posted; democratic debate is encouraged.

Psychogeography on holiday

We’ve had some nice weather in Essex lately; I requested it for my ‘Summer holiday’; and no-one says no to this face! I’ve been using the lovely weather to explore local landscapes in new ways.

London and Love Lane

Psychogeography has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with England’s capital city; I have long enjoyed merely walking round  a part of London, with no cause but interest.

During some temp work in London I have been engaged in some urban wandering and it has got me seeing London from a completely different angle. Leather Lane, for example, is hidden just off Holborn Circus and is profuse with leather and lots of wonderful little coffee shops. Little Essex Road is in the middle of the law quarter; I’ve never seen a road that shared so little with Essex!
 Love Lane was a road I discovered by accident wandering towards East London. When I walked it, it seemed one of the least ‘Love’ filled roads in all of London; there are no front facing businesses on the road and there were very few people using the road. The only thing that seemed vaguely love related was Shakespeare’s Garden at the end of the lane. Traditionally  road names reflected usage; you can find examples of this all over London; you would have found chickens on Poultry, pork at Swinegate and so maybe traditionally people found love, of a kind on ‘Love Lane’. A little research suggested that historically ‘Love Lane’ was a hotbed of prostitution ; today the road plays host to a City of London HIV and Chlamydia clinic. Maybe I was looking for the wrong kind of love down ‘Love Lane’?

Cambridge, Maldon, St Andrews, Ely.

In the last few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to get out and about in the local (and not so local) area. I have been really indulging my early Medievalist; getting my hands on modern day settlements that retain their three-road Medieval structure. 

Cambridge, Maldon and St Andrews all qualify as ‘quaint little English towns’ and are based around three main streets. Such a simple settlement pattern not only makes it easy to get home if you are a drunken fresher; but also makes it much easier to direct tourists to the church/ river/ ice cream shop (delete as appropriate). It never ceases to amaze me, that a settlement system introduced over a thousand years ago can still provide the essentials for a modern town; even if we are no longer trying to hide our swine in the back streets (or are we?).  On the subject of settlements has anyone else realised that even though Ely has a Cathedral and Cambridge does not; Ely is in Cambridgeshire, why is that?

One day I drove the car out and around north Essex. I stopped off for some proper East Saxon jam in Maldon. Maldon is the scene of a semi-famous Saxon epic poem, the Battle of Maldon (that’s the one where Byrtnoth showed some fatal ofermod – whatever that turned out to be!); its got the three-street structure and some pretty, old buildings. I later enjoyed my East Saxon roots with another Essex girl in Cambridge; but I also drove through many other evocative Saxon settlements; Essex is full of them – Tillingham, Dengie (after the Dæningas, awesome name), Althorne, Osea Island.  Driving around rural Essex you could almost be forgiven for believing no one had arrived since those vicious Vikings of 991 (who arrived during the Battle of Maldon); its thoroughly unspoilt with lots of wiggly-roads and old field boundaries.

Essex is home to one of the best places in the world; Bradwell on Sea. It has been a Roman fort, a Saxon monastic community and now a nature reserve and hamlet on the shores of the Blackwater Estuary, where it meets the North Sea. This space has been a special place for me since before I can remember. Just to sit on the beach (in snow or sunshine) and watch the Thames barges/ windmills/ birds tumble in the breeze (delete as appropriate) is magical. It is a place I feel automatically more peaceful, able to notice even the drifting bird flying on the air current and the barge passing silently past.
What is it about this landscape that is so capable of making me stop and notice passing birds, to be peaceful? Which places are special to you? What is it about that space or landscapes that makes it special? Why don’t you share your special place with someone?!

Southend; walls, barges and berries.

One of the aims of the psychogeographer is to get people (including themselves) to see familiar places in a new light. Armed with only a camera, and with a whole afternoon to spare, I set out for Old Leigh; another special coastal place. I tried to essentialise the landscape in a few key images which took my eye; the images that epitomised ‘Leigh’. I tried to frame the images naturally and resist the urge to edit my photos; instead I wanted to focus on taking good photos, first time round, like we used to before digital. You can see how I got on here.

Leigh: sea wall, coast and blackberries

Looking for images made my other senses somewhat heightened; to the sounds of spinnakers flapping in the wind and the water lapping the shore; the crunch of sand in my trainers and of salt on my lips. Experiencing the environment holistically got me thinking not only about the beauty of the environment but, as ever, different perspectives on space and ideas.  I’ve never really seen myself as an arty-creative before, but looking at textures in my environment even got me thinking about bigger ideas; looking at a bench being engulfed by a hedge I started to think about what we let engulf us; and more to the point, why? 

Bench on the seafront, Leigh

What environments do you live in or pass through every day? How do you feel about them? How might you engage with your environment in ways that help you perceive it differently? And what about your special places? What connects meaning to space to make it place? Would you share that space with someone you care about? Would you share it with the internet?

Enjoy getting out into your communities this weekend and take great photos!

Luke Leighfield and Jose Vanders: Live at The Borderline

The astute amongst you will notice that I haven’t got any better at blogging weekly. I am really sorry. All I can say is that London is full of lots of bright lights and I am easily distracted...oh look shiny thing! One of the wonderful distractions of the big smoke is gig venues. Last Tuesday I went to The Borderline to watch Luke Leighfield and Jose Vanders; here’s what I thought.

I first saw Jose play at Jesus College May Ball in Summer 2008. My feet had been really hurting from wearing stupidly high heels for an all-night party; and come midnight I was resting my feet in the bar. In the bar a petite singer with a much larger voice was playing her original tunes about waiting at railway stations and going to the fair with a boy she loved. The combination of beautiful melody and silly lyrics about ordinary events reminded me of the songs my best friend Lizzie used to write when we were teenagers. Although the most memorable part of Jose's gig was her begging for a pint before the end of her set, I enjoyed it enough to buy her EP (Transactional Language) several days later.

So three years later she offered her fans cheap tickets to see her at a London venue, on a day I could do and I was there! The Borderline is a basement venue in Soho that is well suited to bands with few performers (the stage is quite small) and for intimate gigs (I reckon there were 150 -200 of us there). Playing a small venue was actually really beneficial for the audience as we could see all the facial expressions and the little details Leighfield and Vanders throw in. It provided quite a different atmosphere to other gigs that I've attended.

I actually went to this gig on my own but it really wasn’t a problem. They’re a nice crowd at The Borderline and Vanders’ voice quickly picks you up and wheels you away far beyond the venue. She played a great set with a combination of the old greats, ‘Puppets’ and ‘Faces Going Places’; the latter, where she played piano and provided the ‘clap’ percussion simultaneously, being very impressive. She also played the playlist from her Blue Notes EP and ‘Man on Wire’. It was really interesting to see how Vanders’ music has developed; she still writes about break ups, romance and other frivolity, but she’s also developing a more mature edge to her lyrics which deal with big issues; I liked that. The poetic language is still there too, ‘I’m like the sun without the shine, a long road without any signs’ (Me Without a You) and you know how I enjoy unusual similes! (cf my post on Mornings in Jenin). She also owned the night really well; the personal touch of understanding the context of her lyrics gave them a new depth of meaning.

Jose was the reason I went to the gig but she was well complemented by both Luke Leighfield and Marcel Legan. Jose and Luke have just released a split EP which is the basis for their tour. I’ll admit I had not researched either of the other artists before I went; but Luke’s music was really uplifting. He played the set preceding Jose’s which I caught almost by accident. He sounds a bit like Get Cape Wear Cape Fly crossed with the Rend Collective (make up your own mind here) both in his love for brass to complement more traditional instruments and big chorus lines; all used to address everything from romance to loneliness, hope and despair.

I bought Luke's latest album and the EP of Marcel Legan. On the night Marcel provided backing vocals and guitar for both artists but he is also an artist in his own right. I bought his EP because his vocal on the other artists’ tracks (such as Metal Detector) was sensational. His voice sent shivers down my spine; and I was unsurprised to find that several of my friends, of both genders, had serious crushes on him; that voice is magic! Real Gone reviewed his EP and said ‘those great moments only really present themselves after two or three listens’. I agree that the EP is not ‘instant gratification’ but as it has played on my MP3 this last week it has grown exponentially on me.

All three artists write about lying in bed, amongst other things, anyone would think they were students (!). They also do a good line in quirky videos (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slBDsoQH9kM and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USUhT1sDvJs for reference). Their coming together for the split EP has definitely been good for the UK music scene. If you remain unconvinced can I encourage you to check out their cover of Bon Iver, Blindsided. It is hauntingly beautiful, and has a gorgeous backdrop of London at night; a very fitting tribute to another great band. Jose and Luke are currently touring Europe with their split EP but you can still check ‘em out online!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCN5yxFI7wc

Mornings in Jenin

Any of you who know me personally will know what a hectic month it has been! But in the midst of all that activity, I have found the time to read three great books. C.S. Lewis’ autobiography, Surprised by Joy which I made reference to last week, made great travel reading (on the slowest train to London ever!). The second great book was Pete Greig’s, God on Mute which provided a theology on suffering and unanswered prayer that I could get my head around. But the subject of today’s post is the third book I read, S. Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin.

Afternoons in Southend

I did not go purposefully looking for this book. It was a rainy afternoon in Southend (Essex, where I live at the moment) and I was looking for research material for my MA dissertation. When I remembered that I was to have some holiday soon (what a mythical resonance that little word, ‘holiday’, has!) I allowed myself to be drawn towards the library’s ‘new additions’ section. The copy of Mornings in Jenin that I borrowed features a little girl in an Oriental doorway on the front cover and it reminded me of the cover of Hosseini’s, Kite Runner. The reference to an ‘International Bestseller’ also encouraged me to take a look inside.

Image credits to: spiderednews.com <---- and mergingreflections.blogspot.com ---->

David or Yousef

‘Mornings in Jenin’ tells the life story of a girl called Amal who is born into a Palestinian refugee camp in 1955; but the story begins before her birth in 1941 and carries right through to her death. The content engages with several intense political themes; investigating the nature of Israeli/ Palestinian relationships, cases of mistaken identity, terrorism and the impact of dislocation. It is only fair to tell you that there is quite a lot of violence and disaster in this novel; such that the Daily Mail called it; ‘Disquieting, discomforting’. I beg you not to let the political undercurrent prevent you from reading the book; it is about so much more than a well-written polemic; this is a story about what it means to be family, the definition of a ‘good mother’, love and loss and a good dose of friendship.

‘No soldiers here’ (page 179)

Not only does this novel have interesting content but it is so well written. From the start, I was wrapped up in the safe Mediterranean world of 1941; ‘a small village east of Haifa lived quietly on figs and olives, open frontiers and sunshine. It was still dark, only the babies sleeping, when the villagers of Ein Hod prepared to perform the morning salat’ (page 1). The description of landscapes reminded me of Steinbeck’s work particularly Grapes of Wrath;  ‘Along the dusty road, the land rose in sylvan silence, charmed with the scents of citrus blooms and wild camphires’ (8)  The attention to detail is also reminiscent of Steinbeck; ‘There was some oil, but mostly almonds, figs, a variety of citrus, and vegetables. Hasan put the grapes on top so they would not be crushed’ (7). Abulhawa creates evocative scenery through her creative use of poetic language; one image that has stuck in the two weeks since I read the book is that of Amal being read to by her father, ‘My life before the war returns to me now in memories bracketed by Baba’s arms and scented with the tobacco of his olive-wood pipe....I never knew a playground nor swam in the ocean, but my childhood was magical, enchanted by poetry and the dawn’ (page 60). The Palestine at the beginning of the book was a wonderful place to escape to as a reader.

Rupture: ‘I think of those years with nostalgia’ (page. 164)

This poetic, charming world and style of narrative, however, does not last. As the novel continues, the reality of the 1960’s encroaches on the lives of the characters and that is the end of peace for the rest of the novel. The sentences get shorter in recognition of the reality of Amal’s later life. The prose gets grittier, like life in the present has not got the nostalgic rosy hue of childhood (see page 164); if you could stomach the second half of A Thousand Splendid Suns (Hosseini) then you should be ok. I will admit I did not enjoy the second half of the book as much; but that is mainly because Abulhawa denies any more access to that glorious, contented landscape. And maybe it would be wrong to describe atrocity in gentle, poetic terms?

Biographic ‘Amal’

I did not realise that Mornings in Jenin drew from some of the life-experience of the author until I got to the end (I know, not so quick on the uptake). Maybe the biographic link is what makes Abulhawa’s work so authentic; the reality of life experience fuels the passion in her writing. I also did not discover the dictionary of unfamiliar terms until I got to the end. Abulhawa could have replaced those words with English synonyms but the use of terms in their original language contributed to the authenticity of the atmosphere created. One of the other things that really impressed me, once I realised the story was biographically influenced, was the storyline of the novel. Its compassionate portrayal of the Jewish community is surprising when Abulhawa's identity as a Palestinian refugee is recognised.

Novels from beyond the familiar

Writing this blog post has got me thinking about novels written beyond the European context. There seems to be a growing number of novels written by authors from the Middle East who move to English speaking countries and then publish on their homeland. Neither Hosseini nor Abulhawa moved to America as novelists but as science students. The later development into writing is interesting, I wonder what motivated it? Is novel writing acting as a therapeutic reaction to migration and dislocation? And what impact does writing novels through an Anglo-culture have? Both Hosseini and Abulhawa have also created charitable foundations for their countries of origin, as if introducing the world to their native cultures through highly successful prose was not enough.

I’ve also been thinking about why I enjoy books written by such authors. It is not only that I love the writing style, the rich descriptions and poetic language. I think it is also that they provide a window onto the unfamiliar, a world to escape to, where I have never been before and that is quite attractive.

It was a great read!

I really did enjoy this novel, I doubt this review does it justice but it was so good I just might buy it when I return my library copy. Mornings in Jenin is a conversation-starter; as recognised by the publishers who include a discussion section at the back of the book. Have you read this book? What did you think? Have you read anything else lately that was particularly good? And have you considered sharing it with a friend?

Have a great week folks!

Uncivil Rest and Education

Good afternoon! I’m back, and like many school boys ‘towards school with heavy looks’ I have realised; the Summer holidays are over and term has begun (that said, I’m still in my PJ’s and midday was a while ago!). In recognition of these facts, and to neatly complete my discussions on the recent civil unrest, I present: Uncivil Rest and Education.

Uncivil Rest
On 27th August I had the great pleasure of working alongside the Buffalo Tank Crew in bringing a small part of comic South America to Colchester’s Castle Park. The Buffalo Tank are an independent arts collective who produced 16 installations in the park; taking a light hearted look at recycling and the carbon footprint for the Colchester Free festival.

My job was to man the ‘Uncivil Rest area’ which featured crockery smashing (of political figures faces) and a water gun area complete with riot shields, helmets and protestor signs (all whilst wearing a bright orange jumpsuit and a fake moustache!). The area was conceptualised several months ago and way before the riots in London took place; but in the current political climate it produced some interesting results.

The children were straight into the fray; perhaps unaware of the connotations of wearing a riot helmet, or recognising that the world is chaotic. The adults on the other hand were more reluctant to throw sponges at one another. Not only because that would risk infringing rules of decent behaviour in a park; but maybe also because it would involve confronting bigger issues like equality of access to resources. One particularly interesting case was that of the security guards who were patrolling the site. Like any man presented with the opportunity to soak his best mate the men were keen to play with us; but their role, as security guards and  figures of authority they could not join in whilst in uniform. They promised they’d return later and join in, I don’t know if they ever did!

Recycle? Image: Buffalo Tank 

Whilst running the 'Uncivil Rest Area' I happened to notice an unassuming little monument right next to me, within the compound. The monument read, ‘This stone marks the spot where on August 28th 1648, after the surrender of the town, the two royalist captains Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle, were shot by order of Sir Thomas Fairfax, the Parliamentarian General’. The Buffalo Tank were getting people to think about politics (and soaking one another to the skin) in a politically significant place; surely the location and topic weren't coincidental.

The number of people who had completely missed this little monument reminded me of all the research into how futile memorialising in concrete or stone can be. The memorial itself was a Victorian construction; I wondered what context made that pro-Royalist-recognition suitable for that time and am fascinated that the people of Colchester deem it still suitable for exhibition. Given its location, in the shadow of a large Norman castle, maybe it has simply been forgotten? In 1648 two men were killed by the authority of the time in shame and haste, but later their lives were celebrated; I wonder how the conflicts of today will be reinterpreted at the same distance (200 years); whether the monuments will be to the royalists or parliamentarians?

Uncivil Rest Area. Images: Buffalo Tank 

Education, Education, Education
During the riots there was plenty of rhetoric about the role of education in the creation of a peaceful society. I recently had two German couch surfers to stay who had attended a Waldorf School. For those of you who don’t know what one of those is, (I’ll be honest I didn’t until Wikipedia provided the answers) Waldorf schools are based on the humanist educational approach of Steiner (that famous Austrian philosopher). The schools favour variety and holistic learning to the more traditional basic key skills, they lean towards the encouragement of creativity and uniqueness in each child. My German guests and I had great fun comparing the systems; when Dad perceptively asked if the girls would send their children to a Waldorf the answer was ‘yes, but not our one’. ‘Yes’ because the Waldorf mark has a good reputation for CVs and Uni places, but ‘no’ because they weren’t great fans of their teachers.

 In C.S. Lewis’ autobiography ‘Surprised by Joy’ he describes at least 4 different schooling systems which influenced him as he grew up. They had varying degrees of interest in the right answers, discipline, cultivating his mind, ability to argue, the importance of religion or sports, and whether eating or ‘fagging’ were sins or virtues. These opinions created different school ‘cultures’ or societies in which he was more or less successful depending on his ability to fit the model. It is not the systems, societies and cultures, however, that loom largest on C.S. Lewis’ narrative; it is the teachers themselves, the lilting of their voices, their individual characters and the authors who they introduced to Lewis.

In both cases, for the Waldorf girls and for Lewis, it was not the ‘system’ which made a difference but the individual teachers. Perhaps there is something to be learned from this when educational reform is under consideration; of the importance not of systems but of encouraging teachers to be at their best, creating positive relationships with pupils and cultivating their unique interests. These contexts might in turn produce school cultures which produce happy, rounded young adults. I am not suggesting that education on its own produces happy, peaceful young adults but transformed school environments would be a good start.

If you teach, or are still at school, have a great start to the term! Don’t forget to pack your smiles in your satchels! I’ll be back next week to chat about a book I read recently, it was good :)