The news from the Front,
I needed the rest, I was glad for the break…Turkey was hot enough, but Aden was the pits…..Home on leave again…Blighty…glad to see here coastline at last….how long had it been?…12 years man & boy, or so it seemed to be at the last count.
I never married her see, I`d met lovely young girls from Gibralta, Senoritas from Sunny Spain, even leaned toward the Dutch for a while when passing through…It was there I Met Bunty, a precocious young thing, full of mischief and stuff, didn`t quite know what to make of her brother either, Rubin…strange sot of lad, had a gramaphone ..played "Listz " and "Beethoven" until the early hours ..long before the likes of " Julian Webber " discovered the violin…
Customs was very quick, the station was fresh with new paint, and colour was all around now, as a lad I had left in those " Black & White Days " of the 50`s..when things were clear cut, and you knew where you stood….my mind was not focussed on what I was seeing, it was like I had stepped into a time warp…the words were not familiar to me "`scuse me good sir, is it bags you are wanting to relieve yourself of ?…."
A message, in Urdu greeted my gaze as I looked up at the timetable, something I hadn`t quite expected at this point, I blinked…no, it was still there…am I dreaming?…I checked my ticket, no, all is O.K., …PORTSMOUTH was the destination….I went for coffee to recover my composure…"one lump or two dear?", a friendly local at last !….I looked everywhere conceivable for the owner of the voice, but all I could find was a small Chinese lady with a cup in her hand…
And so my world that was so secure whilst a boy, had changed, I was the traveller in my own land, I had escaped to the ends of the world, but the world had beaten me back home…I was integrated at last…but for how long?
The cracks were appearing…
My new home was in Oldham, near the Kirby Lester factory…just a small tenement building, five or so stories high, reminiscent of the flats in Beirut, where I had lost my virginity to a lady of the night…small cracks at first , that got larger as the years went on, no idea that it would happen so fast…one minute I was just another tenant ..the next I was a victim…
Racism had reared its ugly head in my district…my car had been singled out for the treatment, "British go home" was sprayed on the side, and the windscreen had been smashed and excrement had been placed inside the vehicle….I longed for my days in India when people knew how to treat a man of the cloth…Army Cloth that was ..we stood no nonsense then "…they don`t like it up `um you know !",…. was a favourite cry from the past for me….
The morning was no better, just the cold light of dawn surrounded by the Blue flash every half second from the police van that came to escort me from the building…I was guilty see, guilty of a misdemeanour…a failure the Judge called it at my trial, a failure to integrate was his very words…what me, little old me?…a lad from Pompey?…never…but it was true ..even the local rag carried the story about the man from Aden who had done wrong….
All I did was to protect myself, stand up for my rights as a British citizen, but I had been away too long it seems…my upbringing was no use to me here in this new shiny world of integration ..just a bigot I was, fodder for the press, a throwback from an Empire gone mad with colonialism for the sake of it….will I awake ..to a new dawn ..a new era or am I trapped?
The Wilderness…
Out of the prison came the van, full of hope for the future, the time was now, the moment of truth had arrived, the lesson had been learned well…no more would I wander from the straight and narrow…I had been integrated…I was at one with my new society….
I chose the City, or was it the City chose me?…Convivial Bath, Watering Hole of the wealthy…full of the Honey of life ..Buildings of the same colour as well, the takeaways had new signs…"24 Hour Service"…" Kebabs R Us "…."Delhi Belly here".." We take Visa"…a bewildering array of choice compared to the " Chippers " of old " The Venturer"…"Sea Food" with those 6d Milk Shake machines outside…" Scallops and six penneth mate, please", was a familiar cry in those days….
Politically corrected Great Britain…or should I say politically "Grate Britain?"…I wasn`t sure anymore…I wandered the colourful streets full of street entertainers and druggies, men and women, they too integrated with our new society, supported by the new age councillors of our multilingual., mulitfaceted new found democracy.…" Le Clos restaurant " haut quisine rubbed shoulders with " Schwartz Burgers ", German by name ( Black Burgers ) but American by content…this was accepted as the norm by the school children in the queue for fast food.
The Italian presence was felt first in this country, for Ice Cream never hurt anyone did it?…nobody else wanted the job, same on the buses in the 50`s , no respectable " British " worker would take up the job …so it was then the coming of the Chinese Restaurant that brought a new culture, one of service, no clocking on & off here, worked all day to succeed where the " British " had failed ….Markets, the Cattle market in Walcot Street, long given over to the weekly street traders, from Pakistan mainly, where families knew real poverty, not I`ve only got one house , one car poverty of the "British"
It was a Family thing you see, one that our " British" culture was busy fighting to break up, the institution of Family, where parent cared for Child, and when parent became Child, Child looked after Parent … where families pooled wealth to create more, not stole from each other to out do, in the race for all things material ….this was the new way, but it was coming to late for me …I was of a different time …of Queen and Country … pink on the World Map was ours …. Ours, still, some of it,… but for how long?
Sanctity….
A monk of a new order from Carlingcott, Bath …"Ghe Kahn" was the man who took on the Japanese at their own game, fasted for a hundred days … lost a third of his body weight, and nearly a third of his " British " mind at the same time …
We didn`t win the Battle, but we`re wining the war, the war of ignorance, integration is my theme through out this episode in my new life .. not the Mathematical kind that I had learnt at School , but the cultural kind, so essential today in our fast moving planet …the tools that I use to bring new ideas to the world, are fast becoming the same that will bind it together …
The Internet, a host of intertwined wires connecting and linking the Communities of differing cultures, those same wires could break the links as well, if used unwisely … the controls are off, no longer a political domain, is a public domain now, one where ideas are not subject to misinterpretation, where a Universal Language is beginning to develop, the language of laughter… has no natural boundaries .. no respect for religions either..
Religion , the most misunderstood item of our world, does it matter if Muslims and Jews give differing names to the "life force" that binds us together ?… are the words so different underneath it all? … life is life , wherever you are, Black life, White life , in between life, all share the same atmosphere, all have a natural right to survive….
So where to now?… Outer space ? … no difference there .. the same atomic forces bind all atoms of our Universe in the same circle of life … we are not unique surely? … As the Hubble Telescope searches for ever more distant light, it will never find the source, since the light it is looking for has long gone past us now , and as we search within ourselves for our answers, the Universe goes on, as it always will, new life for old … new life for old…. A familiar cry now in our integrated society … or is it here yet, …already, already?
