Gloucester Crescent

 If you've seen "The Lady in the Van" you know Gloucester Crescent a little bit; you have a little idea of the kind of people who live there - like the kind woman who tries to give Miss Shepherd some home baking, and the cross man (Roger Allam) who opens her jar, the children who play piercingly on the recorder and drive her nuts, and Alan Bennett himself. You know that the houses are tall and Victorian, possibly 😏, and have tiny little front gardens and large basement kitchens.

This seems to be a historical shot of the street, and Miss Shepherd's van, before they were famous.

If you read the Nina Stibbe book "Love Nina" you find that the family she was the nanny for - the Frears, and Mary-Kay Wilmer - lived opposite Alan Bennett. Jonathan Miller, with his wife and family, lived up the road, and they borrowed his saw to cut up a Christmas tree. Claire Tomalin, busily editing literary pages for a Sunday paper, and writing a biography possibly, lived close by, and with her a playwright called Michael Frayn. Mrs Ursula Vaughan Williams lived in the street, and later on, so does Debbie Moggach, another writer. Nina was absolutely thrilled by the comings and goings and the artiness of everyone in the street. She writes home to Leicester to tell everyone about it and she reports conversations verbatim, which makes her seem like a playwright herself. She spots the wit in people, and some of the ridiculousness of the young people she meets at the Poly, and the second time I read the book I laughed a lot. I think the first time I read it I thought - "oh, it starts to flag when Alan's off the scene", but that was just me. The writing has a free-wheeling personality all the way through.

Nina-the-nanny has to cook something for supper every evening, not just for Mary Kay (editor of the London Review of Books) and the boys, but for Alan Bennett as well, and some of her letters are concerned with the trials of cooking and asking her sister for more recipes. Alan is a bit critical of Hunter chicken, saying he prefers it without tinned tomatoes. He brings around milk puddings as his contributions. Sometimes I wondered if he ever went round to see Jonathan Miller, because in Nina's book they don't seem to be on speaking terms. Did they fall out after "Beyond the Fringe"? They must have done. Do they even nod at each other in the street for old times' sake? 

I was concerned about the non-relationship between Alan and Jonathan, and in the spirit of enquiry, I went to another book about Gloucester Crescent which is called "Gloucester Crescent" by William Miller, son of the famous Jonathan.  This popped up on my Amazon feed. So I went for the Kindle version. (I am now deploying this strategy with book-buying: If I want it on my bookshelf I buy the book but if I think of the book as a mere diversion, e.g. a thriller, I get it on Kindle. If it's for my research it's nearly always out of print and I have to get a second-hand version on Amazon. 

So, "Gloucester Crescent" is written by an almost exact contemporary of mine. Whereas I was growing up in the stockbroker belt he was right in the middle of London. His sort of people were the sorts that appeared in the Sunday Paper Magazine. (A Life in the Day of). He writes in a terrible plonking style because he is a small child to start with, and this reflects a small child's sensibility, but it carries on like that. The vocabulary gets better as he gets older. He never really gives you a taste of the fun that must have gone on at his father's dining table, but he does tell you...

That Alan Bennett came round to dinner every night. Every night. And brought milk puddings.  And brunch on Sundays. You can understand how perplexed I am. At no point does Alan seem to stop going to the Millers' and start to go to Mary-Kay's. Did he eat two dinners every evening, and if so why? did he not put on weight? 

What comes across very strongly is William's father's personality and his father's strong opinions. These reject the idea of perpetuating class - the class system. Jonathan went to a public school and onto Cambridge, and spoke with an incredibly posh accent. At Cambridge, he was able to meet a large number of young men and a small number of women just like himself. He could see that the public school system was very wrong and divisive so he decided to send his own children to the local state schools. This is fine when the children are small, and get help at home, but later on his children, especially William, suffered from being with very threatening bullies, and could have achieved a lot more than they did, we infer, if the classrooms not been merry hell. The freedoms that the children enjoyed when they ran around to each other's houses reminded me of the children of the more Bohemian parents at my private primary. They were slightly frightening, because they were too grown-up for children. Their parents were not the protective sort.

But although the Millers went with their principles in the matter of education, they still had a lot of unfair advantages when it came to personal contacts. And so William went into the Meeja through the contacts of his father, and nothing, absolutely nothing changed. He ended up buying a house on the same road. Middle-class children are just not allowed to fail. Their parents couldn't live with it.

Jonathan Miller wasn't a wonderful father, in spite of being a clever and very engaging man. He liked to hear his own voice too much. He never held back from his dramatic suicidal threats out of anxiety for his children. He also liked to have his friends around all the time to the extent that his children must always have felt unimportant. His son says that he always loved him very much, but the book is full of complaints about his parenting. 

Other impressions of the Fabian Conference

I thought there was a good spread of ages at the Fabian conference. I think that there were Young Fabians in evidence enjoying the chance to hear from M.P.s and working economists and experts and there seemed to be about 20 percent of white-haired Fabians, some very old, who must have been going to these things for years and years. Amazing.

I enjoyed the plenary on "Does the Left now have the ideological momentum?" I was particularly taken with the straight -talking Wes Streeting M.P. for Ilford North - a spokesman for keeping the UK within the single market and the customs union. His point of view was very popular with the audience. He said a clearer Labour standpoint on Europe would influence policy (I agree) although the current very ambiguous stand on Europe is popular on "the doorstep" (whatever the voter says, the Labour politician agrees with them). Richard Burgon M.P. said that the country has been suffering from the failure to share the country's wealth equally. Of course, this is particularly evident in the North/South East divide. No country is so geographically economically divided as ours and this is simply not being addressed. Polly Toynbee pointed out some of the pernicious effects of austerity. Katy Balls said that young people are pro-Labour on the whole, but didn't like the Mayor's call on Uber - because Uber is part of the young person's lifestyle. It caused outrage! She made many more points but she didn't try to speak very clearly so the effort of understanding her mannered way of talking became too much for me. Polly Toynbee said that if 16-18 year olds got the vote politicians would have to campaign in 6th forms and young people would get a fairer share of the cake, and more of the things they need, and therefore this age group should get the vote. (A good point).

After this plenary I was tired and went to have lunch in the café, where there is also a bookshop. It was a bright café and bookshop but not very warm.

I then attended a session, organised by the Young Fabians on Global-ready Britain: Taking stock as we go it alone.

There was much discussion about the education in this country - a poor skills base, poor lifelong learning, training in work confined to health and safety and the induction. Nothing else, most of the time. Bad management skills. Our economic vulnerabilities are social vulnerabilities and vice versa. If your education system produces people who are badly skilled and can do little, this is socially a time bomb (dissatisfaction leading to identity politics - British and proud of it - nothing else to be proud of but this accident of birth) and it is also economically rock-bottom.

Vicky Pryce talked at this conference and I heard her twice, without rating her highly as a speaker - her thoughts seemed to be all jumbled together - and her points very unclear.

There was a good woman Shadow Treasury Minister - Anneliese Dodds - very good intelligent speaker. Michael Jacobs was very good, very well-informed.

Later there was a talk by Keir Starmer M.P. He was a revelation to me because I had no idea he was such a good speaker, so confident, so clear. When I got home I looked him up and discovered that he has had a very successful career as a barrister and used to be the Director of Public Prosecutions. In fact, he was responsible for deciding to prosecute Vicky Pryce and her then husband, Chris Hahn, and they were sent to prison. Have they met since, I wondered? Anyway, he has also been knighted and is Sir Keir Starmer. He is the Labour shadow minister for Brexit and I have to say he must be a lot more intelligent than the Tory team. Sadly I didn't take any notes, and I can't remember what was said, except the level of the Tory incompetence is very high, e.g. the story of the excruciatingly detailed economic impact assessments that don't exist. Bad, very bad, as D. Trump would say.

Labour would be far better for the country than the Tories. They are move positive thinkers and care about the people; those people who don't have money in shares, trusts and funds. That's most of us. When people vote, they think the Tories know more about the economy because they are rich, so they vote for them. This is ridiculous. The Tories want to screw down wages so that only share owners will benefit.

Green Party Conference

The Green Party Conference was held 2nd - 4th September in Birmingham (my old university) and I was there - it was my first conference. At first it was deeply interesting. I went to a talk on the Green party philosophy which was very inspiring but I was late as I had just arrived. One of the many interesting things he said was that electoral success is not the only way to change policy - lifestyle changes are also really important, and we can persuade people to behave differently. In fact, the influence of the Green movement has been far-reaching.

Our new leaders gave their speeches - Johnathan Bartley and Caroline Lucas taking turns at delivering their message. She talked about the "heartbreak" of 24th June and I thought - that's how I felt, and I was grateful to her for not making light of it. The Greens want another referendum, this time when our government has made terms with the EU for our continued relationship, to vote on the new deal. Don't know if we'll get that but I think it would be far more democratic and meaningful than voting for a pig in a poke (a sack). Caroline reminded us that this year was the hottest ever and it is even more important to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

I then went to a fringe meeting on Further Education and Higher Education. We talked about the new Education bill which seeks to deregulate Further Ed. We are very radical on further ed. we want to end tuition fees and achieve social mobility. We believe that Higher Ed and F. E. are not markets. We believe in evening classes and lifelong learning. We don't believe that employers should dictate the content of education, or that it's all about money. We wondered how we could get the students to take more interest in these matters politically. We wondered if colleges could start by campaigning about young people's living/working conditions - low pay, etc. Area Reviews - mergers - very demoralizing - but Local Councils can reject the Area Review - e.g. Manchester did just that.

I also went to a panel debate on the Progressive Alliances which have been mooted by the people at Westminster. Zoe Williams of the Guardian chaired this debate. Caroline spoke in favour of the alliance. She said that if we had Proportional Rep we wouldn't need to do it and the goal is to get the progressive parties into power so that we can vote in Proportional Rep. She pointed out that when the voters go to the polls the progressive parties are fighting each other over small differences, and where we can co-operate locally, to get a Tory out of an unsafe seat, we should do so. Caroline pointed out that time is short for our planet but progressives are fighting each other over small differences. Fighting over the deckchairs on the Titanic, really. She did say that the Green Party doesn't impose from the centre but the idea is to allow for arrangements to be made locally. However, the view from the floor was against this as there are grass roots activists who do not think strategically. They dream of winning an overall majority!

The next day I went to a talk about creating teams that work at local level. The Snowflake model. They stressed that the Greens should do fun things together. I thought that this was very much what volunteers wanted. When I, with my local party, put forward ideas about catering for an event my ideas were so shot down in flames that I have not yet gone back! I felt that the members were hostile to me because I was new, which of course was probably true and the only solution is to wait for 6 months or so before you offer any opinion whatsoever.

The next thing I went to was in the Great Hall - it was called a plenary, and we discussed motions for changing our policy documents. All motions were followed by amendments to the motions, which were both friendly and unfriendly. We voted firstly on the amendments and then on the motions. I was very interested in the procedure as much as the motions ,and I was also pleased to discover that my ideas are pretty mainstream in the Greens.


I went to a talk by Baroness Jenny Jones on what she has been up to in the House of Lords - this was very interesting. She wants to reform the House of Lords but she also said "It's riven with rules and idiocy but it works" which is what I feel about the H o L, that it is the only effective opposition to the government and therefore we should treasure it! She wrote a paper on her Bill to reform the HoL over 10 years - giving representatives long terms of service in which to gain expertise - trying to keep what she values in the HoL and yet move towards full democracy. I recommend that the noble Lords support it!

A formidable woman

I also went to a talk on the Northern Ireland border Post Brexit which has clearly never been thought through and clearly it will have to be a "hard" border if we are to stop unlimited immigration from Europe and this will be very divisive to the people of Ireland who were beginning to feel like one nation, two governments. Now they will be riven again.

Post Brexit - what now? This was the last thing on which I took notes because I was there for 2 days and a half and I was pretty tired by the end. These are the things which the Greens want:

1. to win the right for EU nationalities to remain here.
2. The Young Greens want freedom of movement (they will get this: if they think they will be able to live and work in Europe that is another matter).
3. We want to keep the Human Rights Act.
4. We want the 16+ age group to have the right to vote.

I also went to 2 more plenaries and at the last I despaired of the Green Party for their pettiness and, in some cases, their desire to be Alternative rather than electable. It's a question of identity. Sadly, identifying yourself as Alternative is unlikely to make a party electable, or even have a coherent sense of what kind of Alternative you are. Are we hippies, punks or radical liberals? One lobby keeps us busy altering the wording of all our literature to make it gender non-binary and when we have done that, that particular ginger group will probably leave, its mission accomplished.

Aldous Huxley - the Island

I have been reading this book for about 6 weeks. This is because it isn't a novel, more like a long lecture by someone who considers himself incredibly wise, and you are not allowed to argue (of course!), instead you have a proxy whose name is Will who asks constantly for more information.

Will arrives by accident on an idyllic island where the people are  working towards enlightenment pretty much in the Buddhist tradition, but with Hinduism thrown in, and yoga. They aim to be the most developed humans they can be, fully aware of the oneness of spirituality in the world and in themselves. It's Westernised in that the people speak English and have a certain amount of industry, but no desire for any quantity of material possessions, and they have no aggression, (this is educated out of them) so they can't defend themselves. Will is taken on a tour by various wise people, male and female, who tell him all about their values and their way of life.

Unfortunately, Will has boring sexual guilt and Huxley is probably the only person who can bear him droning on about his experiences with his good wife and his "vulgar" but incredibly sexually skillful girlfriend. Huxley was one of the modernists who was unable to adjust to the rise of the masses, and he tends to contrast his imagined world with the constraints of the social world in which he grew up, which dates his attitudes. The other characters are sketches that give voice to Huxley's ideas and opinions - and their reverse, as counterpoint. So they are not characters in the true sense of the word.

Most of Huxley's ideas are terrific. On the island, there is an openness about family life that allows children to access other parents as well as their own, which lessens the possibility of damage done by family neuroses. People are encouraged to attend to the here and now, and enjoy living in the moment. Everyone has to do manual labour for two hours a day, so they don't become "sitting addicts" like Western people. Overproduction of fresh food is kept in a huge communal freezer. Electricity comes from harnessing the rivers.

But Huxley does advocate eugenics - frozen sperm of talented men (and eggs of women?) are used to create a more talented race - this is encouraged and preferred but not compulsory. Huxley is a gene snob. It does mean that many of the population are closely related, but Huxley doesn't acknowledge this problem.

A difficult personality that doesn't fit in? Huxley divides these into "Muscle Men [and women]" (example: Stalin, has a love of power and domination) and "Peter Pans" (common, but Hitler is the example). These can both be treated by special coaching and become useful and happy members of society. All well and good except where Huxley announces that they can check the diagnosis of "Peter pans" by x-raying the bones of the wrist. Uuuuuhhhh??? Huxley is absolutely sure that there are some physical types that are "potential failures and criminals, potential tyrants and sadists, potential misanthropes and revolutionaries for revolution's sake" and that they need to be pinpointed early and given appropriate treatment.

In fact, the island is a lovely idea except for the lack of individualism in the people. I do agree with him that people should not be either educated to serve the state, or educated to become greedy for gewgaws and novelties, and cogs in capitalist enterprise; and I think that his ideal aim of education, which is to develop as fully rounded and spiritually happy an individual as possible, is a model that is crying out to be tried.

Such a society is not sustainable, and the ending is not a happy one, but it is a likely one.

As a novel it's a chore. I am amazed how many people give it an Amazon score of 5 stars!