Monday, 11 March 2024

That's the problem with the past......

Yesterday we saw some wonderful sights in North West London. It was #VintageBusDay. I didn't know this until I saw an immaculately decked out 240 Routemaster bus in  Mill Hill Broadway station. I felt a real buzz of excitement and much to the embarrassment of my son, who was with me, started to take pictures, which I posted on Instagram

My son was bemused by my excitement. I explained that I used to get the 240 to school at St Vincents on the Ridgeway and they used these buses. I then realised that, although he went to St Vincents, he never took the bus. I recall the excitement, when the old, clapped out Routemasters were replaced with shiny new buses, that were square and had automatic doors. I seemed like the future had arrived. The excitement didn't last. I soon felt nostalgic for the old buses, with their open platforms and their bus conductors. I did a google and the date was 16th January 1971. I'd have been eight years old. I vividly recall the last time I ever rode a Routemaster on a regular route, rather than a heritage day. It was the day of the 7/7 bombings. I was doing some work at Debenhams head office on Oxford St. As the horror of the bombings unfolded, I found I was stranded. I ended up working to Swiss Cottage, then took a 13 bus to Golders Green. This was still being worked by a Routemaster. I then got a 240 home. I felt a pang of guilt, as I genuinely enjoyed that journey. 

When I see a Routemaster now, I think of the 7/7 bombing. Had that not happened, I would think of St Vincents, but it was a vivid day. On the 240 bus, I bumped into an old school mate from Orange Hill. I'd not seen him for years. What both he and I didn't know at the time, was that his sister had been on one of the bombed tube trains and she'd lost her legs.  We had a good old chit chat, in blissful ignorance.  A week later, someone said to me "Have you heard about Grant's sister". I was deeply shocked.

My initial joy at seeing the Routemaster stirred up all of these feelings. The past is a strange place. We tend to remember what we want to remember. Yesterday was Mothers day and on Saturday I wrote about how it is a difficult day for me. Nostalgia is a very dangerous thing. When we think of the 60's and the 70's, it is nice to recall the Routemasters, the flair footballers such as Stan Bowles, Rodney Marsh and George Best, James Bond's DB6. It is really easy to buy into the idea that everything was wonderful then and it's all gone wrong now. The truth is far more difficult. It really wasn't so wonderful. The cancer my mother in 1970 was one that killed everyone who had it. She was unique in surviving a total gastrectomy in 1970. Her surgeon, Mr Phillip King, told her in 1984, that she was the only person on the planet, who had the operation then, that was still alive. Now there are treatments and people live. Given the choice between a pretty bus and my Mum, I know which I'd choose. 

The truth is that we usually choose to view the past through rose tinted spectacles. We try and bury the bad bits in a locked room in our memories. I'm all for a bit of nostalgia, I spent Friday night recording a video with my band celebrating the party culture of the 1970's. Here's a few shots of some of the shenanigans that were going on. We had proper 70's party food such as cheese and pineapple hedgehogs, pork pies and sandwiches with ham. We invested in some Liebfraumilch, some Warninks Advocate and some Strongbow cider. We played soul and ska classics from the era.  It was all great fun, but there were some big differences from a party back in the day. No one was smoking in the room. No one drove home drunk. No one was telling mother in law jokes to their mates. No one was hunting around for a can opener to open a can of Watneys Party Seven. No one brought records with them, so we could here the 'latest sounds', they simply picked numbers on Spotify. No one needed to borrow 5p to run to the telephone box, to tell their mum they'd be late home.

But when it came down to it, what we did was pretty much what we'd have done in the 70's. Listened to good music, ate and drank and forgot about our problems for a few hours.

As this decade progresses, it become more like a version of the 1970's by the day. In 1974 Labour won an election to replace a failing Tory government, that had lost the plot. The Middle East was in turmoil, with a war starting the year before. There was a cold war in the East with us all scared about Soviet expansion. The UK economy was in a mess, after an energy crisis. Racism and anti immigrant hostility was on the rise, following Idi Amin's expulsion of Kenyan Indians. The parallels are almost uncanny.

I suspect that in 1973/4, as we had three day week and the lights going out, the idea that anyone may look back on the 70's with fond nostalgia, would seen insane. That is the trouble with the past though, you can never quite escape it. In fact, no matter how awful it really was, it seems we don't really want to, even if we could. 

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My band, The False Dots were founded in 1979 and are still going 45 years on. 
Our next gig is at the Beehive, in Bow on Saturday 23rd March. Here is avideo we made celebrating the car culture or the 1970's. Please come and see us at our next gig on Saturday 23rd March at the Beehive in Bow, click here for tickets.



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