A Quieter Place

I've been working from home for almost three weeks, and self isolating for a week and a half, and I've been thinking of ways to talk about the changes in life which have come with this strange existence we are all muddling through at the moment. It is the quiet which has really resonated.

I was sitting in bed one evening this week - well enough to read, but ill enough to make sitting anywhere but bed impossisble. It was around 8, and the light in an opposite house turned out, leaving the window I looked out of completely black. I had no music on, so the only sounds were my, and my partner's, breathing, and the rhythmic shush of a page as it was turned over.

Of course, I am in a household of two, with no children to permeate a silence I make for myself, but it really did strike me how peaceful it was. We could have been in the middle of the countryside, rather than near a busy road, which is usually used as a busy thoroughfare, leading to another very busy road.

Now, whilst writing this, I have music playing through my laptop, but if I were to turn it off a moment .... silence. Only the hum of my laptop reminds me of the modern age I'm living in. There are no children playing in the street (a stupid thing to be doing in this day and age, but if I were to suspend disbelief and imagine myself transported back 100 years or so, I'm fairly certain they would be. It's glorious outside, but no one is stiring. Not the case everywhere, I grant you. There are Covidiots going for a sunbathe in parks all over the place. But even they are hushed by this peace which has descended. And it can't be easy being enclosed in a small flat with no balcony or space to stand outside when the weather is making such siren calls.

Back to the quiet .... I read a book by Sara Maitland many years ago called 'A Book of Silence'. It's a fascinating exploration of noise and its limits. Where do we go to be quiet, and is it ever really actually silent. Even in the middle of the Sinai desert, there is still some sound, even if it's just our blood thrumming, suddenly loud. I must go back to it, now that I find myself in this state of insular contemplation. I am on leave this coming week, although my partner is not, and will no doubt spend much of the week on my own downstairs as she works. I will likely fill the silence with television, drowning in a plethora of shows which have nothing to do with the quiet or social distancing. It will give me something to talk about in group Zoom chats. I have noticed the silences in these, as friends reach out to make contact and then find they might not have that much to say.

I find myself wondering a lot about what will come out of this period - an understanding of silence, proper silence, and the way to use it might be one positive.

Starting up again

Blogging .... a thing I did with great fervour for a number of years and now just think of as something I should do, but never actually get around to.

I have been on Coronavirus working from home, then lockdown, for over two weeks now, and I've been saying 'I must get back to the blog' pretty much every day. I wanted to have something wise and thought provoking to start off with, but like every phone call I've had in recent days, I can't think of a single thing to say that is not .... well, this is weird eh?

So, I've decided it doesn't matter. This is me, starting up the blog again, inviting people to chip in and say hello, and planning more interesting things to say in the future. 

I've created a google doc with all the online things I found to occupy us at the moment, as well as useful links for shopping, and supporting others in need. It's here - feel free to add to it, and share it as you like.

That's it for now. Wholy uninspiring, and not much content, but it's a start.

Reflections on volunteering with Help Refugees

I’ve recently returned from a week volunteering with Help Refugees in Calais. The following is an account of my time there. I give you fair warning this is pretty lengthy – there’s a lot to say and reflect on. I’ve included some photos too. Links and thoughts on how to help are at the bottom, if you want to skip down there.

For anyone not familiar with Help Refugees, they are a grass roots charity created in the final months of the Calais Jungle, and which has been providing basic human rights, such as food, clothes, and shelter, alongside a few French charities from that point onwards. They work out of a warehouse on the outskirts of Calais. There used to be a similar warehouse in Dunkirk also, which primarily served women and children – it suffered a massive fire recently, so now Calais is the sole source of help for the thousands (and there are thousands) of people who have had to leave their homes and are seeking a new one.

Those are some really staggering numbers.

Like most people, I’ve been aware of the growing numbers of refugees attempting to find peace, safety, or a better life over the past five years and whilst I had by no means forgotten the issue, the demise of the Calais Jungle had effectively wiped it from the notice of the Media. I didn’t think I could be of much material help, and had naively assumed that major charities must be working behind the scenes providing aid.

My assumptions were turned on their head a few months ago when I started listening to the Guilty Feminist podcast. The podcast has become a global phenomenon and deserves a post of its own, but for now, I’ll simply say that the episode where a group of long term Calais volunteers are interviewed became the inspiration and catalyst for my own journey. It took a longer than I’d planned to get myself organised, but eventually I was ready to leave.

I was nervous as I set out on the Eurostar, not really knowing what to expect. I’d told anyone who’d asked that I’d likely spend the week sorting clothes or working in the kitchen and never see an actual refugee, as they don’t come to the warehouse. My experience was much more varied than that. I kicked things off by working in Tent world after a morning briefing to the 30 or so volunteers who were there. The end of October sees a dip in short term volunteers generally and it was remarked upon throughout the week how unusual it was to have so many. This might be the guilty feminist effect, or the fact it was half term – there were a number of teachers making use of the break. Newbies were taken on a tour of the two warehouses and introduced to the various mini empires the rooms were divided into. Stopping at ‘Shoe mountain’ we were told that the numerous pairs of wellies were no use despite the obvious benefit of being waterproof. ‘You can’t run in wellies’ said our guide, which was the most sobering thing to hear at 9.30 on a Monday and effectively set the tone for the rest of the week.

For someone who doesn’t much like camping and is fairly short, tent world was a challenge. 1200 tents had already been sorted and packed away tightly, which seems like a lot, but Help Refugees gets through 10,000 over the winter months. This is because although the French have a law that no one can be without shelter over the winter months, the CRS (basically the French Riot police) will still remove people’s tents and belongings if they aren’t about during an eviction.

Imagine if you will a 5ft 2” woman sorting through a pile of pop up tents, opening one with a start (they really do POP), happily finding that all the zips work, the canvas is hole and tear free, and then spending 20 minutes wrestling it back into the compressed shape she found it. It’s not easy. Nor was the four man tent which took three of us almost an hour to fully set up, but the struggle was well worth it when we found the tent to be whole. Not every tent could be approved and added to the keep pile – some had broken zips (which were promptly despatched to the corner known as ‘Sew Ho’ – a broken zip is nothing to the magicians working there), whilst others could only have their poles and pegs salvaged. It’s slightly heart-breaking to consign something to the scrap pile, but it’s vital that the shelter provided will actually do it’s job. It’s hard enough living out in the open without your tent leaking.

1200 tents!

Quality sleep is hard to come by

 I ditched tents in favour of the kitchen the following morning and spent a large part of it peeling garlic. That may sound like a half hour job, but when the Refugee Community Kitchen serves around 2000 meals every day in Calais and Dunkirk, it’s definitely needed. There was a sombre mood to the warehouse, and kitchen in particular, because the 1500 people camped in what was essentially a mini jungle in Dunkirk were being evicted by the police (including the CRS). As far as I could gather from various conversations over the week, these evictions can range from peaceful to traumatic and sometimes refugees spend the whole day simply being driven around the suburbs before being dropped practically where they started. Reports coming in on the day suggested that this eviction was peaceful (as far as that goes), albeit tense, but it still meant a huge number of people were left without proper shelter as temperatures dropped. Technically the authorities are supposed to take them to welcome centres, but often there’s not enough room for everyone, they can’t stay for that long, and many people simply run away when the eviction starts. 

Photo of the Dunkirk eviction, taken by Help Refugees

Coincidently (and I use that word with a great irony) the eviction happened the day before the second anniversary of the Calais Jungle being destroyed. The cyclical nature of these evictions is incredibly wearing and frustrating for volunteers and refugees  alike, and the events I was hearing about really hammered home how little has changed, even though so much effort has been expended to try and move the situation forward. The food set up on that day further illustrates the ways in which Help Refugees are hampered. On a ‘normal’ day food is distributed canteen style, however given the dispersed nature of people, it was decided to pack up individual meals, and a military style productions line was set up. Have you ever helped process 700 boxes of food in an hour? It’s intense, let me tell you! The frustrating thing though is that of those 700 only 100 could be given out, the remaining people in hiding or moved away from the area by the authorities. The remaining surplus had to be composted.

I don’t tell this story to reflect negatively on Help Refugees – indeed it serves to illustrate the biggest challenge the charity faces on a daily basis as it tries to provide basic human rights. However hard everyone works to produce the food, warmth, and shelter, at times it can be impossible to distribute it to those they know are in need, meaning they go without. It’s a one step forward, two step back at times, and bouncing back from that is tough.

Wednesday morning found me back in the kitchen peeling onions. There’s little to say about that which I’ve not already covered with the garlic, although that doesn’t reflect an average day in the kitchen. There’s a wide variety of tasks to complete, I just didn’t do them! I switched things up in the afternoon by attending a very well planned and thorough field training. This is done twice a week, and anyone – no matter the length of their volunteer stint – can attend. Whilst the guidance sent when I applied suggested going out into the field would only happen if a volunteer had been at the warehouse longer than a week, the general rule of thumb seems to be that you should get as involved in as many aspects of volunteer life as you feel comfortable with. The only caveat to that particular week was that only long-term volunteers did distribution in Dunkirk in order to provide the refugees with some continuity. The training itself was excellent. It should be remembered that Help Refugees is a new charity and the only experience they have is what they’ve gained in the past few years. These are not seasoned professionals from Oxfam or the UN, and their commitment to ensuring their volunteers get as much training and welfare support (psychotherapists offer their services once a week) as they need is hugely commendable.

One of my aims for the week was to get a taste of as many jobs in the warehouse as possible, in order to report back and raise awareness of the whole experience, so my last two full days were spent in the woodyard preparing firewood for when the night temperatures dropped to 5 degrees (originally scheduled for early November, but inevitably brought forward to 28^th October). Chopping logs like a lumberjack was not part of this prep – very little wood the charity can get hold of is of this quality. Rather they have to make do with pallets, kindly given by various French companies, but which provide rather less heat and longevity that your average log. (Sidenote: I could go on a rant about bonfire night bonfires about to take place in the UK, and how that wood could be put to so much better use, but it wouldn’t do any material good. You get the point though.) The pallets are pulled apart and then the nails left are either bashed in or pulled out completely so they aren’t able to be turned into weapons. The wood’s then cut up and divided for distribution. A truck load of pallets provide about a month’s worth of wood, but I’m guessing that’s just for average winter temperatures.

I cannot tell you how therapeutic it is to bash a hammer at a piece of metal for a couple of days, whilst it rains!

I hadn’t intended to go in on my last morning, but by the time Saturday came around, I felt I owed it to give as much of my time to the warehouse as possible. It was properly cold by that point, so I went to help sort through the women’s clothes donations. The instructions for what was and wasn’t appropriate were clear, but one struck me as odd when I first heard it. The women liked stylish clothes – skinny jeans for example – and they wouldn’t wear polo necks. I thought this odd at first – I was already wearing 2 jumpers, and I’d been wishing I’d brought some fingerless gloves by that point – so the concept that people might be fussy about what they were wearing felt distinctly odd. Warm clothes are warm clothes after all. Thinking about it as I sorted through the piles of donations, however, I realised that it made complete sense. These people are no different from anyone else – the fact they have been forced to leave their home for whatever reason does not mean they should be deprived of the dignity of choosing what they get to wear, rather than having things pushed onto them. It might not seem like the most important thing when compared with other basic human rights, but when it’s all you have, it means a lot.

I was driven to the station by another volunteer who pointed out a patch of trees near the motorway known as ‘little wood’ which had been used by refugees as a camping spot. It’s now completely fenced off and people are living under the motorway bridges themselves. We passed a group just sitting on the hard shoulder watching the traffic speed by.

I wanted to use this post to give a flavour of life as a volunteer in the hope it might inspire some other people to go out. True enough it can be depressing and frustrating on many levels, but this is only part of the picture. I’ve not talked about the incredible volunteers who give their time and come from all over the place. I met a number of Brits and French, as you might expect, but there were also people from Spain, Italy, Germany and America. The sense of solidarity is strong and links are forged quickly. It is truly an experience worth having, and I can only hope that the situation moves forward in a positive way. The demands laid out in the photo below are hardly asking for the moon, after all.

How can I help:

Donations of money and goods can be made here (see the ‘get involved’ tab): https://helprefugees.org/

Volunteer here: https://helprefugees.org/volunteer/

If you live in London help fill the emergency Lesvos container, leaving on 18^th November: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdhpliLuzK5KbGirCVWSf_Fm99x7aQ4P8HgrYV8OrRPiGX1Sg/viewform

Read the report on the refugee crisis: https://helprefugees.org/news/a-brief-timeline-of-the-human-rights-situation-in-calais/

Write to your MP about the need to reunite refugee families: https://act.helprefugees.org/help-refugees/families-together/refugee-familiestogether/

Reflections on the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Last Friday I went to see The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the Donmar Warehouse. I'd been sitting on these tickets since April, having sat patiently in a queue online (online queues meaning that you can be as shouty as you want when it's moving slowly, because there's no one about to judge you. Unless you're doing it sneakily at work of course).

Anyway - I was excited. I'd been excited ever since it had been announced, which had coincided with my seeing Lia Williams in Mary Stuart for the second time (in the title role - I played coin toss roulette and won) and therefore felt like all the theatrical fates were aligning. There was no way in all possibility that I was going to miss this performance.

I am very familiar with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. I've read the book (although I don't remember many of my thoughts on it. It's been a while) and I've seen the Maggie Smith version of the film. Maggie Smith has been burned on my conciousness from an early age, as her delivery of the iconic lines. I knew it would be a challenge for this production to live up to that seminal production. I also knew that if anyone could do it, then a cast helmed by Lia Williams, Angus Wright and Sylvestra Le Touzel, directed by Polly Findlay would be the team to see off the ghosts of the past.

And I was right. Helped, in part, by the new adaptation by David Harrower, fresh life was breathed into this oh so familiar piece. admittedly my mind kept snagging on plot points which had been transferred from one character to another, and the placement of lines. Those bon mots so iconic were liberally scattered about in all manner of places. One - which I am quite sure was said at the beginning of the film - didn't even get a first prenouncement until halfway through. It was deliciously unsettling.

And how right I was to think Lia Williams would do the role justice. She was magnificent. Cool, passionate, disinterested, fervent, broken, warrior-like, turning on a pinhead so you were never quite sure which facet of her diamond like personality you would get next. The play goes further than the film, so that you see Miss Brodie in later life. Her final scene she is sitting for most of it, some brilliant red shoes flashing out at the audience, as if to say 'I'm not quite done yet'. Thinking about those shoes on the way home, I fell to wondering and have come to the conclusion that the costume department are geniuses.

Miss Brodie has three costume changes as the play progresses, and has different shoes for each outfit. Fantastically spiky red heels to start give way to a lower heeled red and beige court shoe, before finally another red pair of shoes, which I think were flatter, but which I couldn't quite see all of. I'm going to assume they were lower. It occurred to me as I wound my way home that Miss Brodie's shoes are a counter to her position within the school she seeks to dominate. As her position becomes more precarious and her hold on her 'gels' and the men in her life more nebulous, her shoes become lower, which should (by rights) steady her. They should allow her to retain her grip on events, to shape them as she wishes. But they don't. Instead she becomes less able to walk the path set before her. It is an inspired addition to the character, who at the beginning of the play dashes about in a whirl of fervent inspiration and excitement on stilettos that might break another's neck, and by the end is brought to a standstill by events, until ultimately she topples, wearing the safe footwear of the aged and infirm.

The rest of the cast all moved about the Brodie orbit with aplomb. Sandy has fascinated me for quite a while, but I saw another side to her in this. There was a vulnerability I don't think has been picked up on in the past. It's well hidden though. Sandy has steel running through her. I don't want to comment too heavily on all of the cast - this is after all not the work of a critic, simply the enthusiastic thoughts of an avid theatre goer. Simply put, I thought the entire cast were wonderful (although I'm still working hard to determine Teddy Lloyd's exact accent!)

Tickets are as rare as hen's teeth, but it's worth trying to get one. A play this light and deep simultaneously doesn't come along all that often. The Donmar is a powerhouse that allows 251 people into its confines each night and surprises them with something fresh every time.

Censorship at the Olivier Awards - open letter to SOLT and ITV

My letter to SOLT and ITV about the censorship at the recent Olivier awards is on the letters page of The Stage, but given free access to the site is limited for non paying consumers, I thought I'd post it here too.

Limited as I was to 350 words max, there were a great many things which I didn't have room to talk about, and which I intend on using this blog to delve into at a later date. For now, though, here's the letter sent to The Stage. Note, I wrote first to Julian Bird, Director of SOLT, but never got a reply. These issues are important, and need to be discussed as frankly as possible.

The Olivier’s are the highest honour the theatrical world can bestow on its community and whilst the atmosphere in the run up to the ceremony seemed to point to an evening of celebration, by the time the ‘highlight show’ finished it became apparent that it was only to be broadcast in the face of heavy censorship.

With the British theatre scene at the zenith of its popularity, surely it is time to broadcast the whole ceremony? The promotional tag line ‘Be Inspired’ should live up to the promise of showing future generations just how much theatre involves people like them.

Having listened to the entire ceremony on Magic radio (warts and all, including the fluffs by Catherine Tate) I was able to hear the passionate thoughts on immigration, diversity, same sex partnerships, the social role of theatre, ethnicity, the Time’s Up and 50:50 movements, and one man’s 13 year dedication to the Young Vic, delivered so eloquently by (amongst others) Giles Terera, Dominic Cooke, Marianne Elliott, Alex Lacamoire, Sheila Atim, Alexandra Burke, Beverley Knight, Juliet Stevenson and David Lan.

Those thought provoking and passionate words were inspirational and uplifting. Sadly, Magic have not kept the recording and so the sentiments so strongly expressed have been lost to posterity, because the TV broadcast gave a bare approximation of the events. It is deeply disturbing that ITV chose to edit so extensively. It would be worrying in any year, but at this particular moment in time, the censorship raises many questions, not least – why did ITV deem such cuts necessary, and does SOLT intend to continue its broadcast partnership with a provider that chooses to silence those who speak out on such sensitive and important issues?

Now is not the time for censorship. The future credibility of SOLT and the Olivier’s rests on the support of those who are brave enough to stand up, speak out, and inspire.