Protests, statues and the effects of lockdown in The View from the Terrace

I think the world may be undergoing a metamorphosis. Great numbers of people who can see truths that society fails to acknowledge are taking matters into their own hands. It is like the times of the chartists and the suffragettes and the gay movements of the 60s. Nowadays the world seems to have been overrun by the Black Lives Matter protesters. In Bristol on Sunday they pulled down the statue of Edward Colston and threw it into the harbour. Colston has been a controversial figure in Bristol for some time. He was a local businessman who grew rich on the slave trade and then spent a lot of his money on local charitable causes. Streets, schools and the big concert hall have been named after him. There has been a local movement for some time trying to get these names changed, I remember reading about it when we went to Colston Hall to see Collabro. The statue may well have come down soon anyway, but I guess the protesters needed to make a point dramatically. In London Churchill’s statue has been scrawled over claiming he was a racist. I have to say that, after reading some of the things he said, I am inclined to agree. In his defence we could say he was simply of his age. I can remember my mother saying things that would definitely be thought racist now but were then considered normal, but I think now the time has come for change. I am the mailing list of Colston Hall. I received an email today from them to say that they are changing the name of the hall, although this had already been announced, they have decided that, in view of recent events, they will be taking down the signs right away and announcing the new name before they reopen in the autumn. I saw on the news that the statue has now been recovered from the harbour, but it will not be put back up, instead it will go into a museum, so it seems that the cause has been acknowledged.

It is strange how some people can see the rights and wrongs of things way before the majority. I don’t remember a lot from my history lessons at school beyond learning a long list of kings and their dates, and, for some reason, a lesson on Gothic architecture in churches that has stayed with me; to this day I can tell you the dates different parts of churches were built. But one lesson that has always lived with me was the one about the slave triangle. I was 9 years old and I don’t just remember which class I was in, I remember exactly where I was sitting when we learned that the raw cotton for Britain’s northern industries was obtained by buying slaves from West Africa, transporting them to the USA and exchanging them for the cotton that the slaves produced. We learned that Liverpool grew rich on the slave trade and I was so horrified that I went home and told my mother that I would never ever go to Liverpool. She tried to explain that it was a very long time ago and nothing to do with the people who lived there now but I didn’t care. My mother told me I was being silly.

I have been watching two interesting TV programmes and, strangely, they both had slavery as a theme, even though they were scheduled before current events began. One is A House Through Time which tells the history of the people who lived in a house in Bristol, several of whom made money from the slave trade. I have followed that programme for two previous seasons when they featured houses in Liverpool and Newcastle. It is a fascinating programme. The other programme is Portillo’s Empire Journey which tells the story of the British Empire, and the second episode was about Jamaica and it’s slaving history. I was particularly interested in the first episode of the Empire programme though, it was about India. It told about Robert Clive who colonised a large part of India. Clive was from Shropshire and there is a statue of him in the Square in Shrewsbury. I remember looking at that statue as a child and asking my mother who he was. She said, ‘That’s Clive of India’ and I thought he must be a great man. Michael Portillo described him as a delinquent who kept getting into trouble and whose father eventually found him a job with the East India Company. He ended up running the army and subjugated much of India. He doesn’t sound like a very nice man. He wasn’t even liked in his own time, he amassed a fortune from exploiting the natives. It goes to show that statues have an effect on young minds. Perhaps that one should come down too.

Incidentally, there have been demonstrations here in Cardiff. These slogans have been stuck up just around the corner from here.

I have just discovered that this year’s Shrewsbury Flower Show has been cancelled. This has really made me feel depressed. I missed it last year because I couldn’t leave Louise at that time. Hubby and I go out a lot in the summer. We go to flower shows and open gardens and drives to our favourite places. We have one or two holidays and a few weekends away. I miss all of that, there is nothing to look forward too. I can’t even go places with Louise as everywhere is closed. Even shopping is more of a chore. I used to enjoy tea in the cafe and wandering around the clothes departments after getting the groceries, now it is all stress and worry that someone will ignore the rules and come too close, or that they will upset Louise because she takes time to make her decisions about her shopping and they want her to hurry up and clear the aisle.

I kind of understand these protesters, people are stretched to their limit, they are stir crazy and looking for a reason to say to hell with it all. It has to be controlled though, ignoring the social distancing rules may trigger a second wave of the epidemic and then we will have to go through all of this again.