RED NOT DEAD

Back in August, I wet to see my friend David Peace read from his novel "GB84" in Barnsley Town Hall, at an event commemorating the 30th anniversary of what is known in those parts as The Strike. Afterwards, we had a pint and then headed to Oakwell to see the home side lose 1-0 to Crawley. This is my love letter to the town of Barnsley, a place that will remain forever in my affection and "un hommage" to David's writing. It is published in issue 6 of "West Stand Bogs" and I'm delighted to say it's proving to be quite popular, for which I'm eternally grateful -:

The dead brood under Britain. We whisper. We echo. The emanation of Giant Albion (David Peace; GB84 p2).

Alarm sounds early. 5.45. Shower while the kettle boils at sun up on a fresh morning. Soft banana breakfast on the deserted dawn bus. First one out the garage and then the first train from the sidings. Carriages full of nobody. Durham, then Darlington, Northallerton and York. By now handfuls of retail workers heading for Leeds to graft. Solitary cricket enthusiasts going early to Manchester and a clutch of teenage female weekend drinkers with unironed hair and wheely cases for Liverpool, but it’s time to change. Ignore three quid Cappuccinos on the platform; choose £1.25 Nescafe from Greggs. Splash water across face and shirt in the station bogs to try and come round. Too old for early mornings. Two days away from 50 and the season is about to start.

Connection heads for Nottingham (Scabs! Scabs! Scabs!). The fast one. Ignores Normanton. Stops at Westgate. Home of Wakefield Young Drinkers Club. 35 years ago they danced to 7” singles by The Fall in the bar of the Red Hut WMC. Train slowly describes a circuitous parabola through previously forgotten countryside between Darton and Barnsley. A dozen years since setting foot in the finest town in South Yorkshire, yet the route is familiar. The businesses are different, but the edifices unchanged.  Eldon Street. Market Hill. The Town Hall. Massive. Portland stone. Magnificent. George Orwell hated the place when he came to experience Barnsley. Said the council should have spent the money on proper housing for miners.

22 years and 10 days earlier. In that Town Hall. The unchanging edifice in Portland stone. A Friday afternoon. Glorious sun, just like today. Repeat some vows. Sign the register. Confetti. Laughter. Photographs. A chauffeured Beetle up to High Hoyland and a buffet for 60. A good day. A special day and then ordinary days followed, before too many bad days, some terrible days and the inevitable ending. Time passes and time shows how to remember people, places and events. Fondly and with respect. Ordinary people should never be enemies. The enemies are the evil ones who control and exploit and manipulate.

Ten o’clock sharp, automatic door into the museum swings open and the path leads through the story of this brave town. A noble town of strong, indefatigable special people who took on the enemies, with the dice loaded, the cards marked and the numbers uneven. They lost, heroically, tragically and maddeningly 30 years ago. There’s a crowd here to listen and to talk and to remember the boiling hate and anger that will never abate. That witch. That evil, evil witch who destroyed all that was good and, with the aid of her advisors and benefactors, her henchmen and apologists, enacted the destruction not just of the post war social democratic consensus and the welfare state, but of communities. Families. Friendships. Workplaces. Homes. Lives. Hope. The past. The present. The future.

All of this in David Peace’s GB84, the book that brings a crowd to the education resource room in the Museum in Barnsley Town Hall on Saturday 9^th August 2014. The crowd of good people. Ordinary, decent people who care and who love their kin and who won’t forget the past. Football fans. Workers. Students. Poets. Deep thinkers. Orgreave campaigners. Strike veterans. The ages vary, but these people are not Old Labour. They are Prehistoric Labour. Someone is reading Chavs, but they’ll tell you Owen Jones is a Pop Idol poster boy apologist for the party that betrayed the NUM in 84 and, by implication, the entire working class, then did so again and again between 1997 and 2010 and will do in 2015, if given the chance.

This crowd are engaged, respectful, informed. They know their history. They talk and debate and remember in anger, in sorrow and in the unshakeable belief that the system in this country and the ruling elite who destroyed the strike in 1984 are the enemy. The evil enemy so chillingly portrayed in the book they are here to talk about.

For 2 hours the crowd talks and listens and agrees. They know this book; GB84 by David Peace. My friend. A Huddersfield Town fan, who will not see his team concede a goal after 25 seconds, lose 4-0 at home to Bournemouth and have their manager (a former Barnsley boss) sacked that afternoon, because he is in a pub in Barnsley on Market Hill, drinking Barnsley Bitter on Saturday 9^th August 2014. That novelist will buy West Stand Bogs and ask contributors in Old No 7 to sign his copy, as he signs theirs. There is respect, affection and understanding. They are of the crowd from before and there are no barriers in this excellent pub selling superb ale in this fine, proud town that was right and brave and independent in 1984. And it still is. The pride is there in this pub as the glorious Acorn beer slides down until it is time to say goodbye and head for Oakwell.

In the glorious sunshine, to Oakwell. For the opening game of the season. Drain the glass. Emerge onto Market Hill. Turn slightly left and go down Eldon Street. Take a slight right onto Kendray Street and cross the train lines. Continue onto Pontefract Road, under the flyover. Turn left onto Bala Street, up the hill. Continue onto Belgrave Road and back down the other side. Turn left onto Grove Street and there’s Oakwell, where you went so often between 1990 and 2002.

There’s a man in a tasteful hat and another in a tidy jacket selling West Stand Bogs. You talk and you laugh and you sense the atmosphere build as more and more people arrive. The new season. This fine club in this brave town that plays in this noble ground Oakwell, where it costs £24 to see a League 1 game, but it doesn’t matter as the crowds keep coming and the atmosphere builds and everyone is relentlessly positive and immensely optimistic on a glorious day. The morning has been about history and the past, but this is about the present and the future. We are the crowd and we believe in good. 

The good men of this great club in this amazing town.But there is no happy ending. Crawley Town have 150 fans, a questionable past and the loathsome John Gregory as manager. They play no football. They kick it long and push and harry and barge. The loathsome manager waves and gesticulates and claims for everything. Authority again get it wrong. Gary Willard’s name is mentioned repeatedly. A stupid sending off. A loss of concentration. A soft corner. Weak defending. Unmarked header. 0-1 after 83 minutes. 10,000 people say BASTARDS in unison. The day deflates and people leave as the whistle blows, but keep their dignity.

A defeat, but not the end of the road. The sun shines glorious as proud, unbowed crowds go back up Belgrave Road and down Bala Street. Across Pontefract Road and up Eldon Street to Market Hill to another incredible pint and a free pork pie, before the train through Darton and Wakefield and Leeds, where that station buffet advertises not free pork pies, but half price sushi. It is not 1984 any longer.

Barnsley will rise again. The town. The club. The people. In Old No 7. In Oakwell. In the Museum and in the pages of West Stand Bogs.

Awake! Awake! This is England. Your England – and the Year is Zero (David Peace: GB84 p462).