On the way to the Vodafone shop in Preston today*, AJ and I passed a woman in a burka in Saint George’s Shopping Centre. I wondered how she feels about having the man who referred to Muslim women wearing burkas “looking like letter boxes” as Prime Minister?
I am so scared of the ongoing normalisation of all shapes of horriblenessand holding on tight to the joyous images of Congresswoman Ilhan Oman being welcomed back to her home state of Minnesota after being racially abused by the President of the United States and told, along with Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley.
I think about my mother too, who would’ve been 83 yesterday – she loved to say her birthday was on the twenty-twoth according to Auntie T – and how excited we all were by St George’s Shopping Centre opening in 1966. It seemed so modern, so with it, so hopeful. It gave us a feeling of coming up in the world, until we all crashed to earth spectacularly the year after when she died of cancer and who cared about shopping centres then?
Monica Wells was a small, bright and lively child during the Second World War fought against fascism. One of my biggest memories of being with her is us watching Sir Winston Churchill’s state funeral on a tiny black and white TV with a fuzzy picture. The crane jibs nodded as the barge bearing Churchill’s coffin passed Hays Wharf docks.
I was rather baffled by all the fuss. The long solemn funeral and the thousands of people who lined the streets, weeping. Mum explained Churchill had won the war for us. This seemed highly unlikely – how could any one person do that? She tried to explain how he’d been an inspirational leader and given the country the heart to fight.
I wonder what she’d make of politicians intentionally stirring hatred and deep divisions.
*Yes, I know, yet another telecoms saga – if I got all the time back from the struggles I’ve had with operators collectively, I’d still be in my 40s.
The Persistent Woman 