Get on yer bike...hadaway
NEXT year, I’m doing a one man show based on my experiences in the world of work.
The planned title of the performance is ‘On yer Bike Mike - a life of acting on Norman Tebbit’s advice.’
The problem isn’t what to write about as there’s a mountain of material - I’ve been around pets...
Apart from being a professional stand up, I’ve been paid as a shop worker, toilet roll and feminine hygiene product salesman, regular army private and officer cadet, primary school teacher, traffic census operator, film and TV actor, newspaper columnist, care worker, masseur, cartoon voiceover artist and even stood shivering uncontrollably on Redcar beach in a pair of speedos in February whilst filming an Australian booze advert.
So, for younger readers - who was the aforementioned Mr Tebbit?
Yes, a certain Mr Tebbit’s speech to the 1981 Tory party conference (in light of that summer’s widespread rioting) is forever remembered for this particular quote ... “I grew up in the 30s with an unemployed father. He didn’t rio; he got on his bike and looked for work and he kept looking until he found it.”
Really Norman? Now keeping politics aside, I found this pretty puzzling as a 17-year-old, as my family and all the adults I knew were some of the hardest working beings alive.
Indeed, I was aware of the fiercely stark work ethic imbued in the Geordie culture.
My older relatives were proud of reminding us young ‘uns of how they’d worked since they were 14 and only took a ‘break’ from their careers to fight the Nazis or do national service.
Givowwer! Who the freak was the Chingford skinheed (as opponents dubbed him) addressing?
Neybody I knew! The nearest the hard working blokes I knew had come to rioting was when they’d shown Rock Around the Clock at the local pictures and a few radgie teddy boys had hoyed some chairs aboot as they got carried away with their boppin.’
These proud gadgies and lassies I encountered embraced work as a central plank of their identity.
The fact you were an armature winder at Parsons, a wages clerk at the GPO, a plater at Swans, on the kid’s shoe counter at Shepherds or diesel a fitter at Davy Roll came out of your mouth a heartbeat after your name and a couple just before you proclaimed if you were black and white or red and white!
In fact Norman, any attempt to shame or belittle those you deemed as workshy was wasted breath up here man; even though the people I knew never voted for your lot, their utter contempt for anybody not willing to work as hard as they did made you look like a commie hippy from some Jesmond student squat.
Nevertheless, in today’s politically correct, snowflake sensitive climate, even privileged oafs like Bullingdon Club bull’s knacker Boris Johnson wouldn’t dare make such a comment.
Indeed, any contemporary reference involving unemployed people and bicycles would take on a completely different complexion.
Any criticism would be out. Focus would obviously be on the green environmental angle, with the unemployed being portrayed as plucky eco-warriors, fitness fanatics and wellness aware gurus.
An initiative would be launched with a huge public fanfare; Boris, Richard Branson and Prince Harry would be filmed clowning around on his cycle - share ‘Boris bikes’ whilst a phalanx of grinning, handpicked, photogenic andallegedly unemployed youths and pensioners would cheerfully cycle off en-mass into the sunset, eyes distantly set on some zero hours, sub-minimum wage future job.
Indeed some of the younger ones could just have somebody strap a daft-shaped haversack full of pizzas on their backs and keep pedalling; from dole to delivery job without even getting off their Mobike!
Now what with Norman Tebbit make of that extreme purist interpretation of his long ago advice?