Postcards from the Edge
Real diversity means a mixture of different classes – as well as different races, says Mary Kenny
Our little Channel town of Deal was voted, this spring, among the top ten places to live in south-east England.
It came in ahead of more gem-like locations such as Lewes and Winchester, but behind the picture-postcard Surrey Hills and the bucolic Amersham. Deal, reported the Sunday Times in their survey, is ‘a thriving seaside town that’s salty and sophisticated … cosy pubs and wine bars abound and dining options are plentiful’.
Deal certainly has delightful delicatessens, cafés, bars and restaurants. I’m especially fond of the genuinely Italian and modestly priced The Sicilian in the town’s Stanhope Street. But it also has something else that gives the town its flavour. It has class diversity.
When we speak of ‘diversity’ these days, we usually refer to an ethnic mix. But there is another kind of diversity worth considering: posh people mixing with people of slender means; individuals doing smart techie or arty jobs alongside others with unpretentious occupations in retail, servicing or artisanal trades.
What makes Deal interesting is that it’s not a one-class town. There are, for sure, residents with beautiful homes and, evidently, plenty of spondulicks in the bank, but there’s also an element of old bohemianism.
Native Deal oldies recall that the town could be quite ‘rough’ back in the 1950s and ’60s: Middle Street, now dinkily restored to Jane Austen-like decorum, then featured drunken taverns and public brawls.
Call it nostalgie de la boue, but I am fond of a bit of chavviness in the social mix of any society. I wouldn’t want to dwell only among a refined middle class – I’d feel distinctly inadequate.
But getting the mix just right – a few swells, a steady addition of solid bourgeois, a bit of alternative artiness and an element of proletarian spiciness – is what makes for diversity, it seems to me: what Duchess Meghan might call ‘authenticity’.
How we’ll appreciate restaurants, pubs and cafés this summer – after such long deprivation. The huge improvements in the standards of British food in recent decades are surely linked to the blossoming of foreign travel by, yes, the masses, via budget airlines and cheapo travel packages. Can’t wait to be in a security queue at Gatwick once again!
‘Staycations’ are all very well, but if we were consigned to stay on home soil for a prolonged period, we would, I fear, become more narrow-minded and insular. Travel does broaden the mind and enhance cultural experience: the Costa tourists all came to know the meaning of the tapas bar.
When we get back to normal, Francophiles can enjoy many bicentenary events throughout this year, marking the death of Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte 200 years ago on 5th May 1821. At the stunning Musée de l’armée in Paris, Fontainebleau and Rueil-malmaison, among other locations, old Boney will be celebrated and honoured in a variety of tasteful ways. (See ‘2021 Année Napoléon’ online.)
Was he a great man, a genius or a tyrant? Opinions still differ, even in France. But one thing is sure: he would not comply with our standards of gender equality. When asked what kind of woman should be most admired, he replied, ‘She who has had the most children.’
After the French Revolution witnessed female revolutionaries running amok in the streets, Bonaparte resolved to return women to the home, under the control of a male patriarch, and his constitution reflected that view. Yes – the epitome of ‘toxic masculinity’ indeed!
A hundred years after the partition of Ireland, there’s now much talk about Irish reunification, under the more tactful concept of ‘a shared island’. The border problems arising from Brexit, as well as possible looming Scottish independence, have prompted a ‘reconfiguration’ of what some call the North Atlantic Isles (formerly known as the British Isles).
But if Ireland were to be reunited, where would the new capital be situated – Dublin or Belfast? Or possibly Cork? All three are suggested.
My personal preference is the Hill of Tara, in County Meath, somewhere between Dublin and Belfast. It was the ceremonial burial grounds of the High Kings of Ireland (the Irish monarchy died out in the 11th century), and has some compelling Neolithic to Iron Age archaeology. It’s full of prehistorical legend, and when it comes to political disputes prehistory always seems a safer place to go. (Even if Tara probably gained more renown from its association with Scarlett O’hara in Gone with the Wind.)
Partition in Ireland wasn’t really a satisfactory solution in the 1920s, but it was then the only practical one. Today, when the political landscape has changed, why not seek to review the situation?
Mind you, André Maurois said that being an oldie was like watching a film from halfway through, and then seeing it start again until it got to the bit where you say, ‘This is where I came in.’ Ditto with so many ‘new’ political initiatives!