In Which We Witness The Return Of Pomp In Austerity

The Longest Bunting in the Land

by RACHEL SYKES

The windows in the houses opposite were opening onto the street. Sound bubbled out of them, up and over the windowsills, spilling down the road. Church bells were rumbling and the sounds of the day already seemed to cluster round my ears. Nothing was loud, exactly, but it mumbled — a dull and incipient mutter of radios, the slight buzz of background TV. It was not loud, exactly, but it was building. The road itself had fallen uncharacteristically silent. As we turned on our own radio, the noise rose up to meet us. Dresses, we heard; all normal programming has been removed. Dresses were in its place.

On the day of the Royal Wedding, we got up for free champagne. Free champagne that would be plucked from the hands of less miserly friends, to momentarily halt a barrage of dirty jokes about Prince Phillip and the bridesmaids. We reached the party just before the near-princess emerged from her carriage. We now sat, tipsy, self-censoring, amongst a table of pancakes, strawberries and creams, beside a republican, an agnostic, an indifferent, and a monarchist.

The lonely monarchist had come with her own bunting. From several patchworks of pastel fabrics, she was now waving five triangles around her head. Each piece bore a large and pronounced "W 4 K" which she had reverse appliqued with the greatest of care. As the alcohol kicked in, this bunting trailed lower and lower, until her limp wrist dragged it dolefully along the carpet.

This is not a story worth remembering. But I hate that I won’t forget it. And I know, in every way possible, that I am uneducatedly unpatriotic. Many intelligent people have written many clever books about the downsides of monarchy, and I haven’t read any of them. Yet I still suffer from the type of discomfort which comes from knowing that you can’t support a hereditary power, yet you have never learnt more than what was taught to you in history class.

For most of my life, everyone has seemed content in their apathy toward kings and queens. But then one of them got engaged, and we have fallen through the ensuing two years consumed in repatriation. Bunting was the first hint of acceptance when a wave of posters bumbled: “Keep Calm and Carry On.” And so, the avalanche: memorabilia from World War II, commemorative plates of the wedding, and now the Diamond Jubilee with stationary, tea towels, covers for games consoles, and, no exaggeration, Union Jack sex toys. We are being assured of the return of pomp in austerity by a rush of confused products which claim that it is OK to be British because it was once unquestioned. And the Queen has certainly been alive for a long time. She is so old that her heirs are themselves too old, but as luck would have it her grandchildren are young. And if they’re not young, they are assuredly media savvy.

Six months ago, I poured a glass of water over my camera. But with a little money scraped together I found an awful replacement just before the four day Jubilee. Eyes inevitably on the pavement, I started taking pictures of bunting in puddles.

My housemate noticed the attention I’d been paying to patriotic litter on the Saturday morning of the long weekend. As we walked to our exercise class, she told me about the village where her parents lived: it boasted the longest piece of bunting in the country. Both my housemates wanted to watch a beacon being lit outside the Elizabethan mansion which stands a half mile from our house. 4,200 beacons would be set alight across the Commonwealth, in countries so disparate that the only thing linking them were picture postcards of an 86 year old woman.

Trying to think of this, I fell short. I rang my mum. “It’s raining,” she said. “I’m baking cakes for the street party. People are bringing umbrellas.”

There it was, the sinking feeling at the thought of my neighbours sitting outside for the Queen, eating cake under fifty brollies. Street parties were now happening everywhere. If one street didn’t have one, someone would arrange it immediately like a nostalgic flash mob. Bunting had snuck along the shops, and down the road that my housemate and I lolloped back across after our class. Two ladies turned up in Union Jack leggings, topped with Union Jack t-shirts, to a round of applause. In some places, the rain had caused the flags to sink so low that they seemed in danger of cutting off our heads.

At home, the internet told me that my friends and acquaintances had engaged in monarchism in increasingly impressive ways, from non-ironic proclamations of “God Save The Queen!” to painting members of the Royal family onto their fingernails.

On Saturday night, my friends went to a small bar, tucked away from the flags above a card shop on the town square. The bar is part gallery, part venue, part living room, but is dedicated to local bands. From where we sat by the window, we were almost eye level with the bunting that draped the outside world. From corner to corner, shop to shop, we could see it darting round the town hall which looms over the pure white of the city center. Below us, people streamed around, covered in more Union Jacks, installed with tiny flags in hand. Directly opposite, an Irish bar was emitting an odd purple light over its bunting. To the right of the purple, we could see one of several pubs in Nottingham claiming to be the oldest in Britain. In its top window, a blow up doll, naked, Union Jack in hand, was gyrating with a stag party.

Inside, however, we were flanked by a variety of fairy lights which largely excluded the scene below. The bar was lined with the owner’s personal art work — this month, a series of graphic portraits of a former lover’s genitalia. Spurned by this lover, the bar’s owner had publicised his art show with the woman’s name and “NUDE” as its title.

“I’m looking for new models,” he said. “We’ve fallen out."

The bar is two stories high: a low-ceilinged room for drinks downstairs, a cavernous performance area above and studio space all around. The back of the lower floor is cluttered with junk and memorabilia: a broken till, an inflatable globe, a shopping trolley, a plastic Viking helmet. We drank ales named after badgers and hopping hares, or cider out of a barrel marked “raspberry + pear” (although “pear” had been dubiously taped over something else). They carry the best samosas in Nottingham, half the size of your head. Behind the bar, a sign read large in capitals: “Water will only be served to ugly customers (and it tastes like piss anyway).” For this weekend, a merchandise stand sold posters and CDs, some of which had been encased entirely in wax.

the other rachel

One friend and I sat by the window, taking pictures of faux-surprise next to the nearest intimate portrait. We share our first two names, both Rachel and Elizabeth, plus a poor level of eyesight, which makes some people think that we’re either strange sisters or lovers. Sitting alone, we could talk about nothing in particular which we enjoy very much. But we could both still see the flags out of the corners of our eyes. We did not like the flags, though neither of us could say quite why.

As the music started, it dismissed our problem. A man in a long coat got up to sing, setting off an endless drumbeat and swaying back and forth. His most popular song peaked about his time on minimum wage: “£5.60? Fuck off!” He stood at the front of the crowd with his coat buttoned up to the neck, directing his anger towards everything from penny farthings to the microphone in front of him.

“McFlurrrrrrry,” he yelled as the mic stand quivered. “I’m a nasty bastard in stage tights.”

The band who followed him were covered in the grand tradition of safety pins, mohawks, and t-shirts which, again, said “Fuck off” in blood red letters. We were warned by several people not to go too close to them as they tended to slide across the dance floor and stare intently at the crotch of anyone who they ended up underneath.

Three hours later, we left with the inflatable globe and Viking helmet gifted to us. Our friend bought one of the CDs encased in wax, though she didn’t know whether she would ever get it open. And we sat at the bus stop looking up at the bunting which fluttered noisily in the dark. A week later, it still hangs there.

The music coming from above was still noisy and varied and messy. It had been awkward, and funny, and bold. Surrounded by the portraits of a doomed affair, the bands were creating something out of pomp. If it was not perfect, exactly, it was something.

With my new camera, I tried to take a photo of the bunting fluttering overhead. But it wasn’t bright enough, and the flags were eventually lost against the neon of the supermarket and the blackness of the city in the evening.

Rachel Sykes is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Nottingham. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here. She last wrote in these pages about life in Russia. She tumbls here.

Photographs by the author.

"Brighter Than The Sun" - Colbie Caillat (mp3)

"Bubbly" - Colbie Caillat (mp3)