Rearing its ugly head

Couldn't avoid it, really. One of the two subjects you're not (according to my mother's generation) allowed to bring up in polite company. There's another - sex - which was unmentionable in any company, but I digress.

I'm talking about politics, of course. With the big day only a week away, 'election fever' has allegedly gripped the country. Well, it's gripped the media, well and truly, but most people seem to have a rather cynical 'plague on both your houses' attitude. Quite a lot can't be bothered to turn out, because they think (quite rightly in many cases) that it'll make not the slightest difference to a result. Which is a shame, because people died so that we could have the right to vote: and in countries around the world, people are still dying because they desire so passionately what we in the UK take for granted. Those queues at polling stations in countries like South Africa shame us.

I first voted in the 1970 election, which took place on 18th June. 18-year-olds had only recently been given the vote, so at the age of 18 years and 2 days, I must have been one of the youngest people in the country ever to do so, though little was made of the fact at the time, and the media certainly didn't beat a path to our door. I made the mistake of revealing that I had voted Liberal at the staff supper that evening, and my father, in front of everyone, accused me of wasting my vote.

Actually, of course, a lot of people in that constituency (then Sudbury and Woodbridge, now Suffolk Coastal) had wasted their vote. With a Tory majority of around twelve thousand, supporters of other parties hadn't a prayer. My parents, card-carrying Conservatives, couldn't see anything wrong with this. I always used to say (but not to them - we followed my mother's rule and almost never risked discussing politics) that a monkey could be elected in Suffolk Coastal if it wore a blue rosette - and lo and behold, their MP was John Selwyn Gummer, the man who fed his small daughter a beefburger to demonstrate that it wasn't dangerously full of BSE. Of course, what he was actually demonstrating was either how hard he'd been leaned on by Central Office, or how far he was prepared to go in furthering his political career. Are you surprised people are cynical about MPs? And that was long before the expenses scandal.

In Brighton, a few years later, I remember attending political meetings. One of my parents' friends, the wife of a well-known Conservative MP, on hearing that I was at Sussex, drawled, "They're all Maoists there, aren't they?" Well, no. I remember Vince, the guy who sold Socialist Worker, standing forlornly at the bottom of the stairs in the Students' Union building as everyone streamed past, ignoring him. My friends - and I - were far more intent on having a good time. Even the one who stood for Union Secretary only did so because he wanted a hand in booking the bands. But we did go to a meeting at the Dome, and I remember seeing the National Front thugs, with shaven heads and vicious mouths, shouting insults at the long-haired students, most of whom were far too stoned to pay attention. That year, 1974, produced the last hung parliament, in which the Liberals got 19% of the vote and 2% of the seats, a result so desperately unfair that I've been a supporter of some system of proportional representation ever since.

It's a system that has its faults, of course, and there are quite a few different ways of doing it, some amazingly complicated, so that you think that, if the great Devizes public can't fathom the library self-service machines, surely they won't get their heads round the single transferable vote. But it has one huge advantage. At present the government of this country is essentially decided by those voters in a few key marginals who can be bothered to turn up at the polling stations on election day. Surely a large part of the current apathy, especially amongst the young, is down to the fact that in most constituencies, whoever we vote for, it makes very little difference to the overall result. If we all felt that our single cross on the ballot paper might swing it one way or another, it might have a galvanising effect on the turnout. Many people feel they no longer have a voice, and proportional representation will give them that voice.

Of course, it would also mean that minor parties would get a look-in for the first time. Hooray - Greens in Parliament! The downside of that is that the BNP would probably also be in Parliament, along with UKIP - but you can't have one without the other, and perhaps having to take part in real politics, as opposed to mouthing off from the sidelines, would show the voters just how unpleasant, not to say barking, most of their ideas are. It's noticeable from the opinion polls, for instance, that people who don't live in areas with high immigrant populations are much more hostile towards them than people who have realised, through daily contact, that they may look a bit different but we're all pretty similar under the skin, want the same things and hold the same values, feel the same emotions. Sounds obvious, but to hear some of the things some otherwise quite rational people say, the obvious needs stating with some force. Immigrants have so much to offer, and this country has benefited immeasurably from them over many years. I have ancestors from Ireland, Portugal , the West Indies and Germany, who came here to make a new life, and succeeded triumphantly. My great-great grandfather arrived as a teenager, with nothing, and worked as a tailor: his descendants have enriched both themselves and their country, just as most other immigrants have done.

So, what will happen next Thursday? I know what I'd like to happen: I'd like a hung parliament, with the Lib Dems holding the balance of power, and a drastic reform of the Houses of Parliament, with both proportional representation and an elected Upper Chamber. But I doubt it. The result will be the same old same old: the Tories will get in, David 'airbrushed' Cameron will be our Prime Minister, and all the old injustices will come back (not to mention hunting). I remember what the 80s were like, and I don't believe they've changed that much. But I live in a rural constituency with a thumping Conservative majority: so whichever way I cast my vote, the Tory will always get in.

Heaven is a Bluebell Wood

I keep watching and waiting - everything is so late this year. Last year the bluebells were up in January and in full bloom by mid-April: now, there are just one or two flowers out, so that when I drive past the long strip under the pines up on Bowden Hill, you catch just an echo of that glorious blue here and there, so faint that it's hard to see in the dim light, but a promise of the wonders to come.

Bluebells en masse are my favourite sight in spring. When I was growing up, there was only one place locally which could present any kind of display: a small patch on the clifftop beside the path that led from Nacton Shore to Levington Creek. I took a photograph of it once, with my Instamatic, and was most disappointed to find that the blue on the paper was a pale and pathetic shadow of the reality. Something to do with ultraviolet, apparently: I don't understand the details, but at least digital technology seems to have sorted it!

But that hardly counted as a bluebell wood. Many years later, when I lived in Watford, I used to take my terrier cross Sox for regular walks in Whippendell Woods, and the ground was flooded with bluebells there, a wonderful sight. That wood was a magical place: there could be a couple of dozen cars in the car park, but you could walk round it for an hour and see one or two people at most. I didn't see such bluebells again until we moved to Wiltshire, and my friend Barbara took me one May to see West Woods.

Barbara was my 'best' friend, in every sense of the word. Not 'best' in the sense that she was exclusively mine, or vice versa, but I felt closer to her than to any of my other female friends. You could tell things to her that you couldn't confess to anyone else, expose more of your inner self, in the sure and certain knowledge that she would neither snitch nor judge, but listen, and offer the benefit of her wise advice only if asked. She was Scottish, down-to-earth, practical, thoroughly rooted in the real world, but she also had a very deep spiritual side, evidenced by her Quaker faith. She loved nature, and particularly bluebells. I had never even heard of West Woods, which lie between Kennet and Marlborough, before, but for Barbara I was willing to take the narrow lane up from Lockeridge, bump over the potholes, and dodge the occasional vast 4x4 coming back down. We parked under slim young beech trees, and I was entranced.

West Woods cover a large area, hill and valley, so that if you stand in the lowest part the slopes of breathtaking sapphire rise above you, like being under water. Every step along the paths reveals new glimpses in the distance. In places the intensity seems greater than the sky above, and the blue contrasts gloriously with the fresh young green of the beeches, and the ancient mossy sarsen stones which litter the ground. If you look at a bluebell close up, of course, it's not pure blue but a captivating mix of shades, from turquoise and royal to indigo and violet, but in the mass - and there must be millions of flowers in West Woods when they're at their height - they are a deep, pure azure in the shade, varying to lilac and amethyst as the sunlight strikes them through the trees. The woods are quiet, just a hint of birdsong high in the branches, as if everything is hushed out of reverence for the marvel below: and like Whippendell, the place seems to absorb people.

The year after Barbara took me there, I went back. It was a pilgrimage, for she had died just before the previous Christmas, of breast cancer. In her last illness, knowing of her passion, her friends had given her appropriate things: a fragrant candle: a hyacinth, which is a bluebell intensified in both colour and scent. I even researched the possibility of digging up some bulbs and trying to force them to flower early, for it was obvious that she would not live to see the spring, but she died before I could put my plan into action. The last thing I ever did for her was to hold the hyacinth up to her face, so that she could see and smell it. Bluebells will always remind me of her, and the fun and laughter we all shared, back in the carefree days when our children were small and life seemed as if it would go on for ever. 'Heaven is a bluebell wood,' she said once to another friend, Claire: and if it is, I know she is there.

'Heaven is a bluebell wood,
I'd bring one to you if I could:
A place where lakes of sapphire lie
Reflected by the April sky.'

Snow Business!

I'll lay my cards down right away - I love snow. I don't care that at my age many people would be thinking that I ought to be more concerned about breaking my hip falling over on it than whether we've still got a serviceable toboggan somewhere in one of the outbuildings. I should be watching the weather forecasts and maps with apprehension, not anticipation. But I'm so excited - they're saying we might have as much as 25, even 40 centimetres (that's 6-10 inches in old money). And if we get just the usual feeble sprinkling tonight, I shall feel seriously cheated.

I love it for so many reasons. It's so beautiful. Everything looks better in snow: it muffles ugliness as it muffles sound, and even the filthiest rubbish tips and most derelict buildings are lent a spurious cloak of enchantment. Woods are particularly magical, and I am always reminded of that lovely, lovely poem by Robert Frost, that is actually about something else entirely, but still evokes the eerie silence and otherworldliness of trees under snow. A covering makes everything different, and you see new elements in a landscape that you had never noticed before, however familiar it might be: the pattern of distant fields and hedges, the shapes of branches, the hunched bare shoulder of a hill. For a while, things that have been so commonplace you pass them by without a second glance are transformed and made glorious. And suddenly, too, the secret lives of the animals which share our tracks and gardens and fields are laid open: you can follow the route of the fox or the rabbit, and see how close, how surprisingly close, they come to your house when you're asleep.

Another reason I love snow is a bit less respectable, indeed almost selfish: I love it for the way it disrupts our humdrum lives. I admit that if I was booked on a flight to the Caribbean tomorrow morning I'd be very unhappy, but I'm not, and I'm rather looking forward to Patrick having the day off school, and the library being closed (I'm only supposed to be working in the morning anyway), and people having the opportunity for a bit of the outdoor spontaneous fun that a lot of them seem to have forgotten how to enjoy. In any case, all this fuss is rather over the top. In 1962-63, when the whole country was blanketed in snow and ice from Boxing Day to March, we gritted our teeth (and the roads) and carried on. I was ten, and remember it well: we skated on the lake in the village every day for three months, tobogganed on what passed for a hill in Suffolk, and marvelled at the miniature icebergs lining the edge of the river. Yes, children: it was so cold the sea froze. Nor did our house have central heating: we kept our three-bedroomed bungalow warm with a radiant bar fire, a small open coal fire, and a primitive fan heater. There were frost ferns on the inside of my bedroom window when I woke up each morning. But we survived unharmed (we're a hardy breed on the East coast). Now, everyone whinges if the temperature drops below zero for a night, and half an inch of snow brings London to a grinding halt. Twenty years later, in the early 80s, I was living in Watford and teaching in Berkhamsted. Despite being the furthest from the school, I climbed into my Mini every morning, made the half hour journey to work, and was usually the first in. We were like the Windmill Theatre, never closed, despite the heavy snow that fell over several winters. Now, headteachers only need to sniff a single snowflake to be on the phone to the local radio stations, telling pupils and staff not to come in. I wish it had been like that in my day, I'd have loved the chance to enjoy it! Instead, I sat on the inside looking out with my class - we had a very authoritarian head at the time, who wouldn't let them go out to play in it - and by the time I got home, it was dark. Even the school play wasn't cancelled, and I stayed overnight with a colleague so that the show could go on.

It seems ironic that this winter, about the only two or three days that haven't seen snow and ice and low temperatures, at least round here, were those around Christmas. Even so, this was only the second time in my entire life that I've woken up on Christmas morning with snow on the ground. A poor sad remnant of snow, admittedly, frozen in odd corners, but still snow. The last time was in 1981, when we had a snowball fight in my then boyfriend's garden before going in for Christmas dinner. And even then it didn't count as a white Christmas because it had all fallen the day before. As a child in Suffolk, which doesn't get a lot of snow (and not a lot of rain either), I used to reckon that if it hadn't fallen by the beginning of January, it never would. But in February, 1985, that theory went right out of the window. I went to stay with my parents, and so much fell, and drifted in the stiff winds, that the ha-ha in the park was completely obliterated, although its wall was three feet high and the ditch some seven or eight feet across. It was funny watching the dogs - my parents' Jay, my own Sox - running and playing in snow that was four inches deep before plunging out of sight in the hidden ditches. Sox was a black and white dog - part Springer, part terrier, part collie, wholly neurotic - but against the snow her coat was just differing shades of dirty grey. When the time came to go home, I thought I might be snowed in, and rang my headmaster (a different one now) to warn him I might not make it. But we dug my Mini out of the snowdrift that had formed around it, I drove the hundred miles back to Hertfordshire along clear roads, and managed to be first into work the following morning.

Well, I've just checked. It's half past five on Tuesday evening, and it's STOPPED SNOWING! Am I going to be cheated? I do hope not. Six inches will do nicely. The freezer's stocked, we've got plenty of coal, and if the school and the library are shut we won't have to go anywhere - just stay home, and enjoy the magic and miracle of snow.