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Great Writing - Home > Non-Fiction > The Gaslamp (Version 2.0)
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Non-Fiction
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| The Gaslamp (Version 2.0) | |
| By IPFaulkner | ||||||
| 27 May 2006 | ||||||
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When I first put this up a couple of weeks ago I hadn't thought about it for a couple of years. It made me read it again and I have spent an hour or two looking at it again. Making it a little less strident perhaps. I wanted it to express the lack of feeling about how society has changed. I'm the same - change just laps at our feet rather than gushing over us in a wave I think. IPF THE GASLAMP The pond has risen and fallen through numerous seasons. At the lower end of its shallow gradient lies drilling equipment. The ancient trackways that hug two other sides, congregating at one corner, are being tarmaced to accept horse power as well as horse. On the fourth side there is a ridge of mud – like a frozen wave in clay. It has been pushed, shoved and shaped by the tractors and bulldozers that are still working in the fading light on their side of the man-made barrier. The clay wall shelters a sea of puddles and thick mud - conditions some of the older workers recall from 35 years before in France. Having created a damn to protect their lowlands, they have been busy in cultivating the land they have re-claimed. Tomorrow the pond will be drained for ever. Further back though, men continue the ancient human activity of building shelter. Several foundations have been laid - each containing water and filth. Bricks are piled neatly, but seemingly at random, around these skeletons; enormous tire marks along side them record their arrival several days earlier. At the centre of the site stands an electric light. A man in his 40’s, his face blackened with mud, crouches before it and works with its wiring. The light flickers once, twice, and then goes off. Ten seconds later the sudden flashes of light are replaced with a less penetrating but more regular orange glow. The glow grows and turns yellow, inching toward the pond as it conquers new territory with its widening brilliance. There is a small cheer and work stops. Those in the vicinity lean on spades and mixing machines to look up at the miracle of artificial light. Over the remaining winter months the workers will be able to work a little later with the guidance it will offer. As the light stirs into life and these men stand in its cold glow, their King is, unbeknown to them, declared dead. A siren is heard from the pit about a mile away – the working day is over and the men carefully put their tools away and walk toward home. It’s February 1952. It is 1977 and I am 7 years of age. I live in one of three terraced, council houses. They face four further houses in blocks of two. These seven houses surround a length of grass. A paved path surrounds the grass, giving it definition. In the centre of the “grass” stands the ‘gas lamp’. Skinny, grey and the height of the houses. It glows orange in the early evening and later florescent yellow as night tries to engulf it. It watches us with complete passivity and we, for the most part, ignore the upper 35 feet of it. The bottom 5 feet, however, a pebbled chunk of concrete, is the focus of our childhood theology. It is the axis on which our world turns. It is, in fact, an electric street light. However, despite the wires coursing through it and up to its peak, it is referred to as nothing else but the gas lamp. It is a name handed down to us by others and one we never choose to question. It is a word that identifies a place – “see you at thegaslamp” – with no reference to function. Its duties are manifold. It is a goalpost, a meeting place, a blindfold to press eyes against for hiding games, a secret enemy base to be infiltrated – a touch releasing all those imprisoned by your opponents. It can be a cricket stump and a maypole to dance around, a test of masculinity for climbing, the finishing post of a race. All surrounded by the theatre of the Seven Houses who will coolly observe and, if necessary referee, pass judgment on, all the activities taking place on the Grass. We are suspicious of our totem and sometimes try to disgorge its secrets. We chip at it, hit it with sticks and feel the vibration shout through our arms to our shoulders. Sometimes we master the secret of its innards and the metal cover falls away to expose its guts. We can poke at them and make it blush ginger during the day. Sometimes we touch a wire and our arms feel wobbly to our elbows – exciting and painful at the same time. Magically, the gaslamp is covered and secured against us by our return from school the following day. 1977 is a year which will see celebration. An anniversary. 25 years have passed since The Queen was crowned. I, however, have no concept of ‘25 years’ or, for that matter, the possibility of a time before The Queen was The Queen. 1977 holds no doubts about the passing of time or mortality. I understand all in solid, absolute terms. “Queen” is a noun - not threatened by mortality or invested in a transient person. This summer ritual will be acted and sacred places filled. But we have no Cathedral, no castle or palace. We have a street light that makes the grass in a small circle around it look blue at night. The muddy light from our totem will guide us. In 1976 I saw the Queen. I remember her gloved hand and her face as the polished black car slowly, silently passed; a drive-through visit that managed to bring the whole of our patriotic town to a standstill. Although not an “official” visit, we were all offered the opportunity to watch the cavalcade as it bore a hole through the pit of people lining the road. A week earlier we had all been given a letter home and everybody in the class dutifully returned the permission slip to attend. Republicanism had not extended its regicidal hand to this working class corner of the Kingdom; another absolute - a Kingdom must have a monarch. We spent the morning with the rest of our town on our one wide street, slipping to one part of town like a mudslide, abandoning the rest of the town for three hours. We wave our plastic flags and, in seconds, she has passed. Some wave at the wrong car. Afterwards we returned to school and have our usual school dinner and hope to see ourselves on the local news that evening. A year later we plan is to celebrate with a street party. Memories return to 1952 and those who can remember smile at the recollection of celebrations from black and white times. The Grass, under the Gaslamp, is the only place considered for our plans. Tables will be found, food prepared, music will chime from open windows and games and sport will be played when the tables are cleared away. The Matriarchs of the Seven Houses form a quorum and duly elect themselves the committee for planning the festivities. In the days leading to the celebration there is a small hiss of excitement. I see older boys train for the games - friends watching each others technique for learning or advantage. Espionage designed as camaraderie. I overhear conversations. I ask how long to go. I see jellies being made and sandwiches moving on trays from house to house in patterns I do not understand. Our fridge is full of delicious food we must leave untouched. A pool of cutlery and dishes is organized and collected. Church halls throughout the country are stripped bare of chairs and tables. Even the Chapel gives up table cloths to help celebrate the heirs to the Reformation. Lists are checked for the final time and a couple of urgent requests are made for last minute provisions. The night before, the final flourishes are put in place. Bunting is dropped from my sister’s bedroom into the garden. More is dropped from a window of the house opposite. A boy of perhaps 15 shins the Gaslamp as the sun sets with the two pieces of plastic in his mouth. He raps them, with care, around the lights throat and two strings of red white and blue swing from the Gaslamp. Other windows fly cheap plastic Union Jacks given away free with newspapers. All the plans are in place and I doubt I am the only one who finds sleep difficult to come by, as the bunting fights in the breeze to escape from the latch of my sister’s window. On the day of the party it rains. We retreat to the primary school nearby who have allowed us to use the covered area – grandly called “The Veranda” - of the playground. The drains in the playground quickly fill and slowly overflow, creating large puddles. I hear my mother speak to another lady about the pond that used sit where the school now lies. She tells how she would walk around it to meet my father when they were “courting”. We hope for the weather to clear but eventually the games are cancelled and the party is shortened. The Gaslamp does not take part in our celebrations and is left – its neck tied – in the centre of the Grass alone and in silence. As the tables are cleared I go back to the Gaslamp and stare at the bunting. I stand under it, waiting for the water to mass on the string and drop on my head. I shuffle from side to side as I try and judge the trajectory of the drips, enjoying the only sport of the day. We return to our homes having approximated a celebration based on the memory of one 25 years ago. We have been conspired against by the weather but we are defeated by our lack of inspiration and spirit. We love the Queen but we no longer know why and this lack of genuine affection means that we fail to improvise with any genuine purpose. The Queen – a poor party host – has failed to invigorate us with enough enthusiasm to parry the first blows of lethargy and we are back to our routines before dark. The following day the bunting is unhooked from the latch of the bedroom window, allowed to swing through the garden bushes and to the ground. I watch it arc through the air toward the Gaslamp. By evening it has been used as a swing and, after snapping, the released section has been tied to a nearby tree. The remainder is retained for a day or two as a choker for the Gaslamp before competition is finally held to see who can climb and it. Teenagers spend an hour or so trying to reach it and finally move on noisily elsewhere when their goal is achieved. The Gaslamp is back as it has been for as long as I can remember and the Jubilee is over for another 25 years. Years pass and our territory expands. Our tribe moves outwards a layer at a time from the Gaslamp and the Grass. Four years later I watch a Royal wedding through the garden window of a schoolfriends house, two miles from the Gaslamp. By 1998 I know few people living in the Seven Houses and the Gaslamp has gone; a concrete cap the only reminder of its existence. It has been replaced by two shorter metal lights at either end of the Grass. Their light is dimmer and their suitability for purposes other than collecting graffiti is uncertain. This year we nationally unite in a way we failed to in 1977. However, it is at the expense of, rather than with the Queen. We have replaced our love of the Queen with a cheaper, make-do alternative; sentiment. We grieve for the death of someone we never knew while our elderly neighbours die alone. The unpleasant hierarchy of class has been replaced by the mediocrity of celebrity. In 2002 there are no plans for a street party at the Seven Houses. Some talk of how life has changed and recall the marvelous celebrations of 1977. I wonder if the street parties of 1952 were also the child of nostalgia. The Jubilee passes with little jubilation. Stamps and coins are issued and gather dust in books and commemorative pouches. Plans are made to replace the Grass with extra parking space for the cars that are regularly now driven over it. The school is to be knocked down and one of the possible plans for it is a pond and play park. Each visit to the Seven Houses brings more changes driving me further away from my childhood home.
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