Shitholes I have known

Before the small-handed orange fart had expressed himself so freely about black, foreign countries he despised, while shouting in a semi-private meeting about immigration, I suspect that a title to a blog like that above would have raised entirely different expectations of a more, ahem, fundamental nature than you are going to get here!

At least the world response to Trump’s extraordinary, foul mouthed tirade does not deal in euphemistic descriptions like ‘prejudiced’ but goes all out for the much more accurate description of ‘racist’.  The leader of the free world is a small minded, bigoted, racist.

God knows the bar for possible semi-presidential acceptable behaviour is set ground-huggingly low for the present occupant of the White House, but the reptilian Trump burrows ever deeper into the miasma formed by his base.

The sick fascination that I have for the antics of Trump leave me breathless with amazed disgust the more I read about him and the coterie of brazen opportunists with whom he has chosen to surround himself. 

I feel the same degree of contempt for Dianna, so-called Princess of Wales (I shuddered inwardly when I typed out the name) and more particularly for the unthinking adulation that she provoked merely by being alive during her fairly useless life as a potent symbol of an anti-democratic, hierarchical structure that continues to emphasise the fundamental un-egalitarian nature of British society.  I am not inhuman, and in her death I do recognize a real human tragedy for her family, but the outpouring of hysterical grief by sections of the British public and the rotting field of flowers that were left, were symbols of much that was, and still is, deeply wrong in a fractured society.

But what does shithole mean to me?

My examples are, probably, going to be unfair and prejudiced, but they are, oddly, based on fact.  But, as is the way with such things, based on facts that are old, or seen from a narrow personal set of experiences.

So, in chronological order.  My first example comes from a holiday in my youth.  We used to set off in the Ford Prefect, just the three of us, Mum, Dad and me, point the car east from Cardiff, go a bit north to see my aunt in Gloucester and then motor down to the South West of England and stay in B&Bs, eventually ending up in St Ives.

On one holiday on a wet and depressing Sunday we made the basic mistake of deciding to call in and experience the delights of Burnham-on-sea. 

Everywhere was closed.  No, not true, the sky was open and it was raining.  The sort of rain that is not heavy but which soaks you through in minutes.  And all we had was our basic summer (sic.) holiday wear of Pak-a-macs, those thin plastic coverings with undoable plastic buttons and with a distinctive smell when wet to protect us from the elements.

We wandered the shining streets walking past closed shops and cafes.  It was a ‘holiday resort’ with a beach.  But it was beach on the Bristol Channel and the Bristol Channel has the second largest tidal range in the world (after the Bay of Fundy in Canada) so when the tide goes out, it really does go out.  The sea becomes more of an image in the mind of god than a touchable reality, at least when seen from the road!

With a grey sky and drizzle the sand had taken on the colour of wet mud and to say it looked uninviting was something of a vicious understatement.  We veered from the bleak sea towards one of the few uninviting cafes that was open and had the sort of cup of tea that a badly treated condemned man might have had before his execution.

It was our intention to find somewhere to stay, but our enthusiasm was rapidly ebbing, much like the sea.  We followed a few groups of people and found ourselves outside an attraction.  A model railway exhibition.  We were so desperate that we went in and what I remember is not so much the railway layout but the faces of the people who, like us had found the only source of ‘fun’ that was to be had.

We left, fleeing further south in search of anything that wasn’t Burnham-on-sea.  And found it!

In future years, if any one of us wanted to give an example of true horror, we would speculate about those unfortunate who had decided (obviously based on ignorance) to splash out on an actual holiday, possibly lasting a week in Burnham-on-sea, or worse yet, a fortnight!

This image of Burnham is 60 years away and, as I have never gone back, I have no knowledge of what the place is actually like.  It may be an absolute delight for all I know, indeed I hope it is, but the image of ‘shithole’ will stay with me for ever and will be for ever linked to that sea side town.

My second choice of ‘shithole’ is Atlanta, Georgia.

This too is historical.  On the occasion of the marriage of Charles to Dianna in the summer of whenever it was, I was able to leave the nauseating sycophancy of much of the mesmerised population of Britain and wing my way to the US of A for a five week holiday!  Courtesy, I hasten to add, of my ever generous parents!

I flew over with Pan Am and my internal flights were with Eastern Airways and there were lots of them, because I could write my own tickets – it was that sort of open option, and believe you me, I winged my way over the face of the US, surviving on complementary milk and airline meals.  The hub for Eastern Airways was Atlanta and I went there a lot, sometimes staying over.  So my vision of Atlanta is the airport and one grotty pseudo Youth Hostel.

You may say that to judge an entire city on such flimsy and unrepresentative evidence is entirely unfair.  And I would agree.  But I still feel an instinctive repulsion whenever I hear Atlanta mentioned.

Atlanta airport is the world’s busiest or with the most flights or something, but it is big and sprawling.  My experience of the place was Kafkaesque, with the highlight of my disorientation being ‘The Eastern Airways Shortcut’ between two terminals which turned out to be a completely deserted series of corridors with the occasional picture to make the experience even more surreal.  That particular airport was one where reality seemed to be flexible and I resented every second I stayed there.

The automatic electric trainway between terminals was another story entirely, and on one visit to the airport the automatic recorded announcements failed, only to be replaced with a soulless Darlek-voice version, that somehow seemed to be more than fitting!  There is more, but it depresses me just to think of it!

My last example is a private school in which I worked.  My teaching colleagues were excellent.  The buildings were modern.  The kids were responsive.  The owner was a complete, utter and definitive bitch.  With no teaching qualifications.  Her maleficent, corrosive, vicious ineptitude turned what could have been a mutually enriching educational experience into a constant battle for normality. 

There is a happy ending for this shithole, as her grasping, deadly hold has been broken and what was a institution not-fit-for-purpose has now become a real school.

And I like to think that the same goes/has gone for Burnham-on-sea and Atlanta.

I am, after all, an optimist.

I think.