Isolated Incidents #∞ - Protect and Survive (end of year thoughts on C*vid, belonging, Englishness and cycling)

Well written and thought-provoking. But worth remembering that the shortcomings of other countries' people are never so obvious as your own. We tend to know the clichés and not the reality. Every country has its own stuff, as it were. Alistair Cooke said of the US: "Nothing that you say about the whole country is going to be true".

For every gammon / charlatan politician / vapid anti-vaccine person who gets their news and science from tiktok, there's a local hero like Pastor Mick in Burnley, or a well-known person like Marcus Rashford. Only a few of them get the same publicity as the Farage / Ferrari lot but they are there, and can refresh your view of what English people can be.

The challenge is to make a nation that doesn't need so many local heroes. Fortunately the young people I meet seem to understand this far better than I did at their age.

Thank you Jo for a thought provoking article that has struck a cord with many of us. I was still quite young during the ‘Protect and survive’ era but I do remember being frightened by it. My mother was German and as I’ve grown up I’ve realised that I definitely feel much more German than English. Often I find attitudes and ways of working in this country difficult to understand. 

I’ve cycled in Scotland, Germany, France and Italy and love these countries and people for different reasons. My brother works for a French company and moved to the South of France many years ago - they love the lifestyle. Being a single bloke you’d think I could easily move to a different country (getting older now and would prefer sunshine and warmth). 

The thing that stops me moving - I have a really good friend (who is a like the son I never had) who lives just a mile away from me on the Essex coast. I’ve watched him grow up, have a family with two amazing little girls who are now like my unofficial grandchildren. I can’t bear to be apart from them and as much as I get upset by other things going on around me, I know its the best thing in my life and not something I want to move away from.

Great read. It's weird as I looked up 'threads' and 'the day after' on YouTube only the other day! The early 80's were really a scary time for a primary school child, especially in London which would be the first to go (and yeah, I lived a couple of miles from the epicentre I reckon...in a council flat that would probably have collapsed if not vaporised) I used to hear what I thought were air raid sirens during the night and it would terrify me...let's hope we never go back to that.

we have receded badly in the last few years though. I always felt we were progressing as a nation towards being a more tolerant, liberal nation. We can be again. The current mess feels like it's been built by the racists and bigots of the 70's who have found their voice again. They will die out/lose momentum and the young will take over. Hopefully we won't have to wait too long.

In the meantime, bikes are there to be bought and ridden 😉

As someone too young to worry about the prospect of nuclear vaporisation, the fear that the world as it is might end in a flash seems quaint - now we're all on one of those airport travelators with each passing metre getting a little bit shitter and no prospect of getting off soon. And some complete bastards are hurrying us along waving flags that say 'hands off our fish' or other such bollocks. And I'm at home self isolating after a positive test in our household, so I can't even ride my bike. I know that I'm comparatively fortunate - still have a job, no-one really close has died - but I think I might well apply for that Irish passport next year.

Jo's piece seems to have struck many a nerve including mine.  I didn't realise that comparing nuclear targets was such a common past time in the 80's.... I remember the utter despair when I realised there were 3 RAF bases within 15 miles all on the primary target list.

I too feel despair at what this country has become - I do wonder if this is what residents of late 20's early 30's Germany/Austria felt like.  I grew up and learnt to cycle in the rolling hills around the Ridgeway and whilst I still feel a deep connection to the landscape the sense of alienation of this thing called England only grows stronger as I get older.  Oh for the "simplicity" of the Cold War.

Sometimes its only the bike and the family that keep me sane.

First winter without a flu in years too!

A thought provoking piece as usual, thank you. I'm a bit older than you and my view of the impending cold war apocalypse was more cynical. The powers that be need to spread fear and hate to maintain control a job the popular media are only too willing to endorse. It used to be the USSR but when that subsided it became Europe and immigrants and refugees. A few years ago we moved to the west coast of Scotland for a better quality of life. It has exceeded our expectations. Between the sea and the hills the cycling is excellent. The roads are quiet and the drivers generally less aggressive. I generally ride alone but occasionally like to meet up with others for a ride and a coffee or enter an audax or the local annual veterans 100 mile ride. There were other non cycling events  we enjoyed through out the year. The pandemic has changed everything. In Scotland the restrictions have been tighter and all our plans have had to be cancelled. We are left with a sense of loss and longing. I've been luckier than some as I trained for and then cycled LEJOG with a group this year but now what? 

A great read, suspect I'm a similar age too. I grew up in Loughborough which didn't have much going for it apart from train building, but being in the middle of the Leicester-Nottingham-Derby triangle, we always thought we'd cop three lots from less than 15 miles away. Never saw the point in trying to survive that one, there would be so little left to crawl out of your homemade bunker for!
I've had to keep working, the company makes medical devices so is essential, which the 70s type management we have were very happy about. There are 4-500 people there, the majority of whom don't wash their hands after going to the toilet, so it's a surprise to me we haven't become a local super spreading hotspot.
Brexit is depressing, I have never met anyone with a single valid reason to leave, total chaos heading our way. I got some compensation from an accident years ago, and bought a lovely town house in Abruzzo with it, the best decision the wife and I have ever made. The summit of the Blockhaus mountain is about 30k away, the Adriatic around 20k. The roads vary massively; if the Giro has been by the Tarmac is the blackest, smoothest you can imagine. Some of the rural roads are hard on a full sus mtb. But the pace of life is slower, a coffee and croissant stop us €2-3, and I haven't tired (mentally 😅) of the sea-to-summit bike ride yet! We enjoy driving down, it's 20 hours behind the wheel so we usually make a 2 or even 3 night trip of it, have found beautiful places to stay in France Belgium Luxembourg Germany Switzerland Austria northern Italy. I don't know how much harder that will be thanks to Brexit, if Covid is ever a thing of the past, and clearly the dream of living there 6 months of the year has gone, but we won't give it up without trying everything.
I used to be proud of being English, and hated how the flag had been stolen by football nazis, skinheads and many other knuckle dragging monsters. Now it's embarrassing, you just can't explain it, especially to people in Europe.
I've ridden as much as any other year, it's nice to see other people enjoying the great outdoors more, but the cyclist hating media hasn't got any better. I love the challenge or adventure of getting out on the bike in the winter, it isn't something even some other cyclists can handle, never mind ordinary folk. I don't understand riding indoors, it isn't for me, it just isn't the same thing, like ebikes.

Thanks for that, enjoyed it.  And such a change from the usual.

Nicely and poignantly written. Thank you

We must be of a similar age, because I recognise the sentiments. Anyone under 40 really has no idea of what it was like - I remember getting compasses and drawing out blast radiuses for likely targets/megatonnage to work out how crispy I'd be and how quickly. Being less than a mile from Southampton Docks and Fawley Refinery it was a somewhat pointless exercise. And having watched Threads at age 13 I was pretty happy with the instant vaporisation option.

I also recognise the feeling about England. I completely love where I live but that doesn't extend to many of the people in it and I no longer have any idea what it means to be English. Struggling I think for a sense of identity and have done for a number of years, which is why I was content with being European. I can love frites, Belgian beer, and steak and kidney pie, right?  I'm not sure being English has ever been something to be proud of but I'd rather fly almost any other flag than the Union flag or the Cross of St George.

It hurts even more that everything I love about where I live is tainted by what we've become as a society and if I was single I think I'd be elsewhere - I'm fortunate to have a job I could do anywhere in the world, and, more importantly, would get me a visa almost anywhere too. But where? Canada is too cold and/or wet, Australia is no better for reactionary jingoism than England, Scotland is too cold, RoI is too wet, and so on. Maybe NZ, but it's not great for cycling. Majorca maybe, Amalfi coast maybe, Canaries maybe. Actually - that's probably it - Gran Canaria would do - right timezone, great for cycling, varied climate, far enough from the madness, mountains and sea.