Alcohol Abuse Advice

Notes From A Moist Island

NOTES FROM A MOIST ISLAND

  

  

I suppose I should have been in for a shock after a thirty-one year hiatus. You see, my parents did the politically incorrect thing and emigrated to South Africa in the troubled year of 1976, when I was of the impressionable age of eight. Aside from three or four brief holidays in England over the thirty-one years I spent most of my time in South Africa. Although I harboured a closet kind of Englishness I considered myself to be a South African.

 

Why then did I return to England in 2008? Was it geographical escape in the psychological sense? Fear of dwindling job prospects in South Africa? Seeking pastures new (to use an awful hackneyed phrase) or was it to rediscover my Englishness? I guess it was, to some degree, the latter. I was born in the North of England, Wigan to be precise and to Wigan I returned, much to the consternation of my South African acquaintances who have settled, or know someone who has settled, in the south of England, or London to be precise, and who consider Lancashire to be a backwater or economic wasteland, comparable to the less salubrious parts of South Africa. I almost get the sense that to have settled up North was in some way indecent or improper. But I like the north and that is another essay for another day.

 

Have I rediscovered my Englishness? No, not really or maybe not yet. I am still trying to discover what it means to be English.

 

I had been in the country a matter of days when I broached the subject of politics with my cousin. Without a moment’s hesitation he stated that in the next election he would probably vote BNP as they were the only party he would trust to rid the country of all the foreigners. At the time, I didn’t know much about the BNP except that they were far-right and probably a neo-Nazi organisation, much like the old National Front. I discovered later that the BNP does have links to both the National Front and some European neo-Nazi parties but that it is striving for a middle-of-the-road image and it seems to be working. I have since encountered many people who seem to view the BNP as a viable alternative to Labour, the Tories and the Lib-Dems and it is very, very worrying. In fact, my beloved Everton have to move one of their matches from a Saturday to a Sunday because the police will be busy policing a BNP march through Liverpool on the Saturday. I have been a witness of ultra-right nationalist politics. Growing up in apartheid South Africa meant that you were never far away from it. In the town that I lived in, the Conservative Party (who believed that the ruling right-wing nationalists were too left of centre) were the party controlling our council. I remember for example, fishing at a resort on the Vaal River and the police were called in to forcibly remove an Asian party who dared to enjoy the whites-only facilities – is this what my cousin and Britain wants? The BNP seems to be thriving in the current uncertain economic climate – echoes of 1920’s Germany perhaps?

 

Xenophobia is very real and very prevalent, particularly among the working class. Although nobody has been overtly rude towards me I have been given the distinct impression that I am different and not ‘one of them’. Luckily, most people, because of my accent, think that I am an Australian or New Zealander. I say luckily because the English appear to have a particular fondness for their Australasian cousins. To some degree, my born and bred South African wife is considered to be something of an oddity – after all, why would somebody leave the sun-kissed plains of Africa to move to working class Lancashire? However, she has become fond of the Northerners and they her but my mind begs the question, as possible BNP members would they wish her to be deported along with the Polish, Somalis and Albanians – British jobs for British workers and all that?

 

British television is an enigma to me. Once famous for its cutting edge adverts and programmes, unique comedies and Channel Four features, it has now deteriorated into an unpleasant mish-mash of reality TV shows, talent competitions, car insurance and accident claims adverts, personal tragedy shows and anthropomorphic animals peddling air fresheners. And no, I do not share Britain’s predilection for Ant and Dec, Strictly Come Dancing and Alan Titchmarsh. Does this make me less English? When I get to work on a Monday morning I hear people bemoaning the fact that so-and-so got voted off and how they didn’t deserve it – this made me start watching the reality shows just so I could understand what my colleagues were talking about. It’s about fitting in. I think that the government should not waste time publishing booklets for immigrants on English customs and values to assist them in integrating, rather let them watch television and provide them with explanatory notes on the significance of certain programmes to the British public. That, and encourage binge-drinking!

 

As a recovering alcoholic, I am sensitive to just how much the English can drink. Many of my colleagues measure the success of a party or pub night out by the sheer volume of alcohol consumed. Now the government wants to raise the price of alcohol so that one unit is not less than 50p in an effort to curb the sale of cheap alcohol. Was this country always so prone to alcohol consumption? I know that Russia has had severe problems with alcoholism over the years, but Britain? My eight year old mind remembers people nipping off to the pub for a couple after tea time or a few social drinks at the working man’s pub on a Saturday evening. Now its alco-pops, spirit coolers and gallons of vodka at home over weekends. The good news is that thanks to the welfare state, one can safely stay at home drinking cheap cider, arguing with the wife and chortling to the antics of Ant and Dec on TV. Don’t get me wrong, I am not criticising the concept of the welfare state – it is a wonderfully socialist idea it is just that there is a great capacity for abuse. Incapacity on the grounds of mental health is common and this attracts incapacity benefits. The government doles out up to £60 billion per year on incapacity benefits – that’s the bank rescue plan a few times over every year! Incapacity due to stress and depression makes up a good chunk of that figure and the Confederation of British Industry estimates that output lost from time off due to depression, anxiety and stress equates to around £4 billion per year. A link between alcohol abuse and depression, stress and anxiety? Maybe.

 

The English capacity for moaning is of course legendary. Never a day passes in which I don’t hear a whinge about immigrants, the government or the weather. Whining and doing nothing has been turned into a national pastime. Taking action is what people did in the past. You would think that after many years of inhabiting this moist island people would come to terms with the weather. In fact, today has been a mild sunny day in very early spring and one of my colleagues commented that it was getting too warm. After the worst winter in 18 years and the fact that the capital city closed down for a couple of days due to snow, you would think that the locals would welcome a bit of sunshine. Not really. That’s what Spain is for. Rain is what it does in England and too many days without it is unnatural.

 

I don’t know if I will ever really settle in. I try. I even have a flat-cap that I go fishing in to prove I belong in Lancashire but I don’t think that is enough – so excuse me, I’m off to claim my benefits, but I will give beer and the BNP a miss.

 

 

© Stephen Holcroft 2009