Day 51 - "Cops and Kaftans"

Spanish Practices

Day fifty one. Life behind the police lines in Lockdown Spain for a British couple and their three good legs cat. Today back to the sixties and why the Spanish might face chaos

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Day 51 Cops and Kaftans

It is day 51 of our Spanish Lockdown, and the day started early, Chris had a BBC interview to do on Skype, so I set the laptop up for him and got out the figures and facts just in case they asked him about specific numbers.

Today it was Sonia on BBC Essex, I like her and Ben her normal co-host. Having worked for the BBC it is refreshing to hear real local sounding voices, the radio station is run by our friend Lou and she tries very hard to make the content sound good. It is really hard to do that as the BBC tries equally hard to be well meaning but often shoots itself in the foot.

Day 51 and my cousin, Pandy has discovered Facebook and also the irritating habit of mass messaging people. It is her birthday and she is sharing the day with us, complete with pictures of when she was a little girl.

We used often spend a week of summer holidays with her and her sisters and brother Paul. Usually my dad had spent the holiday money on booze so it was a way of us getting some kind of change of scenery.

They lived just outside of Harlow in a pretty village carved up by a main road called Sheering. We used to go on the bus into Harlow and marvel at all the wonderful new buildings and go paddling in the municipal outdoor pool and visit the gardens. I am afraid that Harlow didn’t wear that well and I am not sure anybody would make it a holiday destination town.

Tomorrow is crunch day for the Alarma, .. it might all fall apart in the Congress of Deputies. Spanish Prime Minister Uncle Pedro’s plan for four phases of unlockdown and extending the Alarma have to be ratified in Parliament.

The PP party are keen to end the whole process and allow for things to go back to normal, straightaway. The speculation is that they are all missing their mistresses and golf courses, or that might be the other way round?

Uncle Pedro has also been busy with the machinations of Government he has increased the bureaucracy by around nine new departments and sub-departments, so at least the Functionarios will be safe in their jobs if not the rest of the population.

Being a libertarian northern European, I find the Spanish way of handling the crisis to be on one hand, strong and trying their best for the people, and on the other hand, stifling all self-determination an echo of the past before 1974.

For instance, I am not sure giving the job of deciding what constitutes essential shopping items to a military man is the right thing to do. I think I will decide what I need and don’t need, to eat, thank you very much.

One of the most important things is of course Marmite, it comes from the Pound Shop in the main town, and supplies are running dangerously short. We managed to order emergency provisions of Marmite and Custard Powder from the Costa del Sol, so might have to resort to that again as the Guardia currently turn you away from anywhere that your Postal Code doesn’t cover.

Back to the 1960s and my kaftan wearing Godmother Jenny, another family we spent holiday time with. They originally lived in a place called Maldon. A muddy sea inlet in south Essex that had some charm. It also sported a Lido, a massive outdoor swimming pool fed by seawater that was supposed to be pumped in and out of the pool.

In reality it was a filthy botulistic infested tatty dump. The only change of water came from kiddie pee. I remember swimming in the Lido and spent the next couple of days with quite serious food poisoning. So ill that my mother had to come and visit me. Happy holidays.

My Godmother Jenny was a proper sixties chick, she was all for progressive education and we spent a lot of time learning things and if we were good we were rewarded with a star, that we could stick up on the kitchen wall league table. I don’t think I ever made gold star status.. the story of my life!

They moved to Basildon. My Godfather Gerald was one of the town planners of Basildon… hard to believe there was any planning involved in Basildon, but he was very proud of what he had achieved.

Years later working for Essex Radio we played a friendly game of Give Us A Clue against the local Police there. Arriving we found ourselves in the reception area where some local was ‘going down’ there was a lot of swearing, handcuffs and a number of officers pulling him through a door, to I guess the cells. The desk sergeant gave us a hard stare. “What do you kids want?” Well we were all quite young then, there was Yvonne, Nicki, me and possibly one other from the Essex Radio newsroom all in our early twenties.

Nicki piped up. “We have come to play Give Us A Clue with you.” His fierce scowling face broke into a broad grin. “Oh you are the radio guys.. come in come in.”

There was a buzz of a security door and suddenly we were in the throbbing heart of the police station, a slight smell of disinfectant and strong tea pervaded the corridor.

At the end of the corridor was a carpeted bar area serving drinks and the like and an attempt at comfortable furniture also on one side of the room big heavy curtains obscuring all the windows.

The Sergeant saw us looking at the massive curtains. “Those curtains are special safety curtains.. cos the little fuckers in the street keep trying fire bomb us, bastards.” He said. So safely behind the fire proof curtains we played Give Us A Clue – I believe the cops won.. well they usually do in the end.

Day 51 and I can hear children playing, there is a lot more traffic on the roads. Whether tomorrow will bring a sudden end to the Alarma we shall wait and see, the Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez says if he loses the vote that will bring chaos, I am inclined to agree with him.