Well the thing is, I don't identify with being British, never have. Yes I'm a British citizen. But as for being 'British', no, it doesn't mean anything, beyond conjuring up images of wealthy, middle class white men aspiring to marry into the royal family, and at the other end of the spectrum, angry working class white men who think becoming a fascist will solve all their problems. Yes I'm a white man, and proud to be working class. Angry sometimes, not wealthy, and the fascists wouldn't touch me with a barge pole, though they have tried baseball bats and hammers on more than one occasion.
Ok, look. I was born into a lower-working class family in 1960 in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Coal miners on my mams side, dock workers on my dad's. I was born with Spina-Bifida, a severe case, and not expected to live. To get the three surgical procedures required to keep me alive, my mam had to agree to let the doctors experiment on me in return. She had to sign my body over to science, while I was still alive. The three life saving procedures were followed by eighteen, experimental ones over the next eight years. I got off lightly compared to some. I got to go home between operations, go to school. But the hospital basically owned me. Others of my generation, were kept in hospitals and medical facilities, and experimented on for years and never saw their families, many didn't survive.
As well as surgical procedures, I was given un-tested anti-biotics, anaesthetics and other experimental drugs. I still suffer side-effects.
My first school was what they used to call a 'special school', a segregated schools for children with all sorts of 'conditions', from physical disabilities, asthma, to Downes Syndrome and Autism. We were given basic education, but exams and qualifications weren't on the cards, since 'the disabled don't work.' Individual talent was frowned upon, They saw their job as being to make us 'fit in', 'blend in', 'not stand out'. We weren't expected to excel in anything. The regime was austere, and the facilities unsuitable. no lifts, so if you couldn't manage the stairs, you stayed in the infants class, whatever your age or ability. One nurse considered 'ice baths' to be both cure-all and punishment. The phrase 'don't get ideas above your station', was common amongst teachers and the medical staff. I was rescued in effect by a young, more forward thinking teacher, who got me out, and into mainstream education. That proved to be it's own nightmare, but gave me more of a chance of surviving.
I've always identified myself as an outsider, I've never been a good fit for any of the holes that society tried to cram me into. The doctors lost interest in experimenting on me when I was old enough to start questioning their agenda, they needless to say also lost interest in my well being, don't get me wrong, their were a few with honourable intentions, but for the most part I was just a subject.
Bizzarly, when I unexpectedly started walking, they didn't investigate, they just continued with their agenda. My specialist was the exception, despite the fact he carried out most of the procedures. He was interested, and supportive of my Mam. He unnoficially asked an American specialist to look into why I was walking, in a fairly unintrusive way. But he was still following orders when it came to experimentation.
That was how the 'British' treated people like me in the 60's
In mainstream education I was a curiousity, neither the staff or students at my first mainstream school, had ever had contact with a disabled person before. I was an alien, and for the most part treated like a hostile one. The bullying was extreme, I fought back, and the bullies had the pupils ostracise me. The last year and a half there, no pupils spoke, or made eye contact, except one. boy, who asked that we keep our friendship out of school, to avoid him being beaten up. and two sisters, who acknowledged me silently, a couple of times a day, when the bullies were otherwise occupied.
Some of those pupils ended up at the same high school as me, and were fine, the bullies having gone to a different school. But I was still the only disabled person at this school, still fighting off attacks on a daily basis, and ironically, protecting some of the more timid able-bodied kids. I had two close friends who started a few months after me, I'm still in touch with one. An art teacher who supported me, who I'm also still in touch with, and my future kung-fu teacher, giving me tips on dealing with bullies, and teaching me about his Chinese heritage, though I wouldn't become his full time student for another five years. The two sisters also attended my highschool, along with their older sister, who I later became friends with. Their mam was Chinese, and their dad was English. The older sister especially, took an interest in her Chinese heritage, and helped me with my calligraphy studies, bringing me art books back from Hong Kong on her visits to see relatives.
I was considered a 'slow' learner, the teachers having failed to pick up on the fact I was dyslexic. I went through high school in the 'remedial' classes, which had it's own stigma. I took on a couple of bullies who were related to a local crime family, It helped stop the bullying in school, but I had to involve the police out of school after their family threatened mine. The police just told me to stop antagonising the bullies, that it wasn't worth their while messing with that family.
At home I was dealing with a physically abusive father. A damaged man, traumatised during WWII. He was from a working class family, a union member working in the shipyards, whilst also being a racist, a misogynist, and we later discovered, a pedophile. I'd survived multiple exorcisms and attempted murders by the age of five, and buried the memories till I was an adult. Most of my home time was spent taking the knocks so he wouldn't beat up my Mam, or hurt my Sister, who has Cerebal Palsy. She also has Schizophrenia, as a result of his abuse, which we didn't find out about until years later. He had a breakdown of sorts, after a bike accident, and though he continued to go to work, he never spoke, made eye contact, or acknowledged the family whilst at home for 6 years. The only exception being, when someone visited the house, then, he appeared to be perfectly fine, or if we got too close to his chair and he'd lash out.
During this period, his other activities, doing the accounts for some local charities, and being the point of contact for my sisters medical appointments, fell to me. My Mam was scared. She knew the authorities would put us in care, if they knew dad wasnt well, and that if she left him, we'd be homeless, as a single mother couldn't get housed in Newcastle then, so she didn't want anyone finding out anything was wrong. So this dyslexic kid who couldn't do math, was pretending to be his dad to make hospital appointments, and trying to manage three sets of accounts, and do school work. Oh and my sister developed Pyromania and was sleep-walking with matches, after being abused at a training centre. I had the job of watching out for her, and ensuring the social services didn't find out.
I discovered that I was related to the Suffragette Emily Wilding Davison. Something my Dad had kept from us. When I pressed him on it, he said 'She was mad, she was a criminal, she had been to prison for all that votes for women rubbish, she was probably a lesbian, and she liked the blacks, even let them in her house.'
She became my role-model.
That was how the 'British' treated people like me in the 70's not to mention women in the early 1900's
After school I lasted one term at college. Yes, I made one good friend. But drug dealers threatening me, and my family because I wouldn't deal for them, and more bullying, all ignored by staff, and discrimination by lecturers, meant completing the course was impossible.
I spent seven years on 'the dole', unemployed. Seven years being told I was unemployable because I was disabled. Seven years being threatened with having my benefits stopped because I was turning down jobs that weren't suitable because of my mobility problems. Case in point: Being offered an apprenticeship to a sign-writer, on the 6th floor of a building, with the toilet on the ground floor. Even though They knew managing one flight of stairs a day, was my limit.
On the other hand I was now training full time with my Kung Fu teacher, and learning his family history. How the kung Fu sytem had been handed down in the family for over a thousand years, one student per generation, How I was the first white person to be taught the system, and only the second foreigner, an ancester had adopted a Tibetan girl and she became one of the greatest exponents of the art. How he and his sister escaped China during The Cultural Revolution under assumed identities after the government forces raided his village and murdered his wife. How they felt relatively safe here until Thatcher came to power. The increasing racism they were experiencing. How they had discovered that some people, including some English people, were working for the Chinese government and could expose them.
I felt more at home with my teacher and his sister than in my actually home. His sister was my mams age, and he was in his late eightees when I started training with him. I knew more about their culture than mine, which seemed barren by comparison. The highest marks I ever got for a school project was on The Boxer Rebellion, illustrated using reference photo's that one of my teachers family had taken at the time.
I found that most of my friends were people who also felt marginalised, were experiencing hate crimes because of disability, racism, anti-semitism, homophobia and religious intolerence, or were persecuted because of left-leaning politics. I was given a drawing board in a graphic design cooperative, where I started working with CND, our phones were tapped. I taught self defence to women's groups, gay rights groups, and other marginalised people, with my teachers blessing.
I had my disability allowance stopped, because the authorities said I was lying about my medical condition, it took three years to get it reinstated, they never back-dated it. I was mocked, insulted and vilified, because I had a condition they didn't want to recognise, because doing so would mean, giving financial support to more people.
That was how the 'British' treated people in the 80's-90's
I have a broader pool of friends now, but still, we have the same things in common, either through direct experience, or simply a sense of justice and compassion.
The extreme right is on the rise again. The Union Jack has been co-opted by UKIP. BNP, and other extreme right groups, being 'British', means being isolationist, intolerant, bigoted, colonialist, priviliged.
Now I know many people who feel British, who are none of these things, good, thoughtful, tolerent people. Maybe one day they will reclaim the idea of being 'British,' maybe it will come to mean something good. But unless we become a country that fully embraces diversity in law and in spirit, a country that fully accepts the LGBT, disabled, immigrant and refugee communities, and fully embraces religious, ethnic, cultural and gender diversity, a country where equality in pay, in law, and in reality is the norm. 'Being British', will remain in my eyes a watchword for isolationism and intolerence.
If Britain actualy becomes a place where my friends feel accepted, feel safe, feel able to be themselves without fear of assault and harrasment, then maybe I might begin to identify with being 'British'.
But for now, the term makes me cringe, makes me want to hold my friends, those I hold dear, close, to protect them. Brexit isolates us, dismantling the human rights act isolates us, normalising racism, misogyny, ableism and all forms of bigotry isolates us, supporting Trump, Farage, May, Le Pen and their ilk dehumanises us.
So no I don't identify with being 'British'. But I'm not giving up either. I'm determined to change things, and most people I know are as well.
You can read more about my experiences in my graphic memoir: Muscle Memory, a work in progress here:
https://www.patreon.com/astralgypsy
