Seventy five years ago today the Jarrow Crusade set off to march to London to protest about the state of the ship building industry,there only Victory was that they made it to London what ever they had to say fell on deaf ears of the politicians of the day.The name Jarrow Crusade has turned into working class folklore, now left amongst the dusty history books of that time,comforted by the bellies of sleeping dogs in perhaps the swoon of the midday sun.
Autumn is the time the political parties have there get together to give rousing speeches to the rank and file in thier party, this week has been the blue rinse brigade of the Tory party. Today on the anniversary of the Jarrow Crusade the Prime Minister of Great Britain stood to his feet and spoke...his voice echoed in my tiny red van as i cruised the streets clumped in urban red bricks, grey tiled roofs, so back to back if you could swing a cat around the small space you would be lucky. The cheers clapping told me that the class system in this country will never be drowned in a barrel of ale, the them and us, resounded for a full forty five minutes..he could have said it all in one sentence..." Your a Lazy sod " sprang inside my mind and so the Sex Pistols played in my head. And the Jarrow Cusade moves deeper beneath the sleeping dogs as the clapping subsided.
I remember reading now some years ago now..in a book by Bill Bryson....that life is a bucket of shit...this small quote is perhaps the only thing i recall about the book i can honestly quote..it always pops into my head during times like these i have witnessed today and indeed today has certainly been a bucket full.