I must have been around 4 or 5 years, standing staring possibly mesmerised by a colourful arrangement of flowers. They were situated on a kinda grassy roundabout by a school. The school being the one my elder brother attended and the day I recall was one where my parents had gone for parents’ evening. My dad had disappeared from inside the school to standing on the grass by this beautiful flower arrangement, he was wasn’t taking much notice (I had followed him out) due to the addiction of nicotine, smoking furiously staring into space while I, unbeknownst to him, became so entranced by the flowers that I tentatively walked towards them, they seemed so inviting that I felt compelled to pick one or maybe two or three… I chose the roses (ouch…thorns) because they were nice and pink… Then all of a sudden a man’s sharp voice interrupted my fun, I looked up and saw him all authority like and scary. I certainly felt scared and frightened as this man looked very annoyed blustering with anger at my dad’s apparent lackadaisical parenting skills. He said to my dad, “Is this your child”? The response being “Yes”… The Scary man, “Well, can you stop your child from picking the flowers!” along with “Can’t you keep your child under control”!!… And then shouty man disappeared back into the school while my dad muttered something about leaving the flowers alone.
The reasons for this flowery trip down memory lane is because I read this story. I felt sorry for the two young girls involved, I mean, they were only picking daffodils. I was lucky in some way as I had some mean horrible teacher with a posh accent telling me off at least it wasn’t the cops which these girls encountered. Rather massively over-the-top and wasted use of resources. And these girls are now are too frightened to go to the park as worried the cops will “take them away”… To reiterate, there are worse things happening in the world than two girls picking daffs! Also, it’s a Tory council (what a surprise!) and a mean heartless Tory councillor blustering defensive excuse after excuse for the explaining why these girls were stopped by the police. Over the top, perchance?
Like the story of my own telling off by man in authority who scared the life out of me and made me feel I was some very bad kid I wonder how these girls will remember their own harsh brush with the law over daffs when they’re older…?
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To be honest, I watch Midsomer Murders mainly to take a tally of the number of killings in one episode with a cop formerly known as Bergerac who fought crime in Jersey (not tax theft unfortunately!). Very gruesome place to live (Midsomer not Jersey). But it did occur to me over the years that there weren’t any Black characters, it was all genteel and twee….and very white….that highlights a racist and reactionary notion of country life. Brian True May, executive producer, had this to say about Midsomer ‘last bastion of Englishness’ which relied on an ‘English genteel eccentricity’, and suggested it would not work if there was racial diversity in the village.
As Hannah Pool rightly argues that it’s ok to depict murder, blackmail, infidelity and so on but don’t dare show any Black characters…is insulting and beyond contempt. And True May’s belief that it wouldn’t be “English” to depict Black people also illustrates his own vile racism that English = White… and everyone else who don’t fit the white, jam making laced with arsenic, wellie wearing fornicator resplendent in Barbour, shotgun waving genteel type with an accent RADA would be proud of ….. That sums up Midsomer Murders. A past time that True May hankers after all Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming and Enid Blyton, lashings of Ginger Beer and a rigid class syste . But Pool also asks, does he [True May] think Midsomer fans are racist?
Pool states, It is of course true that the majority of Britain’s ethnic minority population live in urban areas – according to the last census 45% of the non-white population live in London with most (but by no means all) of the rest in major cities like Birmingham, Leeds and Leicester. I worked some years ago in a small town in East Hertfordshire, Ware, where I met a young Black woman who worked in a community centre. She told me that on her first day at the local college in Ware during the mid 1980s to study for A Levels she was stared at for days because she said, “I doubt if any the students had ever seen a Black person before”… And that’s what I noticed when I worked around Hertfordshire (and this had started the conversation originally) was just how white it was and that really unnerved me as I was brought up in the West Midlands and have lived in cities which are multicultural. I lived in London and so did the woman as she just didn’t feel welcome in these small towns (and I know racism and racist attacks were high as well as there had been a anti-racist campaign set up where Black people who were invisible in these areas came forward to speak out).
And True May has been suspended for his comments. I agree he should and there will be an investigation. But didn’t this occur to the production company before that there have been no Black characters in Midsomer Murders? Or did they just ignore it until True May articulated his hideous racism?
I can understand that he wouldnt want a 50% none white population in a typical English village but no matter where you are there are always some non whites. I mean come on just look at how many GPs are actually white these days. I really dont see how it would hurt having a bit of a mix as you would see in any English village. It might change the dynamic around those characters a little but as they say variety is the spice of life.