#108

I hadn’t heard of Jarrow until moving to Newcastle, but shortly after the move I met someone from there, and he mentioned that it often comes up in geography textbooks as a “town in decline”… including the textbooks he had in school at Jarrow.

And that seems really shitty to me. What does that do to the mentality of kids in Jarrow, who are taught that where they live is considered by the whole country to be beyond any kind of state help. Yeah, it’s accurate that it is a town with a lot of issues, but being singled out would surely make you so disillusioned with everything? And make you feel even more self-conscious about your upbringing than you would do already?

Edit: Just realised this maybe comes off a little negative. Sorry for the unasked-for Jarrow anecdote!

#109

Whilst there was certainly an awareness of Jarrow being something of a ‘poster child’ for post industrial towns in decline; it was taught to us in a relatively positive light - I remember a distinct focus on the Jarrow Crusade, which was very much conveyed with a sense of pride.

Not at all!

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#111

That’s good to hear, certainly better than I assumed. And aye the marches are fascinating!

#112

If you ever go to the Baltic Gallery they’ve got a copy in the library. That’s how I first came across it. then I set up an alert and got a copy when someone put one on gumtree.

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#113

Scunthorpe

#114

No obligation to answer if you don’t want, but I’d be interested in knowing if that was like a lightbulb moment or if it still took time for you to get more engaged?

#115

He said it’s an ex

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#116

Mostly my powerful intellect

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#117

I hate you Epimer.

#118

I get that a lot

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#119

Always think part of their anger is that all the absolutely shittest culture is the right wing stuff. Right wing comedy and music, all just complete trash

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#120

Mum and Dad are and have always been Labour voters, but neither are particularly engaged.

I was reading Jeremy Clarkson books when I was 17/18, I think I’m mostly the leftie that I am because I decided to read up on politics because I hated not being able to join political conversations. Sure this place has had an influence, plus Twitter and the like. BRAINWASHED COMMIE

#121

growing up here

and being intermittently unemployed etc while living there

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#122

Yeah, exactly this! In turn it lead on to taking A Level politics at college. A politics class in Wigan just after the 97 election was only going to go one way politically, even without it being taught by a loud, charismatic Old Labourite - I hung off every word she said for two years to the point where my parents clearly started to resent her influence.

It was an easy decision tbf. The Tories were totally on the ropes at that point & nobody wanted anything to do with them - they seemed to represent everything naff, corrupt and old. Although the teacher was a leftie, she enjoyed taking the piss out of us/playing devil’s advocate/possibly being half serious and kept saying if we wanted careers in politics, we should all go & join the Tory party now as they’d bite your hand off. Any youngsters showing interest in them would get fast tracked up the party & they wouldn’t be out of power forever. I cant imagine anyone in the class did. I remember a couple of years later starting university & seeing a Conservative stall at the fresher’s fair. I couldn’t believe such a thing would exist & was in amazement that students were willing to show their faces in public and man it. I kept thinking what the hell is wrong with them? I still struggle with that sentiment now if someone (especially a young person) identifies as being an actual Tory.

Another formative sixth form politics experience was some event we went down to London for. One of the speakers was John Redwood and at the end of his speech he did a Q&A. There were hundreds of teenagers in there, so it clearly took some nerve to even put your hand up & ask a famous politician a question. One girl asked for clarification about something he’d said (possibly about Maastricht or something?). He sneered at her and said he’d thought the answer to her question was so obvious that he hadn’t thought it needed spelling out in his main talk. It was a proper Michael Owen/Neville Southall “Well done, he’s 13” moment and forever cemented Redwood and his party as a bunch of smug, superior twats in my mind.

I’m not really much of a participant or particulatly close follower of the intricacies of party politics now tbh, but it was an important grounding in principles and values that stayed with me. I knew from there that I wanted to build a career with some kind of social mission in public services and try to make some kind of difference that way. The likes of the Manics and student politics are the reason after graduating I found an entry level job with an NHS provider, and resolved to work my way up from there, and the reason that nearly 15 years on I’m still here.

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#123

interesting point, this

I can remember that my first proper exposure to RATM was buying the live DVD in 2004. What really struck me was the footage of them playing outside the national democratic convention in 2000.

I think I was vaguely aware by then that the democrats were left of the republicans and therefore less bad. But what Zach was saying on stage at the start of that set was “fuck both the main parties, it’s all bullshit” and that was quite a revolutionary thing to hear - it was the first time I’d come across someone who had an audience and was saying that the system itself is bullshit.

timestamped here if anyone’s interested (the entire half hour of their set is fucking brilliant too, really well shot)

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#124

It’s not always comfortable to admit, but I reckon I’ve derived a lot of political beliefs from my parents’ socialist brand of anglo-catholicism mixed with feeling weak and shy growing up and in the context of a northern post-industrial landscape that retains a lot of anger for Thatcher. My Dad and his brothers would castigate my grandma because she once voted Tory (rather than her usual Liberal), although in her retirement she volunteered to teach English to refugees. That didn’t stop her using some astonishingly incorrect/racist terminology occasionally.

People are a mixture and its important to connect with values, rather than judge purely on inelegant mistakes.

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#125

Always impressed by people who’ve specifically read up and learned about politics TBH. As I say my position was just sort of kneejerk from my mum and I guess also the fact that school and the area was so pro-Labour it was just accepted that things were shit for us in the 80s and early 90s because the Tories were awful. It never really seemed something you could question.

Recall being really upset on this site in the run-up to 2010 when people were being quite, “The Tories of the 80s and 90s aren’t the Tories of now. You’re just being massively prejudice and Labour are shit so really we should just vote for the Tories.” Like it was upsetting because I knew the Tories would fuck things up, but also depressing to realise that we only had Labour as an opposition, we had no way to make much difference.

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#126

Grenfell Tower was a big thing for me, just such a stark, unmissable monument to how grotesquely unfair life in this country is for so many people. That and the near-miss 2017 election, showing that things might! - might - get better one day

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#127

Was strongly politically minded from a very young age. Maybe from 10 or 11 but even before that just in terms of believing in fairness etc.

Don’t think it came from anywhere beyond watching the news, tv, films, a little later the books I liked. So even when I was very young would root for the underdog and liked a lot of films that had an element related to social issues.

Parents were pretty apolitical apart from my dad complaining about stuff in a stupid PC gone mad sort of way. And besides which didn’t talk about anything anyway.

Edit - just remembered that when I was maybe 7 or 8 I would do impressions of Thatcher and other politicians. Obviously just a kid copying tv but I already had a sense of thinking these were awful people who needed taking the piss out of.

#128

Being bought up in council housing in Croydon, along with my parents who had quite harsh upbringings, mum is from Middlesbrough.

Dad always jokes if I ever voted Tory he would disown me. I’m not sure he is actually joking either.

He’s also seems to be getting further left with his views in older age, which is nice.

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