Stuck in the middle of news: part 1

I like to imagine that I’m quite political – can’t abide social wrongs, want politicians in power that can make a difference. If I was a posh Englishman from decades passed, I’d spend nights in my gentlemen’s club with a fine glass of port and discuss the finer points of political systems and how we must strive to improve them. But alas I’m not, and though I get into debates, I find myself stuck between parties and countries. These past few months marked another Canadian election. I’m sorry to say, I don’t remember when the last one was, but according to Google it was 2006. But this year marked a very different feel amongst the voters I know and that was the disdain for the current Prime Minister, Steve Harper.

A conservative through and through, Harper, from what I understand, pushed to keep his slash the GST promises that were a pittance compared to the fear the arts community have of proposed cuts. But being in the UK for 7 years, I haven’t let the thoughts of what the Canadian government did touch my mind. My political world revolves around the Blair – Brown era and the spiral into recession that we are currently in. I didn’t even remember I could vote back home until it was too late and Harper, the man my friends hated, was re-elected in an election with one of the lowest voter turnouts ever.

Since I’ve been in London I’ve seen the world change and my headline news is a small world bulletin back home and vice versa. The first world event I was swept up in was the Queen Mum’s funeral…Standing crowded at the end of Whitehall, I try to see—stand tiptoe till my arches hurt. There’s always someone taller in my view. The crowd jostles—not with any animosity mind you but gentle, playful bobbing.

There are Lorries in plain view. People climb up the back and front trying to get the same sight as the people climbed and perched on buildings. Men scream for them to get off. Others chuckle. Giggling children are held up, put on parent’s shoulders. One wiggles to get down—if only they could hold up the Grandparents, the people who knew who she was.

I can feel the intake of breath, the push to see as the coffin pulls around the corner. “I see William, I see William,” a pre-teen voice cries out. The older man with the binoculars, who let me stand in front even though I was still too short to see, murmurs over me to his wife “There it is…the coffin is rolling into view. Can you see it?” His wife stands in front of me—us pressed into each other. She speaks past my ear. “You can see for the both of us, dear.”

As the coffin fades from view, the crowd against the makeshift concert gates tries to push out as the rest surge forward, trying to catch a glimpse of anything. An uplifted hand of a royal perhaps? But mostly we see the plumed hats of soldiers, the back of the procession, the ones no one really has any interest in. One woman grumbles, “All I can see is a police hat—I could see those any day.”

Though the Queen mum’s funeral was reported world-wide, it wasn’t something that concerned my family. It was another event that passed by in the papers. But by being there, I felt part of something bigger. I was in the middle of the news now.