An interesting thing happened on the way to the library.

On Monday afternoon I set off towards our local High Street in order to attend my monthly meeting of our writers’ group, The Spokes, which meets on the third Monday of each month. The meeting date had taken me by surprise, being only two weeks in to October because the first Monday was the first day. The result of this was that my reminder email to our group was not sent until very late on Sunday night.

When I reached the High Street, market trading was well underway as usual for  Monday, but with the addition of a large, white, double-decker bus, next to which a small group of elderly people bearing leaflets was busy faffing around.

On the bus’s side slogans of the  ‘Brexit means Brexit’ type had been placed.

That the bus was parked there in my own High Street provoked feelings of outrage in me, so that I was taken unawares by the reporter and cameraman who stopped me as I walked further along trying to process what I’d seen.

The reporter proffered her fluffy microphone, ‘What do you think of all this?’ she asked. I assumed she meant the bus. ‘I’m furious,’ I replied, ‘about that bus parked in my town!’

You must understand, reader that in order to sacrifice myself on the altar of the media I had to overcome my total rejection of photos of…me. The cameraman’s lens was only a few menacing inches away from my face. Horrors!

The reporter continued. ‘What do you think about the current Brexit situation?’

‘I’m a remainer’, I said. ‘I voted ‘remain’ and I would still like to remain in the EU’.

She leaned towards me. ‘Nigel Farrage is in that pub’.

Nigel Farrage!!! 

For the benefit of overseas readers, Nigel Farrage was the former leader of UKIP-[The UK Independence Party], a virtually single-issue party devoted to the sole aim of extracting the UK from the European Union. Not only is Nige a Member of Parliament [currently some other cobbled together anti-Europe mob] but has also had the gall to take a place in the European Parliament! 

I frowned into the reporter’s mike. ‘I don’t even know what Nigel Farrage is FOR,’ I said. Then I told her they were all right wing scum. At this point they left me and continued up the High Street.

I went on into the library and to our writers’ room [we are The Spokes], which is on the first floor and overlooks the High Street. I opened the window to get a bird’s eye view and was joined by a fellow Spoke. After a few moments we were treated to this view:

Farrage is the character slightly left of centre in his trademark trilby hat. A closer inspection of the scene shows that his motley collection of ‘followers’ [not many] is, on the whole elderly and a little decrepit looking.

Later Meridian news aired a snippet of the interview, cutting much of it. While I’d hoped nobody I knew had seen it, it became clear from social media that a lot of people had, which was mortifying. The camera had indeed been much too close for comfort. Ho hum.

But I thought of the chip paper analogy and felt comforted. And I did get to say my bit…