STREAMING A SUNDAY STOMP DOWN MEMORY LANE

They are burying the Queen in London on Monday. In Bathurst I won’t be able to live stream proceedings in London, because Her Royal Highness’ grandfather caused the dismal legacy of damage here with his colonising nonsense, and part of that fuckup that is that we haven’t got electricity because we now have a corrupt and inept government. We have been informed that Eskom has raised our loadshedding schedule to Level 6, so we continue to head towards total blackout in the country at juggernaut speed.

As happened here in 1901 when her great grandmother Victoria died, we are marooned and an ocean away from participation in the pageantry of mourning Queen Elizabeth, and shall have to read all about it afterwards. They wrote letters back then, the Bathurst Settlers to their families in England, which took up to a year to reach overseas. Whereas we will be back online in no time at all, and can go surfing the internet to see who wore what at the wake and who has misbehaved or stepped up to the plate amongst the royals. It’s pouring with rain this morning, so stream of consciousness seems natural: isn’t writing – too – a form of prayer like a hymn, a dirge, and a way to lament? I don’t know how else to navigate the tide of confused grief and shock at Her Majesty’s death. London Bridge is Down. Rule Britannia. What will they sing at the funeral?

And did those feet in ancient time,

Walk upon England’s mountains green?

And was the holy Lamb of God,

On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

When Twitter told us THE QUEEN IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE KING, most of my friends said it was time. On Instagram there is a small meme gang growing rapidly for followers of that sentiment, and the long-forgotten dubstep protest songs remind me of the time when I too began to question my unconditional love of the Queen, when I realised in my teens that not everyone felt the same about her, and that there was something mildly shameful in being of British descent in South Africa.

Inglan is a bitch

dere’s no escapin it

Inglan is a bitch

dere’s no runnin’ way from it

I walked up to the Powder Magazine early on the morning after she died, click here to read about that particularly awkward stomp. Queen Elizabeth, dead; I was stunned. A core element in my own cultural recipe: the baking and making of Me included the ingredient that is the British monarchy. The academic study of the consequences of the actions of her ancestors on the history of my country and my ancestors is my life’s work, my grand passion. I am an 1820 Settler descendant, and White Anglo Saxon Anglican is the discipline I was born to live. My maternal grandmother shared a birthday with Elizabeth Windsor, she’d even seen her in the flesh from an arm’s-length distance, and until I was quite grownup I thought every grandmother the world over had a bone china Coronation mug standing at their bedside with Queen Elizabeth’s picture on the creamy crackled glaze. The mug smelt like lipstick and she said it was the same shade as the Queen wore. Stockings and handbags; habits and manners, my Nan and the Queen were a team to me, and I just assumed they were cousins or something. My grandmother’s engagement ring, which my sister inherited, had been made by a Johannesburg jeweller after the design of the royal coach. Aries, my Nan said, when she was asked about her star sign, like the Queen. The broadsheet pages of the Sunday Times would lay strewn across the burnt orange carpet that lay over the slasto floor of our lounge in 1970s Bloemfontein on Sundays while the roast was in the oven, while my Nan and my mom gossiped: didn’t the Queen look fed up about Princess Margaret’s cigarette in that picture of them at Wimbledon, and how proud the Queen must be about Princess Anne and her winning like that with the horses at the Olympics, and Charles is looking like a real soppy date with his big ears, shame, I wonder if he’ll ever be King one day…

ABOUT STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The American philosopher and psychologist William James (brother of the novelist Henry James) was said to have coined the phrase stream of consciousness in ‘The Principles of Psychology’ written in 1890. The term infers uninterrupted flow like that of a river or stream. Stream of consciousness narrative is also a term and technique used in literature to capture interior monologue – the random stream of thoughts, feelings, and observations of a character.[i] Stream of consciousness writing itself involves you writing down whatever comes to mind. You don’t try to stop it, edit it, bypass it, judge it or re-phrase it in any other way than how it is coming to you. It is the same as snot-en-trane bawling and telling your deepest thoughts to your safest person and, in this case, the trusted person is you. In other words it is giving your most naked self a voice without fear of judgement. For me it is a daily discipline and a form of taking my personal inventory – prayer/meditation/manifestation – , but it is a beneficial exercise for many reasons that do not only apply to aspirant writers or the philosophy geeks.

For more about stream of consciousness writing and other literary tools, please have a look at the list at the bottom of this post.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
[i] https://www.lifecoach-directory.org.uk/memberarticles/evoking-a-great-sense-of-release-the-benefits-of-stream-of-consciousness-writing

https://writersedit.com/fiction-writing/literary-devices/literary-devices-stream-consciousness/

LYRICS IN THE ABOVE POST:
Jerusalem is a funeral hymn and the musical version of the poem “And did those feet in Ancient time” by William Blake. It is very popular in the UK and seen by some as an alternative and unofficial national anthem for England. It was written to lift the spirits of people during the first World War.

One of its most famous phrases is “Chariot of Fire”, which gave the patriotic 1981 film Chariots of Fire its name. The hymn is even performed in the film. It is also sung by the Women’s Institute at their meetings and was featured in the film Calendar Girls.

Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. It is generally characterised by sparse, syncopated rhythmic patterns with prominent sub-bass frequencies.
Linton Kwesi Johnson is a renowned Jamaican poet living in London, who creates a unique genre of performance poetry recognised as dub-poetry which grew from the rhythm’s used in reggae music in the 1970’s. One of Johnsons most recognised poems is Inglan is a bitch. ‘Inglan is a bitch is another classic piece of performance poetry which focuses on the struggles of an immigrant living in London. Johnson moved to London to live in Brixton in 1965. On moving to London he has said that is was cold and ugly and that‘it wasn’t the picture book idea one has of the mother country’.

Johnson performances are easily recognisable by the distinguished Jamaican accent he reads in. Inglan is a bitch in particular is published and written phonetically when read as a text for example ‘W´en mi jus´ come to Landantoun Mi use to work pan diandahgroun’, this is because his accent is integral to this poem in particular, as a foreign accent it stresses the speakers status as an immigrant.

The poem essentially describes to the reader a list of poorly paid jobs he was forced to do whilst living in London ending each stanza with the phrase ‘Inglan is a bitch, there’s no escaping it’. The repetition of this phrase throughout the poem keeps the audience reminded of his subject, essentially saying ‘it’s a horrible life but there’s no better option’. The phrase is followed in each stanza by another line such as ‘No baddah try fi hide fram it’ and ‘Y´uhaffi know how fi survive in it’. This last line appears somewhat comforting each time and hinders the effect of the irate ‘inglan is a bitch’ line. The repetition of this stanza also means it acts almost as a sort of chorus within the poem.

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