London by Lockdown

In this episode, hear about why we left, how we left, our last two London adventures, and the toll London took on Craig’s mental health.

— Olive Senior ‘I’m quite alright with that’ (Not Quite Right For Us)

My images of London are illusions.

My two years in London was a mess from go to whoa. I understand that moving to the UK a month before the outbreak of a global pandemic and the subsequent isolating lockdowns wasn’t in my control, but the fallout from all of that took its toll. Even with London by Lockdown in my corner — which was designed to connect me with the people and places around me — at times I floundered. I started doubting myself, my art, my sense of self. I love living in cities. I was excited to move there, but, as a migrant, I couldn’t get a lock on London. The place is never still. London’s a shyster, never commits to one thing or another, a chameleon wearing a wolf’s skin and dressed in sheep’s clothing. A nervous energy infuses it, always fidgeting, twitching, tapping a finger, jumping between random topics, foot tapping, leg shaking up and down under the table.

London sits at the base of a bowl in a sedimentary basin, where over the years all the rivers have been turned into sewers and all the forests cut down. When you’re looking up from the bottom of this hole, it’s hard to see beyond the rim. And yet, those rivers, they haven’t been completely silenced, because parts of London are sinking. Just down from us, walking along Deptford’s streets, near the Thames, the streets inundate and flood with only the lightest of rain. When homes are literally just staying above the water, it’s hard to do more than survive.

The difficulty in navigating London (and English culture more broadly) is that there’s a tilt to its familiarity; it was just askew enough to make everything well-known both awkward and confusing without my being able to put my finger on anything specific. Shona and I knew we were moving to live in the belly of the Colonial Beast before we even left Australia, but I didn’t realise how ingrained colonial ways of thinking are and how celebrated colonialism is — without too much self-reflection. That might seem harsh, and I understand that post-Covid London was never going to be like the pre-Covid city, but the official city that elevates only certain artefacts of culture, art, knowledge or history — that city persists through time and thrives on the facade that someone somewhere in London is having a blast, while the rest of us, who are just getting by, are somehow missing out. London’s lie is the opposite of terra nullius: the legal concept used by Colonial powers to steal ‘empty territories’ that were in fact not empty. I was caught in-between cultures and times. London’s illusion is that there’s something more than there is. London took my mental health and spat it out onto the ground where it was left to decompose.

If this sounds like I left London hating the place, that’s not true and it wouldn’t be fair to tar all of London with the same brush. My feelings are complicated and my experiences are complex. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love the place either, and, to be honest, I’m not indifferent — there is something about London that sends some people mad, I’m sure of it. Some days I wish we were still there and that I could have made a go of it. Sometimes I check out the socials and when I see photos of the streets I used to call home I yearn to be back there. Then on other days I remember the Covid shitshow or how London made me feel empty and lesser, and I’m so glad I’m on the other side of the world.

London by Lockdown, then, if I’m being kind, is a beautifully fragmented love letter memoir lament celebration. So, on those days when I was feeling more than a little anxious, it was in the bustle of places like Lewisham, Deptford, New Cross, Peckham or Brixton where I wandered the streets and found a calmness in anonymity (which sounds counterintuitive given part of my melt down was because I felt so isolated). These places, historically inhabited by so many outsiders, have a human scale that made London, if only in those few brief hours, feel right.

Links

National Covid Memorial Wall

The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice are collecting audio testimonies. E: [email protected]

Led by Donkeys; Twitter: @ByDonkeys; FB & IG: @ledbydonkeys

Guardian article: Wall of Love

Little Amal and Walk With Amal: @walkwithamal (FB, Twitts, IG, TickTock)

London’s Migration Museum, Lewisham

Video of Rodney Kelly (Gweagal man) visiting the Headstone of Darug Tribesman Yemmerrawanyea

You can find that beautiful song on the Sovereign Union page

BP or Not BP Campaign

Friends of Nunhead

Mal Rail

The Log Books

Vagina museum

Museum of Neolibralism

Museum of Homelessness 

Climate Museum UK

Feminist Library Peckham

Museum of Slavery and Freedom, Deptford, London

Black Cultural Archives, Brixton

George Padmore Institute

Speaking Volumes

Not Quite Right For Us 

Music & SFX

Opening & Closing Credits by Unregistered Master Builder

Additional SFX and Music by Epidemic Sound

Touching Moments by Ketsa (Free Music Archive)

Mental Health Resources

How to Access Mental Health Services (NHS site)

Mental Health Australia

Only Human Radio Show

Pink Therapy

Contact us

Facebook: @CraigsAudioWorks 

Twitter & Instagram: @LDNbylockdown

Hear about Shona’s da’s story; learn about the highland clearances, the 10-pound poms, and how people fashion intimate connections and meaning in countries far from their place of birth; and travel through 400 years of UK Departures and Arrivals. (Two years ago today, the UK locked down.)

Dear Migration Museum,

Hope you’re well.

Just a note to let you know that I loved volunteering with you and it was really important to me. I know it might sound a little strange, saying that, given I wasn’t there too long, but you’re just such a brilliant place. (I know I don’t have to tell you that.)

When I first visited you as a punter, it hadn’t struck me before that I was a migrant. I’d grown up with so much UK media (mostly BBC productions on the ABC), and even now, the UK is presented as ‘the same’ as Australia; that we both understand each other’s cultures perfectly. Again, I don’t have to tell you this, but that’s not true. The difficulty in navigating London is that it’s all so similar, but there’s a tilt that makes everything awkward, more confusing and difficult, and it’s just askew enough to discombobulate me without my being able to put my finger on anything specific. Shona and I both knew going in we were travelling to the belly of the Colonial Beast, but I didn’t realise how ingrained that thinking is; how colonialism is celebrated in so many contexts without any reflection; and how the idea of ‘born-to-rule’ permeates. (But of course, you give us the other perspectives and stories.)

When I first approached you about volunteering I was suffering anxiety. I’d never had this before, and was having anxiety attacks — I didn’t know what was going on. I ended up working with a counsellor. Covid in London broke me. At the time the MM was perfect. So open and generous and caring.

Could you please let everyone I worked with know I really valued meeting them and enjoyed my time there. One regret is that I didn’t get to be part of the MM for longer and get to know each of you better.

Take care and stay safe.

London’s Migration Museum, Lewisham
Rachelle Romeo
We Are Lewisham (Borough of Culture, 2022)

Opening & Closing Credits by Unregistered Master Builder
SFX and extra music from Epidemic Sound
Touching Moments by Ketsa (Free Music Archive)

How to Access Mental Health Services (NHS site)
Mental Health Australia
Only Human Radio Show
Pink Therapy

Facebook: @CraigsAudioWorks 
Twitter & Instagram: @LDNbylockdown

A fete in a cemetery, a tiny underground mail train, and a museum in a shopping centre. Come and celebrate everything that’s NOT the British Museum.

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Bug hunts, whittling workshops, crypt tours, a petting zoo, ice cream — a ‘typical’ open day. It’s spring and there’s still a chill to the air, but after months of lockdown we’re enjoying being outside. Before arriving if you’d asked me who’d be at the open day I’d have said three history buffs and a dog — but the place is bustling with hundreds of people: market stalls, a community choir, a ‘murder of goths’ (about 30, I’d say). The cemetery is being re-wilded, and as the forest reclaims the place, the wildlife has returned — mostly birds and squirrels, but on one walk we took here in the depths of the winter lockdown, on an overcast day with snow all around, we saw foxes darting between the gravestones and trees. Today, though, there are too many people for foxes. We finish at a pop-up cafe near the Scottish Martyrs monument, with tea and scones and jam. My nan used to make scones like that. The five Martyrs campaigned for parliamentary reform, and for their troubles were transported to Australia in 1794.

Tunnels running east–west under London carrying narrow gauge driverless trains and delivering millions of letters a day. What more could you want? Royal Mail began as the personal mail service of one of the English kings. Some time later, if you could afford it, you could send letters where the recipient paid for them on arrival. When the Penny Black stamp was invented, the first adhesive stamp, postage was democratised and became accessible to anyone. By the 1920s millions of letters were being delivered to Londoners every day. The mail rail opened in 1927 to counter London’s congested streets and the ensuing delays. In the 1930s the GPO established a film unit. ‘Night Mail’ is its most famous production (Written by W.H. Auden). On our visit to the Museum we watched the surrealist jaunt ‘Love on the Wing’ (1939) by Norman McLaren. In theory it was an ad for the postal service, but the images plugged straight into my brain and I have no idea what it was about.

Popping into Sainsbury’s to grab some toilet paper? Why not stop at the Migration Museum? It’s Saturday morning and we bus it to Lewisham shopping centre. We sit up front of the top level of the double decker bus (for only two pounds you get a comprehensive view of the city, and every trip is like a mini tour). Founded about 20 years ago, and without a permanent home at the time, the MM was initially a series of collaborative exhibitions and events travelling all over the UK, including London, Oxford, Leicester and Edinburgh. From 2017 to 2019, it was based in Lambeth, then it moved to Lewisham. The bus delivers us to Hight Street’s bustle: market stalls selling fresh fish, fruit and vegetables, clothes, fabrics, and street food from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Nearby are Polish and Italian delis, Turkish and South Indian restaurants, and my favourite fish and chip shop in London: ‘Something Fishy’. The décor is straight out of the 1970s, and alongside an array of different fish (and chips) they serve pie and mash, and jellied eel. Before we head into the centre, Lewisham’s hustle calms me, makes me feel at ease with London on those days I feel anxious. It’s a human scale that feels about right; the perfect place for the Migration Museum.

London’s Migration Museum (Lewisham)
BP or Not BP Campaign
Friends of Nunhead Cemetery
Mail Rail
The Log Books Podcast
Vagina Museum
Museum of Neolibralism
Museum of Homelessness
Climate Museum UK
Feminist Library Peckham
Museum of Slavery and Freedom (Deptford)
Black Cultural Archives (Brixton)
George Padmore Institute
Speaking Volumes
Not Quite Right For Us Podcast

Love on the Wing (Youtube)
Night Mail (Daily Motion)

Opening & Closing Credits by Unregistered Master Builder
SFX by Epidemic Sound
Touching Moments by Ketsa (Free Music Archive)

How to Access Mental Health Services (NHS site)
Mental Health Australia
Only Human Radio Show
Pink Therapy

Facebook: @CraigsAudioWorks 
Twitter & Instagram: @LDNbylockdown

The idea of travel brings with it the promise of exotic places filled with interesting people, and images of glittering beaches and crystal clear water, or adventure, relaxation, or even a family holiday. But that’s for those who are able to come and go as they please: one person’s exploration is another’s exploitation. For many, ‘travel’ has been ‘not quite right’ for centuries, bringing conquest and oppression, inequality and ecological disaster, prejudice, and at times walls to keep out ‘the other’.

Celebrating ten years of Speaking Volumes, this anthology is a warning shot, an affirmation, an education ... These forty writers — new and established — speak volumes, invoking their experiences of outsiderness and their defiance against it.

In forty short stories, poems and essays — by turns wry, gentle, furious, humorous, passionate, analytical and elliptical — these forty writers, new and established, speak volumes, invoking their experiences of outsiderness and their defiance against it.

In this episode we’ll hear … ‘i am no less’ by Michelle Cahill; ‘We Wait’ by Rafeef Ziadah; and Prologue from ‘Abolition’ by Gabriel Gbadamosi (voiced by actors Joe Hughes, Danny Nutt, Owen Oakeshott & Rex Obano).

Our guide is actor and author Pauline Melville.

Information
Music composed by Dominique Le Gendre
Narration by Lucy Hannah
Extra music & SFX by Epidemic Sound
Available at all good bookshops, or you can order from Flipped Eye Publishing
Produced in collaboration with Speaking Volumes.

Love touches us all at some point — from dependable familial bonds to the warm comfort of childhood pets, from the heady perfume of romance to the cherished appreciation of community, culture, country. The physical and emotional connections transcend barriers, cross generations and borders. And yet, love can sometimes be ‘not quite right’, taking where it should be giving, causing destruction — even as we still love.

Celebrating ten years of Speaking Volumes, this anthology is a warning shot, an affirmation, an education ... These forty writers — new and established — speak volumes, invoking their experiences of outsiderness and their defiance against it.

In this episode we’ll hear ‘The Pilgrimage’ by Amina Atiq; ’Knot’ by Leonie Ross; and ’The Apocrypha of O’ by Gaele Sobott. Our guide is poet, novelist and musician Dr Anthony Joseph.

Available at all good bookshops, or you can order from Flipped Eye Publishing.

Speaking Volumes live literature organisation.

A series of hard-hitting tidbits about London life, including an insight into the cultural icon that is Henry Hoover.

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The pandemic isn’t linear or coherent. I started writing an article about my claustrophobic thoughts about an unknown lockdown. A city that once paid no attention is now all ears, in the wake of sirens marking time — as the only time stamp they move through the streets faster than anything else. The sirens cut loud, continue for longer, can be heard from farther away. Consequences: Listening to the wind I dream all sorts. I dream long and strange and weird. We still can’t see the horizon. Confusion; contradictions; dithering. Any article about the pandemic is merely a jumbled mess, because as much as we fumble for stories — my bread and butter and the things we all turn to to make sense of the world — none exist. About this time every day the family next door comes into their backyard into the sun for about 15 minutes. The kids’ shouts are pure joy and happiness. London: Pandemic Epicentre. TouchDown Feb 23, LockDown March 24. The London I stepped into is an episode of ‘Black Mirror’. Let’s hope we get through this in better shape than Charlie Brooker’s protagonists. A friend’s dog that has never barked at planes before, when they were a constant overhead, now barks at each and every isolated and intermittent plane that flies over. In April 2020 I read a piece about goats coming into the Welsh town Llandudno. The author writes: ‘The world’s metropolises ... are now silent save for the strange duet of birdsong and sirens.’ I love that sentence and wish I’d written it. I wish that sentence had never been written. Some birds of prey flush out other birds by mimicking the emergency call of the birds they’re hunting: The hunted birds flee the safety of the tree into the air where the hunter dives in. The sirens of London float above all else; like foreigners from our pasts, swathing through the city. Last month was an eternity. Meme: A woman from the 1950s holding a cell phone. In a speech bubble: ‘It’s Kurt Cobain calling, he says we’re stupid and contagious.’ I imagine the virus is knife-edged and stone-sharpened, smooth and without mitigation. That’s not true. I once conceived the virus as a 1980s boy band version of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but that’s not true either. If, when we get out of this — and I have to believe we’ll get out of this — we find we’re worse off than any one of Charlie Brooker’s protagonists, then we’re in so much trouble. The politicians say, “We’re in this together”, but only when it suits. Anxious: I avoid people, fearful; when all I want to do is smile and chat and make friends.

Henry Hoover
The Henry Hoover Rap by Zound Asleep Productions
Happy Alley by Kevin MacLeod (Filmmusic.io Standard License); [email protected]
Henry I Love You by Mack Whitwood
Henry the Hoover by The Horne Section
Henry Hoover as a flame thrower

Mental Health Resources
How to Access Mental Health Services (NHS site)
Mental Health Australia
Only Human Radio Show
Pink Therapy

Music & SFX
Opening & Closing Credits by Unregistered Master Builder
SFX by Epidemic Sound
Touching Moments by Ketsa

Contact us
Facebook: @CraigsAudioWorks 
Twitter & Instagram: @LDNbylockdown
Available linktr.ee/LondonbyLockdown

As a community and a nation we can’t know where we are, where we’re going, or where we could be if our map is faulty, incomplete or badly drawn. We also miss out on great stories. In this episode authors Jacqueline Roy, SI Martin and Nicola Williams expertly guide us through Britain’s past and present. So come celebrate the UK’s diverse and brilliant Black British voices with us.

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To truly trace the contours of this place, in all its complexity and beauty, we need to build a better map, and to do that we need to hear all voices, stories and experiences — from across the cities and beyond. This cultural journey, an international, inter-generational and centuries-long history of people criss-crossing the Atlantic, has led to the rise of what is now celebrated as Black Britain. The readings and interviews with Jackie, Steve and Nicola give us precious insights into the lives of people from African and Caribbean heritages. As our guides help us explore the preoccupations, voices and stories of this island nation, we learn about the part literature has played in forging that national identity, and how levelling the field in publishing can enrich our understanding of everything from Georgian London to legal thrillers.

“Good books withstand the test of time, even if they are of their time.”
— Bernardine Evaristo (author of Booker winning novel “Girl, Woman, Other”).

Viewed as part of a continuum, this body of work provides a more accurate and detailed account of what it means to be British. From books published in the 1930s, when most of the Caribbean was considered British; to the music of 2-Tone, where black and white musicians blended blue beat and ska from the 1960s with reggae, soul and punk from the 1970s; to the 1990s, when black authors born in the UK were being published. National identity is constructed as much through the past as it is by the present.

“Black Britain: Writing Back” is a new series curated by Bernardine Evaristo with her publisher, Hamish Hamilton, at Penguin Random House. Their ambition is to correct historic bias in British publishing and bring a wealth of lost writing back into circulation. This project looks back to the past in order to resurrect texts that will help reconfigure black British literary history.

Featured "Black Britain: Writing Back" authors
The Fat Lady Sings
Incomparable World
Without Prejudice
Minty Alley
Bernard and the Cloth Monkey
The Dancing Face

If Lockdown is Getting You Down
How to Access Mental Health Services (NHS site)
Mental Health Australia
Only Human Radio Show
Pink Therapy

Thanks
Speaking Volumes
Lucy Hannah
Bocas Lit Fest

Websites & Articles
Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants
George Padmore Institute
Black Cultural Archives
Guardian Article: ‘Politicians should not “weaponise” History’

Music & SFX
Opening & Closing Credits by Unregistered Master Builder
Background Music and Interludes: Zanzibar by Jones Meadow, Secret Love - Johannes Bornlof and Mountain Quail - Dust Follows: (Epidemic Sound)
SFX Connection: City Sounds

Contact
Facebook: @CraigsAudioWorks 
Twitter & Instagram: @LDNbylockdown
Available linktr.ee/LondonbyLockdown

This episode looks at Aboriginal resistance and activism in London and England — as told by First Nations people. As non-Indigenous people born on the Australian continent, Craig acknowledges he was born on Ngunnawal Country, and Shona acknowledges she was born on the land of the Kulin Nation.

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Every January Australia finds itself running headlong down a steep hill towards the 26th. We’re in shorts and a t-shirt, and like all kids, the scrapes and scratches on our arms and legs map our summer adventures: fishing, swimming, biking, climbing, skateboarding, bushwalking, surfing, camping. BBQs and dive bombs, mozzies and cicadas, sunscreen and ‘six and out’. Part way down the hill, about the 10th, when the annual ‘lamb ad’ hits our TVs, our legs begin to speed up of their own accord. Soon after, our head wobbles. We’re unsteady. By the 20th we’re careening, our arms and legs flail, and we can’t stop. Teetering, we trip over our own feet and we face plant the dirt, landing in a heap on January 26.

Reflecting on its antiquated and jingoistic origins, Australia Day’s nervous posturing diminishes us all — not least because it’s a form of rigid militarised nationalism (that includes Anzac Day) politicised by prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating; ramped up by John Howard; and continued by the rest. No national day can represent everyone, because nations aren’t static. Personally, ‘national days’ shouldn’t exist, but since they’re A Thing, Australia needs modern symbols that embrace its ever-changing history — from invasion, occupation, colonialism and war, to multiculturalism, migration, treaty and sovereignty (and beyond).

A Black GST could do it. Constituted at ‘Camp Sovereignty’ (Kings Domain, Melbourne, 2006) during Commonwealth Games (‘StolenWealth Games’) protests, the Black GST draws on centuries of resistance. Only by resolving the legal issues of Genocide, Sovereignty and Treaty can the holistic wellbeing of Indigenous peoples be secured. Only after Genocide is stopped, Sovereignty recognised and Treaties made, can Indigenous and non-Indigenous people come together and put Australia’s ‘unfinished business’ to bed. A Day of Mourning would acknowledge the misery imposed on First Nations peoples by the white invaders. Sovereignty Day would recognise that all Aboriginal nations are sovereign and united in the ongoing fight for their rights. Invasion Day would mark the date of British occupation, the start of the frontier wars, and the resistance that continues today. Survival Day would celebrate that First Nations peoples and cultures have survived despite colonisation.

Until Australia acknowledges all of these truths, we’re nowhere.

Featured
Grandmothers Against Removals Go Fund Me page
Rodney’s Twitter: @rodkelly77
Soul-ja Sistas
Lara’s You Tube page Caramel Latte
“Fernando’s Ghost” documentary
The Lone Protestor (book) by Fiona Paisley
Burnum Burnum Declaration (doc)
You can find that beautiful song on the Sovereign Union page
Check out AIATSIS (start with the language map)
Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance
Indigenous X Twitter: @IndigenousX
National Indigenous TV
Pay The Rent
KoorieHeritage Trust

Brilliant Podcasts
Full Aunty Hazel Interview
Frontier War Stories
Birds Eye View
Let’s Talk
Curtain
Stuff the British Stole (Hear more about the Gweagal Shield)

Contact
Facebook: @CraigsAudioWorks 
Twitter & Instagram: @LDNbylockdown
Available linktr.ee/LondonbyLockdown

It’s almost the end of 2020. As a special gift for getting through a hard year, in this bonus episode we share one of our all time favourite pieces of radio, and a holiday classic: ‘Xmas in Merimbula’ by Kayla (then aged 8).

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Some 30 years ago, aged 17, I first heard The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’ and fell in love with the city, the band and the song — and all the complexities and contradictions within.

Unlike so many other Xmas songs, there’s nothing sentimental here: “It was Christmas eve, babe; in the drunk tank. An old man said to me, ‘Won’t see another one’. And then he sang a song: ‘The Rare Old Mountain Dew’. I turned my face away and dreamed about you.” It’s not a song of solace, but a cautionary tale. There but for the grace…

As the years have passed, ‘Fairytale…’ has migrated in from the margins. Nowadays it’s played in supermarkets, and since 2005 it returns annually to the top 20 charts — MacColl’s beautiful voice (she grew up in Croydon, South London, not far from here) perfectly counters McGowan’s character’s dirty murky syntax. And when listeners turn from McGowan’s scowl to MacColl’s songfulness for comfort, they fall victim to a beautifully rendered ambush: “They’ve got cars big as bars, they’ve got rivers of gold, but the wind goes right through you it’s no place for the old.” Who are these people?

I get preoccupied with a song’s words. In retrospect, I always have. I listen to songs as a writer, zeroing in on utterances, while Shona draws meaning from the music, listening as a musician. She plays guitar, ukulele, piano, and sings. I get tangled in a song’s prose, piecing together characters’ inner lives until they forge a path beyond the song, until I don’t know who any of us will be when we reach the other side. For me, music serves as punctuation.

I don’t really care about Xmas itself, but I’ll take any excuse to see friends and family Listening to ‘Fairytale…’ is my only Xmas ritual, one I’ve not missed in three decades, so taking those five minutes out will be the only usual thing about this year. A small piece of normal in the dumpster fire of 2020. Being so far from home and with so few options to return, it’s the video calls and photos bringing us ‘everyday’ updates that keeps us going. I began the year locked down in bushfires and ended up locked down in a plague. We hope you and your family can in some small way salvage a little cheer from 2020.

Information about non-Xmas festivals during this time
All Saints Day (1 Nov)
Diwali (mid-Oct—mid-Nov)
Hanukkah (late-Nov—early-Jan)
World AIDS Day (1 Dec)
International Day of Disabled Persons (3 Dec)
Bodhi Day (8 Dec) — BuddhistDay of Enlightenment
Human Rights Day (10 Dec)
Kwanzaa (26 Dec–1 Jan): Facebook @Kwanzaanetworkuk
Ōmisoka (31 Dec) — traditional Japanese celebration
Soyal (21 Dec) – ceremony of the Zuni & Hopi peoples
Pancha Ganapati (21–25 Dec) — Hindu festival honoring Ganesha
Hogmanay (31 Dec) — Scottish New Year’s Eve.
Tu BiShvat (late-Jan or early-Feb)

Thanks
Opening & Closing Credits by Unregistered Master Builder
Locked In (4zzz)
Background music, ‘Touching Moments’ by Ketsa (Free Music Archive)

If Lockdown is Getting You Down
How to Access Mental Health Services (NHS site)
Mental Health Australia
Only Human Radio Show (4zzz)
Pink Therapy

Contact
Facebook: @CraigsAudioWorks 
Twitter & Instagram: @LDNbylockdown
Available linktr.ee/LondonbyLockdown

When a 1979 BBC documentary titled "Who is Poly Styrene?" introduces us to the punk singer’s work, we become utterly fascinated. With help from Poly’s daughter Celeste Bell, musician Rhoda Dakar and archival audio from Poly herself, this episode explores why her work looks, feels and sounds so relevant today.

I know your antiseptic, your deodorant smells nice I’d like to get to know you, you’re deep frozen like the ice He’s a germ free adolescent, cleanliness is her obsession Cleans her teeth ten times a day Scrub away, scrub away, scrub away the S.R. Way
— X-Ray Spex “Germ Free Adolescents”, 1978

Marianne Elliott, better known as Poly Styrene, formed the punk band X-Ray Spex as a twenty-year-old in 1977. (Polystyrene is an inexpensive, clear, hard and brittle synthetic aromatic hydrocarbon polymer that can be solid or foamed.) With songs like “Germ-Free Adolescents”, “Plastic Bag” and “Oh Bondage, Up Yours!” the music of X-Ray Spex brings together the many worlds of Marianne Elliott and Poly Styrene: the woman and the artist; the mother and the daughter; the punk and the hippie — all united by a willingness to laugh at and expose the limitations of the throwaway culture of the time (and of today).

Arena’s gritty 1979 documentary flies to us straight out of the past, clear as day and with prophetic lucidity. Directed by Ted Clisby, it is gritty (there’s no better description), but it’s also personal and warm, with its aesthetic beautifully anchored in a storytelling past that also endures. Just like Poly Styrene’s lyrics, and precisely because it is a type of storytelling we don’t use so much anymore, the documentary and the music are out of time, and somewhat comfortingly both feel fresh, even if the sound and the colours are a bit muted after the passing of forty years and the digital changes to design and recording in that time. As an exhibit of deliberate and ‘slow storytelling’, this documentary is a rare portrait of a strong and loud woman singing her way through a world, an industry and an era dominated by white men.

Poly Styrene’s images, lyrics, art, clothes and music reflect as much on life during the synthetic Seventies as they do on the post-pandemic world ahead. Hear and read more of my work at http://www.craiggarrett.online/

Thanks
Opening & Closing Credits Unregistered Master Builder
Celeste Bell
Rhoda Dakar (Pork Pie and Mash Up)

If Lockdown is Getting You Down
How to Access Mental Health Services (NHS site)
Mental Health Australia
Only Human Radio Show
Pink Therapy

Websites & Articles
X-Ray Spex
Stand up and Spit
Decolonise Fest
The London Sound Survey
Cities and Memory Global Sound
Diwali

Your Local Arena Partners & Collaborators
Manchester Literature Festival
Ilkley Literature Festival
George Padmore Institute
198 Contemporary Arts and Learning
Cuirt International Festival
Durham Book Festival
Writing on the Wall Festival
Small Wonder Short Story Festival
Bradford Literary Festival

Contact
Facebook: @CraigsAudioWorks 
Twitter & Instagram: @LDNbylockdown