AS I SAW IT

The Nelson touch

SALLY VINCENT

St Patrick's Day paraders flounced by with the air of people having a better time than we are. Their music, accompanied by the flashing of a myriad rosy Irish knees, has an exuberent edge over Trafalgar Square's stay- put-and-be-patriotic attempt to rouse us to a nation loving frenzy through the services of a mini-brass band thinly tooting about lands

of hope and glory.. Those of us chauvinistic

enough to favour an anti-Common Market rally over a real Irish shindig are only wistfully warmed by the spectacle of our leading lady, Mrs Anne Kerr, looking curiously like a highly glossed red, white and black Buddha beneath the 'Keep Britain Out' banners, marshalling her anti- marketeers behind Nelson's sulky back.

She wears, along with garments of the red- dest red, the faint smile of a lady who has laid her plans very carefully indeed. No stone, suggests her red and ample frame, will remain unslung when her two rows of tin- chaired supporters have had their say. The converted who have come to be preached at are vu night roisterers twenty-six years on, bitterly loyal to the Great Britain they fought for, deeply disturbed by the presence of blue balloon carrying Hornsey Young Conservatives, all hot pants and in- volvement, aching to be let into Europe. Hostilities between the two factions are fan- ned by Mrs Kerr's opening speaker, one Pathfinder Bennett whom we have never heard of, except, of course, through Mrs Kerr's fulsome introduction. Respect, then, for the nice gentleman who was once Mrs Kerr's husband's boss.

Undeniably he' is a personable fellow, cheerful as a soap powder ad-man with his 'hallo girls' designed to instantaneously win the hearts of every British housewife who ever looked at her supermarket bill. But the Pathfinder oversells his product. First of all he tells us that Horatio Nelson is watching us, which is an unfortunate assertion when even the most patriotic of us have only to lift our eyes to observe the fact that he is. in truth, gazing parkwards and not into our consciences. Furthermore, says the Pathfinder, putting words into the good Lord's mouth as though fresh from a seance, Horatio would like to tell us how to behave in these troubled times. He would tell us to do our duty; simple as that. Do our duty to our country as he did when he died for us. And that means keeping out of Europe. We are a great nation says the Pathfinder/Lord Nelson. Where in Europe is there -a country half so great, with half the honour? Somebody from the blue balloon belt makes a humble suggestion and is curtly instructed by the Pathfinder to take himself there. Which gives the VE night crowd their line for the afternoon. It's old-time Patriotism versus impertinent youth. Everybody under the age of thirty seems to be protecting himself from the demands of everybody over thirty to `go and live with Your precious wogs you think so great'.

A very old lady, who has been dreamily Mouthing 'Fascist' to herself in memory of warmer days. is told by a Young Conservative to shut up because it's his future that's at stake. not hers. Ga7ine into his unkind young face, she momentarily snaps out of her daze. 'You go away', she

orders. 'you kids aren't supposed to even be here'. Of the two, the Young Conservative is the more wounded by the exchange.

Renee Short, flamboyant in flamingo pink, assails our ears with statistics; cost of living,

unemployment, doom, destruction, govern- ment evasions, she has it all off pat. 'Talking through your wig', the Young Tories give her for her trouble. They warm, though, to a nice old guy who looks as though he's left his heart in some Kentish orchard. It is a matter of some amusement that he used to be chairman of the Apples and Pears Council. But friendly amusement, nothing derisory. France, says the nice old guy, will dump a million pounds of surplus apples and pears on us. Mark his words. A plane overhead drowns his description of the horrors to come and Young Tories clutch their sides and point upwards into the roar. 'Watch out for flying fruit', they say leaving the nice ap- ples and pears man with little to add but his conviction that anyone who doesn't agree with him is just NBC. And he doesn't care who knows. 'Europe Yes', retaliate the NBGS.

Mrs Kerr's friends build up an im- passioned case. Britain is still the greatest, Britain will stand alone, Britain will not be pulled down to anybody's level, Britain will remain loyal to her true friends, Britain was, is and always will be The Best. It is almost as embarrassing as listening to Cassius Clay talking about himself. And the more delirious the speakers become in self-praise, the more relaxed the crowd grows, talking among themselves, trailing off to feed pigeons and indulge in conversation with the gentle eccentrics who border every crowd in England. Well-judged propaganda from the mouths of Peter Shore and Joan Maynard is rivalled by the more colourful concepts of a naughty old man clad in two sets of sandwich boards who is successfully en- tertaining half Trafalgar Square. His boards are a trifle ambiguous One says, 'Sex Shops Boom', another 'The People Wake Up', and another. 'This Country is being Destroyed by Money Mad Lunatics'. On his back we are free to read his more artistic effort: `Father Thames you must agree Takes his filth out to the sea But the Thames of iTv Put theirs on the air for all to see'.

His utterances themselves are even more graphic. 'I keep telling you', he says with infinite patience, 'this politics is just a game of shadow boxing. I keep telling you the country's going to the dogs. I keep telling you it's a shilling for a toffee apple' The Young Conservatives invite him to their next pro-Common Market meeting. They know who their friends are. Unlike the anti lady passing by with a petition for the Queen bearing three signatures.

A purple face amid blue balloons is almost psychedelic; whichever way it thrusts it is encircled by glinting bursts of silver saliva spraying copiously from between livid lips. Having fought for the likes of them, it now appears that Mr Purple cannot contain his rage at what the likes of them have turned out to be. `Bliddy fools' the lot of them. 'Dumping?' he screams in mid-argument. 'What the bliddy hell do you know about dumping? The only dumping you ought to do is dumping your stupid bliddy banners and then dump your bliddy stupid selves in the bliddy fountain. That'll dump you'.

`Look graUdad', say the Young Tories, for whom this is political discourse, 'you don't have to shout. We'd change our minds if you had a good point'.

`Minds?' Mr Purple is beside himself. `Minds? You've got no bliddy minds'.

A girl with deep blue fingernails is so far moved by the events of the day that she decides to set fire to a magazine. Watched by a policeman who couldn't care less, she self-consciously holds a match to the edge of the pages and turns the magazine gingerly round to save her blue fingertips from carnage. When it is flaring prettily she drops it to the ground where it harmlessly burns itself out.