Here's to the Burgundy Lido!

 


One of the things I detest most about synthetic football pitches, or astroturf as its commonly known, is the fact that they've resulted in a kind of new Enclosure Act direct towards municipal parks all over the country. 

Just as the Enclosure Act enclosed open fields and common land, making private land which was once previously common, so too are public playing fields which were formerly open to all, now increasingly fenced off and often inaccessible for children and families. The reasons given for keeping parks locked up are normally related to security, vandalism or (ridiculously) stopping the spread of covid. 

Indeed, modernisation and changes which are touted as improvements to sport and leisure amenities, too often turn out to be a backwards step and 4G pitches are no different. They were introduced as low maintenance all weather facilities which would allow sporting fixtures to go ahead all year round, perhaps resulting in an increased uptake in sport among young people. 

The reality has transpired somewhat differently, with scenes of kids’ constantly attempting to scale 'Stalag Luft III' type perimeter fences surrounding football pitches, becoming a familiar sight around most towns. Not so much The Great Escape, more a great attempt...to get into a park to play football.   

Today, I'm not sure we fully appreciate just how hard fought and hard won the creation of municipal public parks and access to public football pitches and swimming pools was. 

My hero, the noble christian socialist and pacifist Labour Party leader George Lansbury, was appointed First Commissioner of Works by Ramsay MacDonald following the 1929 General Election. 

Good Old George made it his business improve recreational facilities and bring more working people into public parks and green spaces. It was Lansbury, who opened lidos for public bathing in the face of stiff opposition from the Tories, one such lido still exists here in Gourock today. 

Following Lansbury's time and the ending of WW2, the desire to make our communities nicer places to live with decent opportunities for sport and leisure continued to be an important issue for people in working class communities.

The classic Ealing Comedy 'Passport To Pimlico' for example, appears to be about post-war rationing and self-reliant plucky Brits all pulling together, standing up to hostile outsiders. 

A plethora of academic studies and papers have been written about Passport To Pimlico and some comparisons have been drawn between the themes within this movie and Brexit. 

For me, the film is principally about that aforementioned desire to make our communities nicer places to live and the power of civil society and communitarianism which exists in the space between the dehumanising State and commodifying Market.

The 1996 radio adaptation of Passport to Pimlico begins with the late great George Cole as Arthur Pemberton, portrayed by Stanley Holloway in the film, lamenting the lack of amenities for local kids. 

Arthur yearns to build a public lido which the local young people could use for swimming and sunbathing and when it is eventually discovered that Pimlico is actually Burgundy, wealthy and independent from Britain, Arthur sees an opportunity to deliver the improvements he dreams of. 

In one scene in the local pub, upon realising that they are free and rich, Shirley Pemberton played by Barbara Murray (pictured above) shouts "Here's to the Burgundy Lido!" 

Sadly, the Lido doesn't transpire and the Burgundians soon return to being Britons and reinstate the ongoing post-war austerity of the time, having succumbed to pressure from both State and Market. 

The State is represented by the bureaucratic British Government's attempts to thwart Pimlico's new found independence with red-tape and regulations. Meanwhile the market is represented by unscrupulous spivs and unregulated market traders moving into Pimlico to exploit and rip off the unprotected Burgundians. 

I've always found the ending of Passport To Pimlico slightly depressing and perhaps we remain trapped between State and Market today and continue to have to fight for our public baths, public parks and football pitches, however I don't want to end this reflection on a sour note.

There are always signs of hope, we are slowly emerging from lock down so let us stay positive and hopeful like the Burgundians of Pimlico. Today is also the Spring Equinox and Good Old George has some inspiring words to say about the arrival of Spring -

"Where on God’s earth is there a land of hedgerows & lanes which every springtime resound with a chorus of song from innumerable birds, and bursts into a perfect profligacy of flowers & shrubs which gladden the sight of all who see them.”

George Lansbury, 1934


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