Silver screening

Andy sat back in his swivel chair and steepled his palms together on the desk, index fingers pointing forward as if about to shoot an imaginary laser gun. It was his ideas signature move; if he’d been a cartoon character instead of our boss, a little light bulb would have pinged and flashed in a cloud above his head.
“It’d be great if we could get the local MP or someone to officially open the Foyer for us,” he said, “get the paper in, maybe radio too. Even television. The youngsters would love it. And youth homelessness is right in the news at the moment.” he continued, warming to the theme. “Whaddaya think?”
We nodded. He made the call.

It took us a few weeks to find out exactly how far that call had got. The game of political Chinese Whispers that started with a message on the answerphone of the part-time secretary of the constituency’s MP had somehow tunnelled its way through Ministers and flunkeys and White Hall Mandarins all the way to Number 10 Downing Street. All the way to the top man himself, the big chief, the grand fromage, in fact. The Prime Minister was coming.

The 2001 General Election was just a few days away by the morning of the event and the building throbbed and hummed with palpable anxiety. A couple of days beforehand the first of the spooks had arrived too, stern faced silent men in dark suits and glistening shoes who poked and prodded and spoke in hushed tones into mobile phones. Their organisation of the event was, unsurprisingly perhaps, military in its precision. Access roads were cordoned off for streets around, the housing estate thick with Police cars and crackling with static from walkie talkies. The Foyer itself, polished and buffed and vacuumed to within an inch of its life, was bristling with camera crews. Snake-like electrical cables coiled everywhere. Unmarked white vans with satellite dishes on top were parked outside; equipped to transmit, receive or eaves drop I’m not sure. A small group of protesters, permitted access in a good spirited show of fair play, stood across the road and chanted and waved home made banners from behind steely waist high crash barriers that had been hastily erected overnight by men in hi-vis jackets.

We staff, the young people who were the Foyer’s residents, and all the local MPs and civic dignitaries that could be mustered stood and waited and talked together in nervous chattering clusters. An hour to go. Forty five minutes. Thirty minutes. Fifteen minutes. Five, four… And then suddenly the Prime Minister’s gleaming black windowed coaches swept round the corner like gigantic metallic locusts. Radios crackled into frantic life. Flash bulbs exploded like fireworks. Cameras on hydraulic platforms rose up from the ground like land-locked sea serpents and opened their glass-lensed eyes to take in the scene. The protestors roared and shook their fists, moving as one body now and pounding on the side of the buses as they slowed. “Tony, Tony, Tony! Out! Out! Out!” they screamed, in an echo of the phrase coined nearly two decades earlier for Margaret Thatcher.

Dressed in a spotless suit and a cloud of charisma, Tony Blair stepped onto the pavement, paused for a heartbeat as he raised a hand to the protestors, and leapt up the Foyer steps followed by his wife Cherrie. They were led upstairs to the communal lounge to have a cup of tea and talk to the young people for half an hour or so. Once they’d gone up, we bustled about making sure that all of the ‘silver surfers’ – the older people’s computer group - were ready at their terminals to greet the Prime Minister when he came down to the community training room.

I’d been tasked with standing at the front doors to show the older people in and also to stop anyone else coming inside during the visit who wasn’t meant to. Quite how I was supposed to know who really was or wasn’t to come in I wasn’t sure, so amused myself for ten minutes or so imagining myself saying ‘Friend or Foe?’ in an actorly voice like they do in the films. And then a grey haired man in a gold buttoned blue jacket and cream slacks climbed up the front steps towards me and the main entrance to the building. He was late middle age, early sixties or so I estimated, and I could see he’d made an effort with his outfit for the special occasion.
“Are you with the silver surfers?” I asked him in my sweetest voice, hand on door.
“No madam. I’m with the security services” he replied.
He didn’t smile. I thought it only fair to let him pass.

***

I was reminded of this episode today by reports in the press of a spate of terrible anti-social behaviour at a cinema in Leicester. Queue jumping, pushing and shoving, being rude to ushers, pinching sweeties… Typical young person behaviour, right? Wrong. The culprits are all members of the ‘Silver Screeners’ who meet at the Odeon cinema every Wednesday afternoon for special OAP film shows. There had been so many complaints about ‘unacceptable conduct’ that the cinema’s management handed out a letter at this week’s film asking patrons to mend their ways. Here’s an excerpt from the letter:

[Here’s the full report: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1173207/Cinema-ban-silver-screen-pensioners-bullying-queue-jumping-stealing-biscuits.html?ITO=1490]

Which of course in turn reminded me of Jenny Joseph’s wonderful poem, “Warning”:

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick the flowers in other people's gardens

And learn to spit

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

And eat three pounds of sausages at a go

Or only bread and pickle for a week

And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

And pay our rent and not swear in the street

And set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Warning by Jenny Joseph