Written by Gordon Aspey
11 March 2019
I haven’t seen so much marching since my conscript days in the RAF during the early 1950’s. If you go back to the 1930’s marching required a lot of careful planning. For instance; The Jarrow Marches to the houses of parliament covering a distance of 300 miles and took 25 days to complete.
They had a justifiable cause. 70% unemployment and they were genuinely starving. A march of that magnitude (more than 12 marathons) would have been a gruelling challenge on an empty stomach. Of course they were fed by benefactors but it was still a courageous thing to do. Modern day marches are almost fickle compared to the Jarrow marchers. I confess to being deeply sceptical about the figures being bandied around about poverty starvation and food parcels in this country today. Political rhetoric is just as bad here as any third world country.
What surprises me, I don’t know anybody in my circle that has ever been on a march waving a placard. Maybe they are all content and have nothing to gripe about. On the other hand perhaps they approach their problems in a different way and don’t feel justified incurring stretched police resources and screwing up other peoples travel plans. I have a sense right or wrong, the bulk of people going on marches are more likely to depend on the Public Purse for their lively hood, you won’t find many entrepreneurs marching they are too busy trying to make ends meet.
I can recall a colleague being made redundant, many years ago, he had a large mortgage and a family with two children to support. He was the wrong side of 50 and getting any well paid employment at that age was difficult.
He had worked for the same firm for most of his working life. Two weeks after his redundancy I saw him marching up and down outside the Rail Station with a double sided placard handing out brochures for new kitchens. I have huge respect for his courage in starting up his own business from scratch it must have been quite a gamble. I gathered later he had been very successful.
I thought of him recently whilst travelling to Waterloo on the train. Our carriage was crammed with people carrying placards deploring Brexit and demanding another referendum. They were on their way to a march in London. They appeared to be mostly families with young children decorated with slogans supporting the cause. There were even dogs with elegantly decorated coats denouncing brexit. The families were laughing and chatting about everyday matters without a hint of anger about the cause. I had the impression they were having a day out and enjoying the late winter sunshine. Certainly the children could not have had much idea what it was all about, never mind the dogs. The organiser’s measure of success is the number of people they have corralled into the march. There is plenty of scope to inflate the figures but the numbers would also be distorted by how many genuinely supported and understood the cause.
I have a hunch that many of the protesters are regular rabble-rousers who enjoy the confrontation including a few Ian Bone’s and his class war activist, (The bloke who had a go at Jacob-Rees-Moggs children). I feel many of these modern day marches are merely exercises to massage political egos. The only problems politicians have ever solved are those created by other politicians. The Brexit dilemma is a fine example.
There is an upside to marching though; it is a healthy exercise and good way to lose weight and reduce the chances of having a stroke or heart attack and would also save the NHS from the burgeoning cost of Diabetes 2 .That has to be a big plus. The average individual would burn something like a 100 calories per mile (you can do the maths) that’s a significant figure. Maybe I should give this marching idea a go myself!