Storming the Capitol... blame it on Tufty.
Tufty Fluffytail, Mrs Owl, Policeman Badger, Willy Weasel - I was part of the Furryfolk network. I had insider knowledge about how to cross the road safely. I had the badge. I belonged. It was a lovely feeling to be part of the gang. Even at four who wants to be part of the masses?
Later there would be the PBC - The Paddington Bear Club. We would meet in my shed making our own badges this time. We never really talked about Paddington, we kind of did craft but mainly we just chatted about what we were going to wear to the school disco in a very cold shed. Our teacher was the Honorary President - we were the girls who were allowed to stay in at lunchtime and tidy the bookcases in the hall and practise our country dancing. Teacher’s pets and proud.
Those girls became The Gang, who saw me through primary school to sixth form and are still a phone call away. Together we saw off attacks from the girls who smoked, had ‘gone all the way’ with boyfriends and who were going to leave school at 16 to work at the Civil Service. Because of The Gang (like some kind of education protection racket) it was safe to go the library at lunchtime, to be in the school orchestra, to do Latin (careful what you wish for) because The Gang did it too and we were sort of cool in our own hockeystick-prefect-Acapella Choir kind of way.
On the way there has been Greebo (sic) - think AC/DC, patchouli and Indian scarves; Venture Scouts (via natural trajectory of Brownies and Girl Guides and North Londonite - subset Highbury - splinter group Mother and Baby Group… and many tribal stepping stones along the way.
Which brings me to those heady days of summer lockdown. Sun on our skin, our toes nestling in the grass, I was watching a father-son cricket match in which I had both a father (husband) and son (son) playing. Whilst watching the game I began chatting to a friend.
“Did you manage to get away?’ she enquired.
“Actually yes – at the last minute we switched from France to Italy and against all the odds we managed to have a glorious Italian odyssey”
'“Oh how wonderful – we’re thinking of Northern Germany – my son is booking but his idea of a bijoux hotel and mine are rather different. Do you mind me asking who you booked with?”
“Oh Sawdays” I replied nonchalantly. There was a pause, a silence even as we returned our attention to the cricket.
“Sawdays?”
“You know Alastair Sawday…”
Another pause.
“Oh I haven’t heard of him?”
A longer pause.
“You haven’t heard of Sawdays?
Alastair Sawday, honorary doctorate of Bristol University, aficionado of flag-stoned villas from Cornwall to Provence with convivial hosts who can name all ten of the Beaujolais Crus. It is our first port of call when we launch ourselves into the holiday booking maelstrom.
“No - never heard of him.”
Unbelievable!
I had made the assumption (never assume, but don’t we always?) that the person I was talking to was archetypal Sawdays. The way she spoke, the clothes she wore, the cultural references she made – plus we were both watching cricket in an idyllic Hampshire village - she was dyed in the wool Sawdays.
“How have I never heard of him?” she was now looking rather perturbed, almost panicked.
“I can’t imagine how you’ve missed him. Basically if it’s not in John Lewis, The Guardian or Sawday’s I’m not interested.” I was genuinely flabbergasted.
“Well I had the first two of that Holy Trinity but not the third” (My standout quote of the year). Later in the day I dropped Italy: Alastair Sawday’s Special Places to Stay through her letterbox. Re. John L etc. my Holy Trinity tertiaries can of course be swapped out with innumerable other middle class luminaries such as Radio 4 (Archbishop), Nigella, Waitrose, National Theatre, Anthropologie … an evolving yet exclusive list. These are some of mine, you will have your own - but if you’re friends with me I will no doubt recognise enough of your Trinity Tribes for there to be a sufficient Venn diagram hatched area within which we can meet and share a glass of Brouilly. Society’s herds gather within the sphere of such Boolean logic.
Of course our need to belong, our need for curation, feeds the advertiser’s algorithm. Tis its lifeblood. The curation is why I like my local bookshop, I trust them to sift the latest publications and place my next must-read as a delectable offering on their tables. It is a sift - our way to navigate our way through the plethora. The tribe tells us what to watch so we can pluck the golden jewels from the gazillion TV programmes on offer. A recent Tweet on the smash French hit Call My Agent:‘Everyone in the intelligent world has raved about it for a year’ ‘intelligent’ is code for the educated, code for discerning, code for you and me.
Even though another villa, recipe, might be just as nice, we like that it has been given our tribe’s nod of approval and we are unquestioning in our praise when (whisper it), maybe it wasn’t always that good. But it matters not – the feeling of belonging trumps the actuality. Is this how it starts – the blind acceptance, that we would wear a piece of Chanel ridiculousness because it is Chanel? So what in fashion, but in politics?
There is a programme of Radio 4 in which they take two people and introduce them to other radio programmes on other (yes other) radio stations. Sometimes they are pleasantly surprised being forced to shrug off their warm culture blanket. Sometimes they loathe it. We should all try it.
My kind of town Chicago is, my kind of people too …
So that Tufty tail feeling touches everything. It sweeps across the places we choose to live - for me North London yes South London no; Brighton yes Eastbourne no; Cornwall yes please (Scilly’s even better) Norfolk maybe (bit windy) In these places I know there will be live people who chime with me. Being in a tribe is life’s shorthand - we don’t have to go over everything from the beginning. You know what I mean? Because you’re wearing an Aigle coat. But do you really?
So now let us swiftly deal with those confederacy of dunces at the Capitol and their foot soldiers who wore their MAGA hats despite not treading the primrose path to insurrection. Are they symptomatic of a world that loves a U and a non-U? When they wear their natty caps do they get the same fuzzy glow I got when I wore my Tufty badge? I think so. At this point let me just say the white supremacist/fascist/racist variant is in a hatched swamp all of their own making. But they too will enjoy the same sense of belonging. The same assured confidence not to question what they are rarefying. The same sense of tribe. Of being in The Tufty Club.