The Outside Of Everything

Chapter 30
The Civil War

Our Friend Stan, the old rascal who ruled the roost round the lock ups we sort of called home, had one big regret in his life. His son. Little Stan. He was what you might call a disappointment. Well, to his old dad he was a disappointment. Little Stan was a pleasant enough bloke. Just, well, a little dull and plain. Little Stan was a local mini cab driver by trade. But he had ambitions. He wanted more. He wanted to be a success. He wanted his own mini cab firm. In the meantime, he ran people down to the station, picked people up from the hospital, drove people to the airport. It’s all a bit of a disappointment, said Our Friend Stan. It’s not quite what I’d envisaged, said Stan the elder. He’d often stop and shake his head, and say that his progeny couldn’t even get his act together and do it the proper way. You know, nice black cab, the knowledge, and all that, tootling around the centre of London, celebs in the back. Oh no. Half measures all the time, he moaned.

One of the things Our Friend Stan held against his only begotten son was his choice of hobbies. When Little Stan wasn’t taking his oh so homely wife to the local conservative association for a drink or two, he liked nothing better than hanging out with his mates who were fellow members of the English Civil War Society. This motley crew liked little better than dressing up in the full regalia of militia men from the times of Civil Wars, going off re-enacting some of the battles, complete with all the accessories and accoutrements. It’s easy to snigger, but we all have our passions. And Little Stan and his fellow roundheads and cavaliers were very, very passionate about all the Civil War stuff. Couldn’t quite work it out myself. But it drove Our Friend Stan to distraction. It’s not healthy, he’d say. Grown men carrying on like that. Gives me the creeps, he’d say. Shaking his head in despair and disgust, Our Friend Stan would go back to cataloguing his football programmes. I blame myself, he’d add. I should never have let him have any of those Airfix figures I’d bring home from the shop. Makes me shudder when I think about what I started.

We actually found Our Friend Stan’s horror more amusing than his son’s sorties. He was hilarious when he got worked up. But we had to concede he had a point when he told us that Little Stan and his Civil War Society were going to be doing a bit of a display, a re-enactment of some skirmish from the days of yore, sometime soon in a field round our way. Well, it’s one thing a bunch of nutters going off acting loopy in the heart of the countryside, but it’s a completely different matter when they’re proposing to do something similar in our backyard. It’s not on, we said. It’s not healthy, we added. Grown men carrying on like that. We’ve only just finished shipbuilding from the last dust up. I know, said Stan the elder, I know. That’s why we’ve got to stop them, he added, looking us challenging like.

The field in question. It was what you might call common ground. Free for all. Used for all sort of things. Nothing official. A few things prohibited. But it looked after itself. If you like. So somehow it didn’t seem right. Not having a load of grown up idiots stomping all over the place re-enacting a battle from back in the day. Not even for a day. We couldn’t see any valid reason for it at all. It didn’t seem to serve any purpose. Not that there is a particular problem with that, in itself. But all this war stuff. It wasn’t healthy. And it didn’t seem right that some pen pusher or someone in the town hall had given the say so for this nonsense to go ahead. It was time to reclaim the field. Stand up for our rights. Rally the troops.

On any given Sunday the field in question might be in use for all sorts of things. Kids playing football. People walking dogs. Dads flying model airplanes. The local herberts doing stunts on their BMX bikes. At any given time they would all be there. Doing their thing. No demarcation as such. But space for everyone and everything. Well, we said, why should it be any different this particular Sunday? There may be a war going on but carrying on regardless is what we’re supposed to be good at isn’t it? We needed to make sure this remained the case. So, under Our Friend Stan’s supervision, activities were allocated. The Fair One would take care of the kids playing football. The Redhead would rally the dog walkers. I got the flying fathers. And The Quiet One was given the BMX bandits, which was fair enough as his kid brother was one of the leading lights in that band of brigands. Our mission was to get people to do what they would ordinarily do. The people didn’t take too much persuading.

On that particular Sunday the car park near the field in question filled up fairly early. I was there to see that Little Stan and his fellow roundheads and cavaliers were starting to arrive, and setting about their business and preparations, whatever that entailed. Unpleasant looking crowd they were. Goodness only knows where they got their gear. I mean, where do you go if you want to dress up like one of Oliver’s army? Not to the shops we frequented that’s for sure. And their weapons looked to be on the thoroughly nasty side. Pikestaffs and muskets and whatever. Fair made us shudder. In fairness, it was all very good natured, as preparations for a civil war skirmish go, I suppose. Personally, it reminded me more of a couple of Sunday league football teams turning out.

Speaking of which, right on cue, The Fair One turned up in his best retro tracksuit, a bit of a family heirloom, with a string bag filled with orange footballs, and a whistle hung round his neck. Trailing in his wake was the cream of the crop from the local football team’s youth academy, complete with orange cones almost as big as they were. Right lads, said The Fair One, spread the cones out, and we’ll start with some dribbling practice to build up your ball control. On the count of three, I’ll blow my whistle, and we’ll be off. Grab one of the balls. Sharpish now. Come on. Come on. The Fair One gave me the thumbs up from across the field.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see The Redhead and family entering stage right, with his ma and da being tugged along by their ever eager red setters, Karl and Rosa. Ok my beauties, I heard a voice say, go fetch me an English bone to gnaw on. And there behind The Redhead’s family was a veritable Crufts show of pedigree chums, motley mongrels, Barbours and wellies, yapping away and straining at the leash, ready for the fray. As were indeed the herberts on their BMX bikes, under the leadership of The Quiet One’s kid brother, doing wheelies and whatnot, weaving in and out of the dogs’ army. It was only left for me to get my model airplane pilots manoeuvred into position, and ready for take-off, with a few cheerleaders flying kites for the hell of it, and chocks away. Let confusion reign, I said to a frankly approving passing Stan the elder. And indeed this motley mix was our equivalent of the diggers, levellers, ranters and radicals there were underground in the seventeenth century, but we hadn’t read Christopher Hill’s World Turned Upside Down then to know the connections.

Anyway, the civil war sorts were not amused. There was some sort of flunkey there from the local council, in a high visibility vest, to make sure everything went smoothly. He did his best to become invisible when he saw the way things were panning out, but the civil war sorts made a bee line for him. I thought they were going to set about him with their pikestaffs and muskets, but he bravely repelled the attacks, saying there was not a lot he could do, as this was common ground. The roundheads and cavaliers were not placated, and one of Oliver’s Army went off to a call box and ‘phoned for the police. The nearest call box had been vandalised, inevitably, by the local herberts, and so a definitely not laughing cavalier was dispatched to one of the local houses to make a call. Thankfully the local constabulary had already been alerted by an elderly lady whose eyesight wasn’t all that, but nevertheless she was quite convinced England’s green and pleasant land was being invaded by foreign forces.

Back at the field in question, tempers were getting frayed, and what might be classed as a fair degree of what you might call argy-bargy was going on. The civil war sorts were getting on their high horses. The Fair One and his fledgling footballers were practicing the finer points of dissent. The dog walkers were barking mad. My high flyers were flying the flag for an Englishman’s right to do what the devil he jolly well fancied on a Sunday morning, while the BMX brigands hurled insults at all and sundry with little encouragement from our Quiet One. By the time the police arrived things were simmering nicely to the boil. Oh well, said Our Friend Stan as he beat a discreet retreat, they wanted a civil war, and it looks like they’ve got themselves one.