Anarchy in 80s England

‘Without accepted standards… you haven’t got a society; you have purposeless anarchy.’ Margaret Thatcher (1980)

‘There is no such thing as society; there are individual[s].’ Thatcher (1987)

Shaven-headed, squat Bill Bligh thrust his hand into the lunchbox on the canteen table, rummaged inside it, then froze. The ruddy bricklayer shuddered and paled, as a frog crawled onto his wrist, then scaled his forearm, with tentative hops, as though negotiating the traffic in the video game Frogger. On reaching the white sleeve of Bill’s England football shirt, the creature halted, then croaked.

Thirty-year-old Bill was with his three-man crew of builders, in a Portacabin canteen on a half-built housing-estate in Cambridge, in mid-August 1988. The dim yellow box room was fuggy with fag smoke, BO, the cheesy reek of unbooted feet. The soiled-white table was crowded with half-eaten sandwiches, multi-coloured crisp packets, overflowing ashtrays, tabloid headlines – ‘100 England hooligans arrested’; ‘The Soviet Disunion’.

To Bill’s left sat Chris, a young plasterer with chiselled features and a slick, black Superman fringe. On hearing the croak, lanky Chris looked up from his Times and gawped at the frog. Frank the labourer – a wiry thirty-year-old slouching opposite Bill – also clocked the animal and stopped head-banging to the Zappa number booming out of his headphones. For a while, his big, spiky blonde mop bounced around so much it seemed to be growing, like Play-Doh crazy hair; his ganja-green eyes blazed out of his gaunt orange face.

The frog long-jumped onto Bill’s shoulder. Squealing, he attempted to cast it off with jerky arm movements, but it wouldn’t budge, so he tried flicking it away with his trembling fingers. Leaping to his feet, Frank shrieked in gravelly mockney: ‘If you hurt my Freddie, I’ll get the RSPCA onto you – I know my animal rights!’; then he lurched round to Bill, and gathered up the amphibian gently into his bony hands.

Bill rose unsteadily, bombed towards the canteen exit – beer belly wobbling, thighs bursting his camouflage cargo trousers, hulk-style.

‘1-2-3-4 I declare anarchist war!’ Frank chanted after him.

‘What are you talking about?’ Chris’ accent was classless-and-placeless southern English, his voice wobbly.

‘Direct anarco action mate;’ Frank chortled, ‘not the same-old-same-old strike tactics that got the miners union shafted. And there’s more to come;’ he stroked the frog, ‘cos we ain’t gonna let Bill, and the powers that be always grasping, increase our hours without extra pay or cut our breaks, are we Fred?’

Sighing, Chris opened the business pages of his Times, glanced at the headlines, then sighed again.

 *

Chris hadn’t banked on dealing with anarchic industrial action when he’d joined Bill’s crew the previous September. He’d hoped his working days would be trouble-free, leaving him enough energy to study after hours for his surveying correspondence course. Once he’d qualified as a surveyor, two years down the line, he’d say sayonara to Bill’s gang and the tools for good (very), then zoom off to London, where his real life would begin. He’d had no doubt that he’d make it to (and then in) the big city – he’d progressed so far already, bagging eight Secondary Education Certificates, qualifying as a plasterer at nineteen, securing a mortgage on the council flat his hero, Margaret Thatcher, had given him the right to buy. And hadn’t Maggie sworn, before the ‘87 election, to reward ‘intrepid individuals’ from all backgrounds? And hadn’t she underwritten the construction industry by making cheap credit available to contractors, investors, house buyers?

At the start of the Cambridge job, everything had seemed well cool to Chris. He’d worked before with overbearing, bigoted bosses like Bill and wild-card navvies like Frank, and knew how to handle them – feign subservience, and interest, if necessary, otherwise pretend they weren’t there. To his surprise, however, he’d become increasingly engaged in site-life, after warming to Frank. He’d got to know the labourer during the lifts to and from work Frank gave him in ‘Greasy Lightning’ – his new (and newly-dented) Saab, which was red and flame stickered. During those breakneck journeys, Frank regaled him with his ‘anarco-adventures’ – motorway joyrides in bulldozers, crash-landings in stolen hot air-balloons and the like. Initially, Chris had lent a patronizing ear to these marijuana-fuelled motormouthfuls, in exchange for the lifts; but then he’d started relishing the yarns. Frank reminded him of ‘Animal’ from The Muppets – his favourite TV ‘lord of misrule’ during his lonely, only childhood; he was also impressed by the labourer’s unusual passion for fine art and his willingness to stand up to Bill, whose bullying had irked Chris increasingly over the winter.

‘Bill and me have been argy-bargying since school;’ Frank had explained to Chris, down the pub at Christmas, ‘it’s a zodiac-clash with a pisspodical edge. He’s “If-I-know-my-place-I’ll-always-have-one” English, and believes there’s rank and order in the universe, while I believe that anarchy – the denial of all authority – is the only way to be, especially now your mate Maggie is forcing her iron laws of the capitalist jungle on our obscene and pleasant land…’.

Frank and Bill had squabbled fitfully throughout the spring. The pair put Chris in mind of Mr Punch and the Policeman, with witty Frank-Punch invariably emerging victorious. But when the frequency and intensity of their scraps had increased, in May, the plasterer began fretting over the possible consequences for his new pal. Bill might sack Frank, if the aggro escalated further, and Chris reckoned that was odds-on. He diagnosed it as a symptom of the sudden economic downturn which – according to his Times – was turning into full-on ‘stagflation’; in particular, it seemed to mirror sky-rocketing Interest Rates, which had hit 9% in June, and were set to rise further with inflation soaring, on the back of the price rises that cheap credit had stoked. Chris knew Frank and Bill had huge mortgages and credit-card bills to service, and no savings. No wonder they were narky.

Chris himself had felt invulnerable to the (doubtless temporary) slump. After all, he had a plan, and a nest egg. Besides, wasn’t he one of ‘Thatcher’s children’? So long as the great matriarch was Prime Minister, he’d be looked after, even if wider society (i.e. other people) suffered. By July, however, the economic news had become so heinous Chris started panicking about the crew’s (and his) immediate prospects. Interest Rates climbed to 12%, and house-prices plummeted, with punters unable to borrow to buy. The Cambridge contractors might downscale or terminate the project, in which case finding alternative work would be tricky. Unemployment wasn’t part of his masterplan (and how could what was happening be part of Maggie’s?). With rates double-digit, his savings would only cover his mortgage and course fees for eight months… .

In early August, the tension on site had been ratcheted up further, when the contractors had brought forward the deadline of the job, in a bid to get all sixteen projected houses finished before the market collapsed entirely. To meet the revised target date, the crew would have to start work an hour earlier, and finish an hour later, while lunch hour was cut to thirty minutes. After announcing the new regime one lunchtime, Bill had ordered Chris and Frank back to work when thirty minutes were up. With a sigh, Chris had risen from the table, but the labourer stayed seated, switched on his Walkman, tuned out. Bill marched over to Frank, pulled back his right headphone, then let go – it thwacked against his Orangina cheek, turning it Ribena-red. Jumping up – like a jack out of a box – Frank screamed into Bill’s face: ‘One, two, Freddie’s coming for you!’.

  * 

The morning after the frog protest prank, Bill unlocked the canteen door at five. It flew open and a heat tsunami broke over him, knocking him off-balance. Steadying himself, he peered inside. Out of the open gas oven tumbled wave after wave of trembling heat. On the table, the sauce bottles were as twisted as soft-serve ice cream; a half-eaten fruit cake had turned to lava. The oven itself looked cooked – its enamel was now yellowed and crusty. In front of the open fridge, meltwater pooled.

By the time Frank’s Saab blew in, Bill had released most of the radiation from the Portacabin. Topless, he could just about bear to sit inside. Tricked out in an Eraserhead T-Shirt, Frank strode in brandishing a bumper box of fireworks. Gangly Chris trudged behind him, sporting a silver Nike trackie, gaping at the devastation through bloodshot eyes.

‘Dig my gritty surrealist decomposition?’ Frank asked Chris, ‘“Hopper Diner Refurbed by Dali”. It’s part two of my anarco-terrierist campaign.’

‘What you nuke the canteen for?’ Bill wailed, in coarse Home-Counties English, ‘It’s like Cher’s knob in here.’

‘Cher’s knob?’ Frank giggled.

Bill sighed, ‘That kraut power station what the Commies bombed, divvy.’

Chris guffawed; Bill glared at him.

‘Give us back our old work hours boss,’ Frank declared, ‘and the protest stunts stop.’

‘Ain’t my place to make the rules’, Bill said.

‘But you could challenge them, cyclo-phant!’ Frank fired back.

‘I’ve got no beef about following orders;’ Bill answered, ‘nor about extra graft. If we show willing, we’ll be looked after.’

‘In that case;’ Frank turned to Chris, ‘who’s for fireworks?’

‘They’re against site regulations.’ Bill barked.

‘Maybe so;’ Frank opened the box, ‘but pyro-technically speaking, Roman candles are indoor fireworks, really, and we’ll only do a little blue one – you spark it, Chris.’

Bill scowled at Chris, who sighed and shook his head at Frank.

Bill sneered at the labourer: ‘The boy knows where his fruit cake’s buttered. So put them toys away – we got man’s work to do.’

Frank plonked a huge blue Roman candle down on the green linoleum.

‘Frank – ’, Chris pleaded.

‘This is who I am mate, what I do.’ Frank flicked open his Zippo lighter, stared at the dancing flame.  

Bill and Chris both lunged towards the firework, but Frank lit the fuse sharpish, and the two men were forced to back off.

A fountain of blue sparks arced into the air, rebounded off the ceiling, cascaded to the floor. Frank stood directly under the fiery drizzle, sighing ‘Oh’, ‘Ah’. Suddenly there was a thunderous explosion as the firework became a volcano – the light psychedelic rain turned into lightning and the room flooded with sulphurous smoke. Bill and Chris dived under the table.

When the fumes thinned, eventually, Frank hopped around the burnt-out firework, laughing demonically, yelling ‘Ready to cry “mercy” yet boss?’. Hair smoking, he looked like Wile Coyote after an abortive attempt to blow up Road Runner. He lifted his eyes to the ceiling, and his cackling got even louder. There was a humongous hole in it, wreathed in flames, framing the Cambridge blue sky.

*

That lunchtime Bill bawled:

‘Troops dismissed – it’s unpaid half-day leave for you brats – I’ve gotta tot up the roof damage with the foreman, then go downtown to pow-wow with the contractors about their emergency crust-cutting plan.’

Groaning, Chris bolted from the canteen, then threw himself inside Frank’s Saab. Soon after, the driver joined him:

‘I forgive you for dark siding with the Evil Empire;’ Frank said, as the Saab sped off spraying gravel everywhere, ‘force major-general of circumstantials, and all that.’

‘Well, I don’t forgive you for almost blowing me up.’

‘“Christopher says…”’ Frank imitated the TV Public Information Warning, ‘“never play with fireworks; they might hurt you and your friends.”’

‘This is no time for joking;’ Chris sighed, ‘you should be thinking about your future.’

‘Never had much time for the time to come;’ the labourer mused, ‘but maybe I should be planning my next anarco-prank.’

‘I’m not talking about your pointless protest!’ Chris cried, ‘Bill’s got all the power – just like Maggie had with the miners. He’ll fine you for today’s vandalism, then have the contractors cut your wages. How you gonna pay your debts then… let alone keep yourself doped up? You’ve had to cut down on grass already, haven’t you? Your childish anarchic antics are just a substitute, a withdrawal symptom…’.

The Cheshire-cat smile slipped off Frank’s face, unmasking his skull-like features.

‘However, I’ve got a plan.’ Chris’ voice softened, ‘While there’s work, stay out of trouble, join a union – they’ll secure you compensation if work dries up – and check into Addicts Anonymous.’

‘Anarchists don’t do plans.’ Frank replied, ‘Anyways, cunning planning won’t make no difference, since there’ll be no work for anyone soon. When are you gonna admit that Maggie swindled us – by making credit cheap to buy the election and screw the future – and that you’re Clark Kent with a trowel, not Superman?’

‘Yeah, Thatcher’s the real anarchist, she vandalised the economy… and society …. and I was a plonker to believe in her, and in my own superpowers. However, we were talking about you, not me. Firstly, you’ve gotta stop scatter-gunning yourself in the foot, then…’.

‘I don’t care if I get hurt.’

‘Well, I care!’ Chris shouted. ‘Besides, what about me? I don’t want to be collateral damage.’

‘Christopher’s right,’ Frank nodded: ‘“You wouldn’t want to hurt your friends.”’

*

The following dawn Bill banged his fist on the canteen table so hard the breakfast plates jumped.

‘Got a denouncement!’

He said Frank’s weekly wages would go to repairing the roof; ‘correction:’ he added, leering at the labourer, ‘it now comes to a fortnight’s pay, ‘cos your salary was halfed yesterday by the bigwigs.’

Frank’s mouth opened but no words or breath emerged.

Bill explained the contractors had been ‘forced by market farces’ to cap the project at ten houses, and pay the crew 30% less per house, and he, in turn, had been ‘forced’ to reduce everyone’s wages, ‘accordioning to their imput’ – there was a 5% pay cut for him (‘which shows we’re all in this together’) and 25% less for Chris (‘and count yourself lucky it ain’t more’).

While Chris calculated how long he’d now be able to pay his mortgage, Frank sprang to his feet.

‘If I have to go down, I’m going down guns blazing, and taking you with me Bill Bligh.’

Over the ensuing days Frank was all over the place, all over the place – Kung-Fu fighting the mixer, break dancing in the canteen. Despite his hyper-distractedness, he followed Bill’s

orders – until, that is, the boss barked an even-more-than-usually-aggressive command one morning, and Frank threw a hod’s worth of bricks off the scaffold in protest. ‘It’s raining blocks’, he bellowed in Bill’s face ‘Alleluia!’

‘You handling in your notice?’ Bill snarled; Frank shrugged.

‘Alrighty!’, Bill whooped, ‘you’ve got your marching orders, with two weeks’ notice. Thereafters, Chris can do your donkey work, and me and him will divvy up your wages.’

‘God save the Queen!’ Frank screamed at Bill, ‘Of Maggie’s fascist regime. There ain’t no future, in England’s dreaming! No future for me or you.’

Sighing, Frank then put on his headphones and withdrew into his rowdy Walkman world. Over the following fortnight, he rarely emerged from it. 

*

On his final morning at work, however, Frank looked perky when he picked up Chris in the Saab.

‘It was my birthday yesterday,’ he snickered, ‘and my mate Doctor Dream gave me a speedball, which I’ve just scoffed with my porridge.’

At lunch buzzing Frank insisted on making everyone a ‘slapped-up fry up – to show there’s no hard-boiled feelings.’ Having served Chris, he carried over a brim-full breakfast plate to Bill, then dropped it, from chest height, onto the boss’ newspaper. There was a crack of china as technicoloured food exploded onto the tabloid, then started dropping into Bill’s lap. With a howl, the bricklayer leapt up, flicking hot beans off his army trousers.

‘Like my full-English impersonation of an Italian Renaissance grub-portrait?’ Frank asked Chris, while tracing, with his finger, over the steamy mess, two eggy eyes, a sausage mouth, and a black-pudding nose. ‘I’m calling it: “Bossy Bill, by Francis Bacon and Eggs.”’

Chris tittered, but Bill silenced him with a death stare, then turned it on Frank, whose teeth started chattering theatrically.

‘Soz boss… it slipped out of my hand… accidentally – on purpose! I realise you can’t depreciate art, but you gotta admit it’s a spitting image; it just wants ketchup for your Miss-Piggy cheeks.’

As Frank applied sauce to his artwork, Bill raised his hefty fist. Sweat bubbled on his forehead; the veins on his bullish neck throbbed.

Chris made to duck beneath the table, but stopped himself, then stood up next to Frank, and eyeballed Bill. Frank swaggered to the kitchen, picked up a tin of tomatoes, then skipped back to Bill singing:

‘Now tomatas are soft when they come in their skins, But these ones are hard ‘cos they come in a tin.’

Bill looked from Frank to Chris, then at the tin. Gradually, he unclenched and lowered his fist.

‘Ain’t worth injury-ing my million-dollar brickie hands over some remenial skivvy… and his stick-insect bouncer, who’s just clever-clevered hiself out of a job.’

He spat on the floor, slunk out of the canteen.

‘We’ll keep a place for you in the dole queue!’ Frank shouted after him, then turned to Chris ‘That was almost interesting. However, since we’re both freedom fighting agents now, let’s skedaddle somewhere less boring instead.’

Ten minutes later, Chris was gazing out at the fields the Saab flew past on the northbound Motorway 1. ‘How’s about a spliff?’ he asked Frank, who chuckled, then rolled one, while steering with his elbows.

‘Know what?’ Frank passed the joint, ‘It’s Bill who’s going down in this depresession. Trust me, like I trusted you by joining the union and Amnesiacs Anonymous.’

Spaced-out Chris smiled at Frank and the southbound cars opposite them, hurtling towards London. Then he opened the suitcase of cassettes on the floor, ran his finger over their spines – ‘Exodus’, ‘Frank’s Wild Years’, ‘Zig-Zag Wanderer’ – and stuffed the latter cassette into the car stereo.

‘Here! Where are we going?’ Chris murmured as Beefheart’s voice faded out. ‘My flat’s in the other direction.’

The two men looked at each other and laughed.