Godalming North

It was 57 years ago today, on August 28th, 1963, that Martin Luther King Jnr gave his “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial on the culmination of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

That is history, yet his inspirational words and his dream of equality, of racial justice, and message of hope endure. Martin Luther King was killed because he and those he spoke for lived a nightmare of injustice and inequality.

Black Lives mattered then and Matter now. If you question this, ask yourselves why the term “Afro-American” is prevalent when no-one uses the term “Euro-American” for those with European ancestry. And in the UK, why are Dianne Abbott, Lenny Henry, Clive Myrie, Benjamin Zephaniah and many, many others asked to go back to where they came from? They were all born in this land of hope and glory – “born of thee” – so are they not also free? Free from the fear of being stopped by police; free to walk the streets, as we who are white feel free?

Martin Luther King ended his speech with “Let freedom ring. And let us all join hands, and sing in the words of the old spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

We must seek to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, where no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. Listen to Benjamin Zephaniah and his re-imagining of Martin Luther King’s speech … https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08px03s

Godalming gave Pride in Surrey a warm welcome today! During this time of C19 we have all used the rainbow as a sign of hope – to be whole, beautiful and effective the rainbow needs all its colours and variety 

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Joigny’s Tourist Office (Joigny is our twin town in France) has set up a Facebook page to capture contributions that reflect this time of COVID-19 and they have invited our Town along with our twin town Mayen, Germany, to send a photograph, a painting, a drawing, a piece of music, a song, which encapsulates this time and our hopes for the future. Here I’ve set out Godalming’s contribution to this.

Un grand bon jour de notre chorale à la votre! Nous rappelons chaleureusement nos échanges et nos concerts il y a dix ans et le plaisir que nous avons trouvé de chanter ensemble.
Dans notre confinement ici notre maire, Penny Rivers, nous a demandé si nous pourrions nous réunir virtuellement pour chanter cette chanson pleine d’espoir. Quelques unes parmi nous, les contraltos de notre chorale, nous sommes senties capables d’utiliser la technologie qu’est devenue indispensable dans la vie de nos jours. Nous avons travaillé, essayé, chantant tout seules dans nos chambres, nos cuisines et nos séjours. Nous avons dû respecter tous les dispositifs sanitaires! Un génie a combiné toutes nos chansons individuelles et nous vous envoyons maintenant le résultat espérant que cela nous rapproche un peu de vous, nos amis français à Joigny.
Peut être après le déconfinement nous aurons la possibilité de chanter ensemble encore une fois! En attendant nous vous envoyons nos voeux très amicaux. “

Godalming Town Band plays “Somewhere Over the Rainbow“

Hope & Togetherness. So much of our everyday lives have changed so dramatically since the beginning of 2020. “Over the Rainbow “ is a song of hope. Hope for the future and the fulfilment of dreams and ambitions.

For many of us, at this time, that is a hope for a return to some sort of ‘normality’, when we will be able to return to lives we have more personal control over. To have the freedom to choose to meet up with friends and family for a meal or evening out. To be able to go to see a film, a concert or a show. To greet friends and family with a handshake, a hug….to be together again……

Art Viral Jovinien

Merci à nos amies de Godalming avec lesquelles nous continuerons de tisser des liens de partage et de convivialité. Merci à Madame la Maire et à ses adjointes. 🙂

Yesterday our Prime Minister said, “We cannot now try to edit or censor our past. We cannot pretend to have a different history. The statues in our cities and towns were put up by previous generations. They had different perspectives, different understandings of right and wrong. To tear them down would be to lie about our history and impoverish the education of generations to come”.

But history has always been edited and censored – then, now, always. We do not learn history from statues. Those on statues tend to be victorious soldiers or those who embody an ideal at the time – in other words, we put on pedestals those we look up to.

Times change – where now are the statues of the philanthropist, Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile, OBE, KCFG, who raised £40m in his lifetime? What Jimmy Savile did was so bad we erased all the “good works” he’d done once we found out about the bad ones. There are now no memorials to him, not even a gravestone.

Maybe we need a truth and reconciliation commission so that we can learn about those we have put on pedestals? When I was at school in England, the names of the schoolhouses were – Grenville, Hawkins, Drake and Rayleigh. We knew that Drake captained “The Revenge”, we knew that Drake singed the King of Spain’s beard and played bowls on Plymouth Hoe! We knew that Sir Walter Rayleigh laid his cloak over a puddle so that Queen Elizabeth did not get her feet wet, and he introduced potatoes and tobacco to this country. I can’t remember that we ever enquired about John Hawkins – I wonder why? Maybe because in his own words, as recorded by Hakluyt, he “profited by the sale of slaves” so much that there was a slave on the Hawkins’ family crest. But not just he – all the above “Sea Dogs” made fortunes for themselves and this country by trading, enslaving and dispossession.  We would not be editing or censoring history by teaching a fuller story of the beginnings of what became the slave trade.

We could teach how slave rebellions were brutally put down and we could teach that, in 1833 when slavery was abolished, compensation was paid not to those who were taken against their will from their own lands of origin and forced to work but that compensation was paid to 3000 owners for the loss of their property. That £20m loan was only repaid in 2015. Nothing was paid to or done for freed slaves – nor were they hired. Instead, plantation owners brought in “Indentured labour” from India and China.

To correct our PM’s words, “To tear them down would be to erase the lie about our history and would enrich the education of generations to come.”

PS Queen Elizabeth Community College, Crediton, Devon, changed the names of their schoolhouses in 1989 – top marks!

Check out the daily story on BBC Radio 4 that shows what Chirag and the Farncombe Post Office has had to put up with! The truth about the UK Post Office and the Horizon System is coming out. It’s not pretty and it’s a David and Goliath story – we know who won that one!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j

“The Farncombe Post Office provides a service to thousands of residents of this village. During the infamous Christmas floods and power cuts in 2013, it was the only shop that stayed open for miles, it was a life-line and kept us all in batteries, candles and firelighters. The Sidhpura family did not desert us in that time of trial and we must not desert them now. We urge the Post Office to consider his appeal.” – Cllr Penny Rivers, Godalming North.

“It appears to me to be grossly unfair and unjust.” – Jeremy Hunt, South West Surrey MP

https://www.postofficetrial.com/2019/09/chirags-story.html?m=1

Easter time is usually filled with friends, family and Easter egg hunts. This year many won’t have Easter eggs and many won’t have eggs at all. And, we won’t have each other as Covid19 keeps us apart. It is by keeping apart that we keep others safe.

For many, this is a time of tragedy and trauma, of separation and of suffering. We need to acknowledge this. But remember too that we are not alone. The world is united in these feelings.

Easter 2020 is not postponed or cancelled. As ever Spring and Easter is a time to think about new life, though it is hard to avoid the daily tally of those succumbing to Coronavirus, and worse, the numbers of those who are killed by it. This Easter time we are presented with death as well as life, but hold to love, for it is love that transcends the pain and grief of separation and death. If we speak of this to each other, of how much we appreciate each other, of how much we love each other, then we will be better able to face the future, and the joy of Easter will be with us once again. For it is love that casts out fear.

For those of you who have a Christian faith, these are words of comfort from Rev Maggie Stirling Troy (Acting Chair of Churches Together).

In Holy Week we walk with Jesus all the way to the Cross where he entered into the depths of human pain and suffering, unable to move, unable to breathe, his family unable to touch him. And yet the message of Easter is that darkness, fear and death do not have the final word. For Christians the Resurrection of Jesus turns the desolation of absence into the joy of his risen presence. Easter brings us hope of new life and the ultimate promise, in the words of Julian of Norwich (who lived when the Black Death was ravaging Europe) that ‘all shall be well’.

The Waverley Borough Council page that is updated as things progress is:

https://www.waverley.gov.uk/info/100010/health_and_wellbeing/2221/coronavirus_covid-19

Covid-19 – Corinavirus – is here. What does this mean to me today, next week, next month?

When I was young, I was too busy being young to think about the impact of sickness, of flu, colds, sore throats. They happened, I got better. Some people I knew had bad things happen to them but not to me. I was OK. But I am not young anymore, and a very infectious virus is on the loose and there is no prevention for it, no anti-virus serum available to be delivered by a quick and painless injection – or at least not for many months. I am a carer for my mother who is in her eighties and is susceptible to chest infections. As Town Mayor, I meet many people every week in the course of my duties. If I catch this virus, I don’t want to pass it on to anyone. I know that I could have been infected and therefore infectious without knowing about it. All I can say is that right now I feel fine and I have had no reason to think I might have caught this virus – I haven’t come into contact with anyone who has subsequently tested positive, so I haven’t had a test. But how would I know?

That’s the problem – we don’t know if we are carriers of the virus until we feel poorly, and then have a positive test result – all of which is rather too late to stop me from having passed it on to one or more people.

So, what must we do? If, or when you test positive – well, the next days and weeks are planned out. For the rest of us during the next weeks and months, we must follow the expert advice from the World Health Organisation and the Government experts. We must practice vigorous and frequent washing of our hands with soap. We must practice not touching our eyes and faces and adapt to social distancing. That is isolation from each other. This is not just about protecting ourselves, it is about protecting our loved ones and neighbours and most especially those who are vulnerable.

Personally, and in my role as Mayor, I have cancelled the fund-raising film show which was to be held on Friday the 13^th. Sad for me, sad for those who had bought tickets and were looking forward to it, but especially sad for the charities I support (The Meath, Skillway, Trinity Trust Team). But, for the time being I believe that this is prudent.  This is social distancing for me, and I am sorry to recommend this for you too.

Thanks to Godalming Film Society for screening, “Feminista” – a documentary film special to mark International Women’s Day 2020.Thanks also to Godalming College for hosting this very well attended event.It was a great privilege to be there and to watch such inspiring and challenging films.
We must never take our rights and freedoms for granted. We must continue to stand up for equality and justice for all.

Thank you for inviting me to be here today, to mark International Women’s Day.

As a female Mayor I can tell you that we oft go places and folk greet Mr Rivers first assuming that he is the Mayor.

The films we are going to see will challenge us. It is still necessary to work for women and their rights in 2020. I read an article this week about the search for a vaccine for Covid 19. I had not realised that all medicines are formulated for men and not even adapted for women.  The playing field never has been and still is not level.

In that olde Garden of Eden Eve got the blame – plus ca change plus ca meme chose.
But, may I tell you about two women who inspire me?

At the age of 11 I went to boarding school in England. Before that I attended school in Ocho Rios, Jamaica and my teacher and the school’s Head Teacher was Miss Edith Anne Spence. She was a black woman and it was significantly unusual for a woman, let alone a black woman, to be a Headteacher in those days. She made us stand tall and look the world directly in the face and take on whatever came and look out for those we need to help. She wanted us to know that we were completely wonderful but no more wonderful than the next person. Miss Edith Anne Spence at about 5’ 3 stood tall

When, after 2 sons, we had a daughter, we named her Edith Anne. Our Edith needed glasses and she was dyslexic.  She opted to be a Cub not a Brownie and she is the very first girl in the world to become a Sixer. She attended GodCol and when she filled out her Uni applications she applied for the (then) much mocked Media but in one case mistakenly wrote “ME” – Mechanical Engineering and was interviewed and she was offered a place.  After her Media degree her first job was as a Runner and she was told that if she worked extraordinarily hard, maybe in time she might just become a Head Runner. She was Head Runner within the year and then Junior Producer and is now a Senior Producer for a post production company and can cope with so much more than I ever could. Edith Anne Rivers at nearly 6 feet high stands tall.

We all stand on the shoulders and sacrifices of those before us and today I am wearing the Suffragette brooches given to me by my Mother-in-law.

Sisters, we must not take our rights and freedoms for granted and we must also recognise that many, many men are our feminist friends and companions and we stand together for each other!

So, sisters and brothers, let us speak up – stand up for equality and justice for all – each for equal. An equal world is an enabled world – onward, together!

Whatever we think about the last year and the last decade, we are once again on the brink of another one. It’s a time for reflection. So ….

I think that the policy of austerity has been cruel, and its impact has fallen on those who are least able to shoulder its burden – hungry children; so many homeless; potholes in our roads. Cuts wound, and Britain is wounded. That Britain has food banks at all is a national shame. That it has so many food banks is a deep gash on the face of our country.

Friends tell me to cheer up, that all will be well. And I do hope so!

However, I think that we need to look squarely at the difficulties that face us so that we can campaign for, work for a better future for all. When we see hate and racism on the rise; the vulnerable suffering disproportionately; our home planet suffering fire and flood, we need to reset our moral compass. So, with this in mind, I have chosen three categories of role models who guide me into the future. These categories are local, national and international.

My choice in this local category is Paul Follows. So young, so capable, so ready to listen to, and to act for our community. He has given his time and his talents freely and willingly and he will make an excellent MP somewhere and somewhen. Here and soon, I hope.

In the national category, I choose John Bercow, the ex-House of Commons Speaker, the Speaker who has championed Parliament, upholding its sovereignty against the odds. He calls for us all to moderate our language and return to considerate and courteous debate. Every single Speaker for 230 years has been Knighted with the exception of John Bercow. Better to deserve honours and not to have them than to have them and not deserve them.

And internationally, I choose Greta Thunberg. Has there ever been anyone like her? She is an inspiration; a still, small voice that we all must heed. We must live more simply so that our world may simply live.

I finish with some words from another of my heroes – the late, great Jim Henson. He was an educator and made us laugh and cry. He wrote these words to his children,

“Life is meant to be fun and joyous and fulfilling. May each of yours be. Please watch out for each other and love and forgive everybody. It’s a good life, enjoy it.”

And so say I.

Happy New Year