Chapter IV The Battle of Wicklow Fields

 

 

 

 

    I had always liked planning issues. As the weighty responsibilities of office descended like a heavy rain cloud on the newly elected councillors, this thought remained uppermost in my mind. Even as we attended our refresher courses on the Byzantine complexity of council finance and on coping with the sudden inflow of council background papers and documentation and learning how to digest the contents and store the papers, I was already glancing with anticipation at our first Planning Committee agenda and scanning planning notices in the local paper. I must have seemed a nerd to some of my colleagues as I learned new computer skills and remembered key council passwords mainly in relation to the contentious planning issues.

   Of course, I was committed to dealing with our first casework from our constituents, most of which had been picked up during the canvassing in the election campaign, and the rest from our first two surgery meetings. These two hour surgery meetings were set up by Meena and me twice a month, each time in a different school in the ward. Anyone in Corindale Ward could pay us a visit and set out their problem or their complaint with us. They could be council tenants complaining about unfinished repair to their pipes, or parents of a pregnant single young lady claiming that she had priority for a Council allocated flat, or someone who had purchased a dud gold watch at the local flea market. Or a group campaigning for the upgrading of a local zebra crossing into a pelican crossing (with fixed lights). All ages, all nationalities, all walks of life, tenants and house-owners, everyone came to us because they felt we could put them on the inside track of their problem and our advice and occasional ability to pressurise council officers was free of charge. I managed to shove off most of the housing and school issues on to Meena and concentrated on those dealing with planning, traffic and the environment.

  But as the year progressed, I could not avoid the tediousness of being a local school governor. It is a duty thrust on each Councillor that they have to sit on at least one, and preferably two, school governing bodies in their area. It is not that I resent schools or children so much, though as a confirmed bachelor, I was always awkward in the presence of quizzical young children. It is just that the woman head-teacher at St Edmunds, the local primary school, used to torture us with long reports on the progress of her pupils which were full of jargon, strange initials and (to me) meaningless statistics that I could never get my head round. Phonics was all the rage now for teaching children to read and I even attended a couple of classes, but it just seemed like gobbledygook to me. I love words and enjoy knowing the quaint different ways of spelling similar sounding words in the English language, but I guess with more TV obsessed and computer game savvy children, able to utilise spellcheck whenever they need it, my skills were as outdated as peeling potatoes, mental sums or baking bread. We had 50 pages of reports to read for every governors’ meeting and we were bullied into joining sub-committees on curriculum, personnel, finance and the like, so as to ensure that we would be wedded to singing from the head’s song-sheet in preparing the school for endless exams and occasional Ofsted inspections. Incidentally, I read St. Edmunds School’s last Ofsted report and did not understand a word of it, except that it was drummed into me that recording an aspect of school work “satisfactory” was, practically speaking, “unsatisfactory”. No school could rest on the laurels of a good report because unless it improved its performance for the next time it would be considered a failure.  Every school head lives on a treadmill for a better and better standard and takes it out on the governors to join in this relentless pursuit.

  At least in the summer most of us had a break from school governor’s meetings and most of the Council business. However, I had one very dramatic week in July when a popular local grassed recreation area called Wicklow Fields was invaded by a troupe of travellers. “Travellers” incidentally is the buzz politically correct term for gypsies, though to some extent the word “gypsy” connotes a historic centuries’ old cultural tradition, to which the group in question did not seem to have much connection. There were about twenty caravans and motor-buses with this group and they came through a gap in the fence one night. The fence was programmed by the Council to be repaired in September after months of neglect. Local groups organised a petition, involved the Framden Journal, demanded to know why the gap in the fence had been left empty so long, and urged the Council to do all in their power to get rid of the travellers.

  Funnily enough, where “travellers” were concerned all trendy notions of tolerance of other minorities, went out the window. Residents panic at the mere sight of them and their untidy appearance. The pattern and behaviour of their lives does not chime with the pattern and behaviour of the settled residents in the vicinity. A group of residents came to my July surgery while Meena was on holiday. They gave me lurid descriptions of stolen children’s’ toys, a missing cat, vehicles coming and going early in the morning, noisy evenings, barking dogs and, above all, some dumped professional waste visible in one corner of the recreation ground. Washing lines had been set up and attached to what were originally a couple of goal posts in the grounds. These were plain and unadorned white wooden goal-posts without any netting. Again, a list of repairs for the area was on a waiting list pending funding to come in next year’s budget. To be honest I had never once stepped into Wicklow Fields in all the time I had been a Councillor, either before or now, and had given the area very little thought. I promised immediate action of course. You always do, but I wondered just what the hell was going to be possible.

 I had rung a contact at Corindale Police Station to whom I had been introduced at the count in April. He said he would require cooperation with the Community Officer in the Council. Who, I thought? Then it transpired that the Council actually employed a part-time Community Officer specifically dealing with travellers, whether Romany, Irish or whatever. He too had been on holiday but promised to turn up the following week. So I waited.

  Big mistake! Residents had organised a petition asking for action to save the forlorn neglected goal posts in Wicklow Fields. It was obviously a disguise calling for eviction of the travellers from there. In the next edition of the Framden Journal I saw a picture of Melanie Sheldrake, with some residents standing behind her, with placards stating “Hurry up, Framden Council!” She was quoted saying “Once again an example of Framden Council neglect. This area should have had a new fence installed months ago. The recreation ground is an eyesore.” I had not even been asked to quote.

  All tub thumping stuff, of course, and it almost had me convinced as I wallowed in the misery of poor publicity for my Council and for my own slow response. And then I remembered that it was Sheldrake who had been Councillor for this area over the past 4 years. Why was it not her responsibility to look after the bloody site? Again, I had been too slow off the mark; she had beaten me to it.

   Collins, the Community Officer, contacted me on the first Monday of his return. He rang me and suggested that the two of us visit the site early next day to speak to the elders. I was not very keen but again I contacted my senior partner, Roger Clarkson, to obtain a free day and very reluctantly met Collins at the edge of Wicklow Fields. On his advice I arrived by bus as it was not a good idea to come by car to a vicinity like that. That hardly sounded promising.

  I looked around what appeared to be a battle site. It was indeed a depressing sight, all the more so because the day was overcast with a promise of rain in the evening. Tables and settees littered the ground around the campers and lorries, a number of children scampered around with their dogs and a goat stood tethered to one of the goal posts. Ugliest of all were a couple of piles of rubble at the back of the recreation ground, near the back gardens of some of the most prominent of the protesting residents. “Stay close to me,” said Collins to me quietly, “and don’t get provoked into saying anything,”

  Slowly we moved onto a path leading into Wicklow Fields. I stayed close to Collins but perhaps just a half-step behind. I pretended not to be looking furtively around me however much I was tempted to do so. Phileas Fogg, remember? Stay tall proud and disdainful. Well, perhaps not too proud and disdainful. Underneath the Fogg disguise was a small man, humble, diffident and a little scared. As we moved forward the adults sitting in the chairs totally ignored us, but the children surrounded us, crowding our space without actually touching us and, when I spun round, walking immediately behind us with mischievous grins. “Just keep walking, Councillor”, Collins muttered.

  Gradually we made our way towards a larger camper, where a large man was standing with grizzled beard and grey hair growing under his kerchief. He had been eyeing us curiously but without making any move towards us. Collins came up to him and stopped.

  “Are you the chief, here?”

  The older man nodded and looked round to a couple of even larger adults walking slowly towards our group. Not that the older man seemed in any way either worried or curious about our visit. I think he sensed Collins’ ethnic origin.

   “This is Councillor Axtell and my name is Pete Collins. I’m the Council’s Community Officer.”

   “Yes?”

   “We have come because of some complaints from local residents about noise, rowdiness and dumping of waste.” He looked at the piles of rubble. Now that we were closer, I could see a further small pile of wood and derelict fridges and washing machines behind them. The chief looked at the rubble too and shrugged.

   “That was here when we came,” he said. What?!

   Collins said something to him in what I assume was some kind of Romany tongue. The man grinned sheepishly at him. I remembered the old saying about gypsies always having to speak the truth, but this was a sacred requirement only if the words were spoken in their native tongue. In English, they were not so morally restricted. Perhaps it was true.

   Collins continued in English. “We understand that you are probably on your way to a designated travellers’ site.”

   The old man nodded.

   “How long will you need to stay here? You have been here more than a week and if this continues you will have to be given notice by us to move and take all your belongings with you.”

   Suddenly there was a commotion in another part of the field. We noticed to our surprise that both goal posts were burning. I could see smoke coming from the further posts, but flames were actually licking the one nearer to us. I remembered the goat tethered to one of them, but it was now nowhere to be seen.

  Collins got very angry. He turned round, grabbed me and we started walking quickly out of Wicklow Fields. Some kids followed us but a call from their elder stopped them. In the meantime, other travellers were suddenly packing their gear into their vehicles. Two were already revving their engines, obviously ready to move out. The goal-posts were burning brightly now.

  “Please call the police straight away, Councillor,” called Collins. And he turned towards a woman to help her reload her armchair into her vehicle.

   I was back onto the street now but realised I had left my mobile phone in my car which was at home. I crossed the street to the house of a resident I knew who had been one of the organisers of the petition. He had actually been quite rude to me. I could see him watching the events through the front window with his son.

   On seeing me he rushed to his front door and let me in, before I could even ring his doorbell.

   “Can I please use your phone to ring the police, Mr Ryan”.

   “Of course, Councillor. Be my guest.”

   After that things moved quickly. I waited about 10 minutes for the magic sound of several police sirens. As the police cars and a fire engine moved on to the site the travellers were quickly driving away. Many of the residents came out, in particular the children. This seemed like an exciting holiday adventure for them.

   “Please, Mr Ryan, help me keep the kids on this side of the road,” I called out. Mr Ryan’s 10 year old son was already at the gate but stopped there when I called out. A neighbour’s friend came running down the pavement to meet him.

   “Who’s he?” I heard the second boy ask, looking at me.

   “Oh, that is Chancellor Axtell,” he said knowingly. “He’s just got rid of the gypsies!” I wonder when Mr Ryan’s son might get the vote, I thought to myself, just as a police inspector arrived and came out of his car to speak to me.

    Within half an hour the recreation ground was clear and the fires were out, but the place was badly scarred and there were piles of rubble and domestic rubbish for the Council to clear, as well as the fence to be rebuilt. I knew it would be my job to ensure that this was done within a week, without any interference this time from Councillor Miss Sheldrake. Replacing the goalposts would take longer.

   Next Friday, the fire and the scene of carnage was front page news in the Framden Journal with a picture of me and some choice quotes on “reacting quickly to local residents’ concerns.” This time it was Melanie Sheldrake who had not been asked to quote.