A Different World
My Tutor, Prof Wenham-Clarke, looked at my coursework to date -- those pictures demonstrating the subtle cultural diversities within Devizes -- and said "Yes, OK, but they could all be your friends; go and find some people that maybe we don't expect to see; maybe people who you wouldn't usually associate with in your daily life".
Fine, I thought, feeling a lot less confident than that sounds; fine. So I went walkabout around Devizes, taking in The Marketplace (full of cars except on Thursdays when it's full of market traders) the cemetery (full of quiet) and Eureka! The Canal. 'There's a possible victim' I thought, spying a young man with a Mohican haircut stripped to the waist. (No; you misunderstand; his haircut wasn't stripped to the waist; he was). Depends how you read the sentence doesn't it?
He turned out to be 'Glad' -- I assume short for 'Gladstone' and over the next few days, as I talked with him and made some pictures, he introduced me to a world I'd hardly heard about, and certainly had no experience of. He lived on a small, battered old river-cruiser ("cost me forty quid in a bar in Bath") with his girl partner and, strangely, a lodger. They moored on the less-popular bank of the canal, though directly opposite to the favourite public-access, the starting-point of the 'trips along the canal' boats, so Glad and his little group had reasonable access to the water- and toilet-point provided. Not only that but The Wharf, as that part of town is known, is just ten minutes walking-distance from The Market-Place.
People like Glad, independent as they like to be, tend not to welcome too many questions about their past, present or plans, but we got on well enough for him to tell me that he originated in Lancaster, grew up physically abused, left home -- and school -- earlier than most, and had few opportunities to find work or plan a future. On Benefit, of course, while the Mohican discourages potenial employers to go further than an initial greeting at job interviews arranged by 'The Monastery' -- his take on the Ministry of Employment. Unlike Greg The Traveller (see later) he doesn't busk, so depends on Benefit handouts and any kind souls asking him about his lifestyle (I wondered if my fiver-a-day was appropriate, but it was at least not rejected) to buy the necessities.
But Glad did something significant for me then; he introduced me to caring church-people.
Now, those who know me would tell you, if asked, of my lack of affection for anyone involved in the promotion of religion; I firmly believe that the employment of many thousands, if not millions, of people to deliver the conflicting messages that a) God loves you, and b) God will condemn you, not only to to your personal hell after you die, but also to a living lifetime of anxiety, unless you show absolute faith in him and his teaching, without any shred of evidence or proof, is nothing short of fraud and emotional corruption on a (literally and metaphorically) unbelievable scale. I could agree that such coercion and blackmail might have been justified in order for the learned to keep the ignorant under control when and where necessary, way back, but since the vast majority of the world's population learned to read, write and think, the combined weapons of fear, superstition and emotional terror should not be employed mainly to keep the peasants from revolting, nor to keep archbishops in ermine.
You might remind me that much of the work of the various churches is aimed at benefitting the disadvantaged -- which I applaud, of course, and with which I had personal contact with when Glad introduced me to the concept of the St John Drop-in Centre in Devizes, which he patronises. Apparently, if you're desperate, you can get lunch on a Monday, a full day of meals each Wednesday and tea on Thursdays, just by turning up. Now, that is, if you'll excuse the expression, Christian.
