She Came in Through the Bathroom Window

I just spent the week up north in the MP’s constituency, about 30 miles north of Liverpool.


I'd given myself plenty of time to make the train from Euston Station so I ended up people watching. It has occurred to me, as I travel through this much older country, that everything around us will someday in the future be considered charming and old-fashioned, maybe even quaint. All our technology and clothes and customs will someday be heavily researched for period dramas. I watched people going to their trains and tried to pull myself out of my time and take it all in like a time traveler. It’s easier to play in England because everyone does seem to be in a slightly different time.


MP has all four of her staffers working up in the constituency. She says herself that if it doesn’t affect the good people who voted for her, she doesn’t bloody care. And her focus on the needs of her constituents is even clearer to see up there. MP has a wonderful way of shifting from Good Cop to Bad Cop in each meeting that leaves everyone else off-balance. I tagged along for a meeting with a police superintendent, a hospital ward visit where there had been allegations of elderly care misconduct, and a primary school’s Jubilee party where they all mumbled along to  “God Save the Queen” and the Headteacher introduced me as: “Lauren, who came all the way from New York to see us!” (He was very apologetic later for getting my name wrong.)

The constituency office is terribly dilapidated—another example of the national sense that public servants should have the worst possible amenities. After accepting my second cup of tea the first day, I learned that the water was so bad it makes your teeth hurt. The ‘facilities’ are part of what was at one time an outhouse, but it has a makeshift 'roof' attaching it to the main building that is useless when it rains. Dressing the outside up with banners and Union Jacks in preparation for the Olympic Torch coming by, we decided to not put up one of the larger flags for fear that drilling the flag hook in would bring down chunks of the exterior wall. For all that, I was quite sad to leave. MP’s staffers were gracious and welcoming. It was spoiling to have nice people to talk to while working—as opposed to Westminster, where I’ll resort to prattling on to the guy who delivers the post.

Accents are a huge deal here, especially up in the north. At first, nearly everyone sounded the same to me, but I am slowly picking up on the more obvious differences. I heard a lot about Scouse accents, which is sort of an intense Liverpudlian accent that is considered sort of blue-collar and uneducated. I thought it sounded marvelous, but with my boring Northwest American/Californian dialect, I evidently don’t know any better.

MP asked a friend of hers to put me up and she couldn’t have picked a lovelier family. They gave me a gorgeous top floor room with an attached bath and a view of the neighborhood, fed me delicious food, consulted me on television preferences, and even picked me up late at the local train station after my one evening in Liverpool. My first evening there, a local city councillor^[1] stopped by. She started out with: “Shake hands? C’mon dear, let’s have a bit of a cuddle!” gave me a big hug, and talked my ear off about the volunteer driving that she is doing for the Olympics. In general, I found that everyone up North was much friendlier than Londoners. To this observation, they said:  "If you do meet anyone in London who is friendly, they are probably just a Northerner who has moved!"

The Torch came through Friday morning. I've never been much of an Olympics spectator. It's hard to say why, but I guess it can all seem like overindulgent, patriotic nonsense at times. I know that it was originally meant to foster friendly competition between nations, but personally, I'll take the World Cup over the Games any day. Nonetheless, seeing the crowd line up for the Torchbearers, I got a little thrill. MP jostled with the Mayor against the crowd to get a good picture with the bearer waiting at the 'kiss point' for the incoming flame.^[2]

I was a bit worried that I’d come all the way up north without actually getting to see Liverpool, but MP's scheduler (who is more my age) showed me around Thursday night. We took the train into Liverpool, saw the Royal Liver building, the port, the 'pool' that the city was built on, Mathew Street and the Cavern (where the Beatles got their start). Being shown the area by a local, I restrained myself from getting too fanatic. It was naturally thrilling, but I was more than okay with just seeing everything without taking an awkward photo with the statue of John Lennon.

1. Mary, the mom, had previously been a city councillor as well. I met a succession of local politicians while I was there; mostly Labour members. MP herself had been the Lord Mayor (a ceremonial post) before she was a Member of Parliament, so she knew frankly everyone for miles around.

2. Actual athletes will carry the flame when it is closer to London and the start of the Games, but as the torch makes its way through the rest of the country local community members and do-gooders pass the torch off to each other.