Monday, 23 August 2010
Class act 4: The streets of London
Regular readers will know that I don't post in August. However this year I'm putting up a series of "songs from the sixties" that pick up the theme of social class. This is the sort of music I used to listen to as a teenager.
In 1968 "swinging London" was at its height. Boy did we party! Then Ralph Mctell comes along and reminds us that admidst all this affluence and flamboyance there some who had no share, and no say.
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In July/August 1970, I was working at the London Embankment Mission (now part of the City Mission - I think). I was part of a work party organised by the Crusader's Union (also renamed). We met a great many people like those described in the song. The old girl with the two carrier bags (or one of those like her)actually had thousands of pounds in the bank, but never touched it. Lifestyle choice! A very strange down and out, wearing a bright green kagool with pockets stuffed full of all sorts, turned out (as I learned some months later) to be Special Branch!
We painted the mission, inside and out, we fed the hungry, handed out the soup at night by Waterloo Bridge, sang gospel songs to guitar and preached the gospel. One young couple, she was pregnat, came to faith and in due course left the streets.
This song always takes me back there.
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