As a result of having a new toy to play with I probably took a lot more portrait-type photos that I should have done. Here are a few of the pics.

Some of the food

Polish dancing

Manny, stalwart of the CCAR committee and work colleague

Jim - another work colleague, and one of my favourite photos

Jayne - she came along when her shift finished to take me home

I knew he was the de facto leader of the Chagossian community in Crawley, but I must have missed the news about him becoming President (in waiting).   All the more embarrassing because I see his brother most days at work.  I think its kind of cool that a head of government lives in Crawley, even if it is a government of a country whose population isn’t allowed to live there.

Good luck to him, though I fear the President in waiting is going to be waiting a long time.

Diego Garcian dancers at the CCAR international social evening

It is not that I am unsociable or anti-social, but as time goes on I do admit that I am more and more content with my own company.  I am happy enough to go out with friends but I don’t feel bad if I am spending a night in – and now that I have all my books, music and instruments together in one place that is more of a pleasure.  All of which is by way of explaining how unusual it was last week to find myself going out three nights in a row.All three events were different excuses for drinking and chatting, although I only actually had a drink on the third night, but thoroughly enjoyed all three.

First off was a night at a bowling tournament organised by somebody at work.  To be honest I am not great at bowling and have only been a few times in my life but went to make up the numbers and show some solidarity with the rest of the department.  We went to the Hollywood Bowl in Crawley, where we had booked every single lane for the evening, so quite a big evening.

When we started the first one of our team to go got what I believe is called a strike.  The second member of the team then also knocked all ten pins down first go.  Things were looking good when the third person did the same.  I rather ruined it when my first shot went down the left-hand gutter and the follow-up went straight down the right-hand gutter.  Things did get better after that, but not by much, and I ended up with a measly 52, which I am told is very, very bad.

In the second game I picked up a bit and my first three goes were two half-strikes and a strike.  Such competence couldn’t last for ever, but I did eventually end up with 122, which is at least respectable if nothing like the 199 one of my team-mates got in the first game.  Fortunately I am not competitive – I guess everybody guessed that when I stodd for the Labour party in Horsham anyway.

It was a fun sort of evening though, but I have to say that the Hollywood Bowl is looking a bit tired these days.  When it opened about ten years ago it was bright and shiny and state of the art, but now it looks a bit tatty.  All the display screens are huge CRTs with ten years’ worth of screen burn on them.  Our one was fuzzy and almost unreadable.  Sometimes our lane would take 5 minutes to think about whether to reset the pins and the whole place now looks no better than the old bowling alley it replaced, which was very old by the time it closed.

Friday night was the Ifield Scouts’ fund-raising quiz night.  I went with a couple of colleagues from work and an ex-colleague. There was the usual arguing about a couple of answers – none more heated than the topic of whether Smurfs were Dutch or Belgian.  Suffice to say we chose the wrong one and the chap we over-ruled is never going to let us hear the last of it.  It was all good fun, as quizzes generally are, and included some particularly nice cakes.

The last night out was the Crawley Campaign Against Racism’s international social evening.  This is usually an entertaining evening out, and this year was no exception.  Entertainment was provided by dancers from the town’s Diego Garcian community, music and dancing from the local Portugese Society, a couple of singers, a stand-up comedian and Mr. Chris Mullins performing solo on his bodhrun after reminding us all (yet again) that the largest ethnic group in town is the Irish.

I was quite impressed actually.  I had seen the drums up on the wall at his house so I knew he played, but I didn’t realise he could play well enough to hold together a solo performance.  Maybe next year we should get him to bring along a couple of friends with fiddles or something.

The great thing about these evenings is the chance to catch up with people I haven’t seen for ages, including a couple of people who left my company a year or two ago.  It was also a pleasant surprise to see George there.  George is somebody I ‘met’ on the Flickr photosharing website a few years ago.  We sometimes compare notes and comment on each others’ pictures, but I had only actually met him once before when we were both taking photos at a vintage truck event.

I felt a bit left out at the end, when everybody on my table won a prize in the raffle except me, but otherwise it was a fine time.

And now back to my hermit-like existance for a few nights, though there are a few seasonal events coming up to drag me out of the nest – not least of which is the Spizzenergi gig in Camden Town on the 2nd.

If so, are you willing to let us have a copy for future UAF leaflets or the website? No payment (we are saving funds for campaigning) but full attribution if requested.

The CCAR is a venerable organisation, now in its 31st year. Many of the firebrands who started it up are still involved but, not surprisingly, are now 31 years older and not quite as vigorous as they used to be. The Chair kept dropping hints about needing new blood in there and its a bit strange that, at 45, I will be looked on as one of the youngsters, as most of the others are over 70 now.

I had the same experience when I first joined the council as well…

Anyway, there was some discussion about how the UAF fits in with the CCAR. Some members understandably felt that as there is already one non-party political anti-racist campaigning organisation in the town there is no need to form another. I think that will all get sorted out at the Crawley-Horsham UAF inaugural meeting.

Personally I feel that there is a point to having two apparently similar organisations. Firstly there is the Horsham dimension, which the CCAR does not cover. I have had contact with a few people from there and one thing they have which we desperately need over here is youth. Something which covers both towns might enable us to get some help from relative youngsters in Horsham in getting our own youngsters involved.

Also, the CCAR actually does very little direct campaigning now. It does a lot of work supporting all sorts of initiatives, and building relationships between different parts of the community, especially in the Interfaith initiative which it has been instrumental in, and its membership has some of the nicest people you could hope to meet, and they throw a brilliant party every year where all the different groups get together.

The UAF is more of a direct action body, with a single aim: to work towards reducing the support of the BNP. Because it focuses on that single thing it can do it very well, and as part of a national body it will get lots of advantages from its network. All those pooled resources and information can make it a lot more effective than an isolated local organisation.

In the meantime, the CCAR should continue all the positive and constructive work it is doing. That is where its strength lies. I really think the two organisations can complement each other very well and should have a considerable overlap in membership.

It may well be that youngsters will be more tempted by a more action-oriented body. They might consider the work of the CCAR to be not intrinsically exciting and be more in tune with something a bit more militant. Certainly thats how I remember being in my late teens. It would be nice to think that some who join the UAF for its direct and well-defined narrow agenda will meet others and see what they are doing in the CCAR and the many other groups we all belong to and actually want to join them as they start settling down.

Well that is the argument I shall be making anyway.

I did learn tonight that we now have a firm date, time and venue for the Crawley & Horsham UAF meeting, which I shall be shamelessly promoting any minute now.

(Or will it be the Horsham & Crawley UAF? Perhaps that should be item 2 on the agenda)

It turns out that some CCAR people and other concerned citizens have met to discuss some co-ordinated action against the BNP in town, and they intend to meet again soon – on April 18th.

I am sure they would be only too happy for anyone who is at all interested to turn up – I will confirm the time and venue. It would be great to see some people who are not part of the usual political machinery turn up and get involved.

Talking of which, someone has organised to get a couple of thousand UAF/anti-fascist leaflets, but I don’t think they have decided exactly what to do with them yet (that is one of the objectives for the meeting, I believe). If anyone volunteered to take some to distribute in one of the areas where the BNP is standing I imagine they would be welcome to take some.

If all else fails, we will hand them out in the shopping parades in Furnace Green, Ifield, Southgate and West Green, like we did in the Town Centre before the general election – which was very well-received.

I wonder if the writer of that letter really does think that. Do they really believe that the (admittedly antisocial) actions of some travellers means that we should regard them as animals, as somehow less than human? Dehumanising any group of people just makes it easier to extend that attitude to others. Maurice Ogden’s poem The Hangman illustrates perfectly how the consequences of this can escalate (also echoed by Pastor Niemoller’s famous quotation:

“In Germany, the Nazis came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me.”

Anyway, still on the same theme, on Saturday night we went across to Maidenbower for the Crawley Campaign Against Racism’s annual multi-cultural party. We went last year when we were invited as Deputy Mayor & Mayoress and signed up and paid our subscriptions on the spot. This year was all the better for being able to go as a family and not have to wear a suit. There was entertainment from some local asian dance groups, a band of rappers and a couple of flamenco guitarists, followed by food provided by the local Sikhs then a disco which was mainly bhangra and bollywood.

We all had a good time and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the kids all enjoyed the food as it was nothing like the Indian food I do from a jar of cook-in sauce – it was a lot more authentic, stronger and vegetarian. Charlie went up for seconds and even took a bag home to have the next day.

The only real problem with this event is that it is dominated by the Hindu and Sikh communities and has hardly any presence from West Indians, African or Moslems, but it is a start. Another group conspicuous by its absence was the local Tory party…