Alarm clocks and glitter bombs
How Starmer's speech triggered a memory
This is a very different piece today, so if you are here for my hot takes on Victorian novelists you’re in for a big surprise. But the more I watched the clips from the Labour Party Conference yesterday, the more something got into my head.
I tried to listen to Sir Keir Starmer’s speech on my phone driving home (and if you need more evidence that things could improve in this country, why is there no reliable 5G coverage along the M27, A34 and M4?). When we got home, I watched the clip of the protestor invading the stage and showering the Leader of the Labour Party with glitter. I watched as several male security guards floundered around, and I enjoyed the fact that it was the woman with long blond hair who tackled the guy to the ground and hauled him off stage. Starmer recovered remarkably quickly, as everyone agrees, taking off his jacket, rolling up his sleeves, and getting on with his job. But there must have been a moment when all he could think was ‘This is the most important speech of my life so far, why would this happen to me now.’
Over forty years ago, I was head girl of a small single sex grammar school in a Dorset market town. We were a privileged bunch, we were being educated in this beautiful building, it even had murals on the walls painted by Sir John Thornhill in the eighteenth century.
It was the last day of my school career, the end of summer term, and it was my job to escort the headmistress into the final assembly, known as the ‘Cups and Awards Ceremony’. I had really enjoyed my year as senior prefect, although it had not been without stresses: it was the year when a new headmistress had arrived, taking the place of a dearly-loved and extremely elegant lady who had finally retired. Poor Mrs H, a kind, clever but slightly less-poised woman, had found it hard to fill her place, and schoolgirls can be very cruel. Anyway, the end was in sight as I stood beside her on the platform ready to dispense the eponymous prizes. And then unmistakeably came the sound of an old-fashioned but very noisy alarm clock going off somewhere behind me on the stage.
For a moment no-one moved, and then I realised that it wasn’t going to be Mrs H’s job to sort this out, so I set off back stage, performing an Eric Morecambe tribute act as I fumbled to find the gap in the curtains. The noise was even more shrill when I found the thing: in my panic I could not work out how to turn it off, so I stuck my finger between the clapper and the bell and re-emerged to a fascinated audience. The finger trick was clearly not tenable for the entire ceremony: I stumbled down the aisle holding my prize, and thrust it into the hands of the nearest prefect in the back row hissing ‘get rid of this.’ And order was resumed, the prizes were distributed with only limited sniggering, I followed a miserable Mrs H back to her study, and then went to the sixth form common room. And this is where the story gets much worse: I was greeted with open hostility - ‘why did you give it to us, it made it obvious who had done it’. Someone in my year had done it. It’s forty years ago, but I still shudder. My feelings were just collateral damage. It should have been my wonderful final day, and now I was utterly miserable.
Sir Keir Starmer coped so admirably with the interruption to his speech, you might wonder if it had been staged. But if you look again at the photo, I think you can see panic in his face. It could have been anything the guy was throwing, it must have been very scary. But above all, he must have thought ‘why me, why now, on live television, in front of millions, my big moment.’ What he actually said was "If he thinks that bothers me, he doesn't know me. Protest or power, this is why we changed our party." It’s a great line, and there is no shame in wondering if that had been practised, as protests and interruptions from hecklers are only too common in political life. He is, after all, an experienced politician and a smooth operator. I was a seventeen year old schoolgirl. But today my sympathies go out to everyone who ever thought they were looking like the queen of the castle, and discovered they were just an idiot with her finger stuck in an alarm clock bell.
I really enjoyed reading this! What a memory.
My mum was head girl!