LET'S HAVE A STREET PARTY - FOR ME

We are having a street party. This, for me, is the most extraordinary thing. My wife is organising it. Basically the whole road thinks she is doing this to mark the Royal Wedding, but in actual fact she is doing it to silence my incessant griping about the fact I missed the street party that happened in New Eltham at the last Royal Wedding, aged 8. I have carried this bitterness around with me, like Richard III’s throne envy, ever since. At parties and social gatherings whenever the conversation turns to, ‘do you remember when we were kids, and we all had those street parties for the Royal Wedding, wasn’t it great?!’ my wife has become increasingly adept at either shutting the conversation down Alastair Campbell style, or physically ejecting me at least to ten yards from the centre of debate before I launch into the, ‘O woe is me response.’

Let’s cover off two facts:

1. I am not overly fussed by the ‘Royalness’ of the wedding. I am not particularly anti, and I probably wouldn’t go on a march to uphold them. It is the excuse to have one fabulous Chas ‘n’ Dave style knees up with all my neighbours, the ones I know and the ones I will hopefully be firm chums with post event.

2. Yes I have been at one other street party. I was four, it was the Silver Jubilee. This party happened in Torrance, East Dunbartonshire or as I understand it, soon to be sucked fully into Glasgow. We lived on a new-build estate, it was the epitome of 70s community life, fathers in jeans a little too tight round the groin and far too loose at the ankle all sporting the most impressive moustaches and mothers wearing lurid floral patterns woven into the most flammable mixes of viscose and polyester known to man. This should be a happy memory. I was dressed as a thief for the fancy dress competition, this, no-doubt, was a witty comment by my parents on the strength of ill-feeling towards them for arriving and ‘stealing’ jobs from the Scottish, my father from Belfast and my mother from London. I didn’t win the fancy dress competition. My enduring memory of this occasion was the ginger kid who lived opposite taking my Evel Knievel and burying it in the undeveloped land over the back of our house. This alone has ruined my early experience of Street Parties.

We were on the wrong side of the resonance of this play

Look at how we all looked - aren't we funny (this is not us, it is random people)

I will never see him again *wipes tear*

With this already starting to eat away at my tender psyche, the news that on the 29th July 1982 we would be having a street party was, to quote Tina Turner, Simply the Best. The next thing I am about to say, shows me up for the belligerent little ingrate I was as a child.

My parents had booked a holiday in France. I wouldn’t be at the Street Party. My soul was rent from my body. The holiday was booked before the day was announced and certainly before the Street Party was announced. But I was 8. I could not conceive the practicalities of losing hard earned money so that the brattish member of the family could eat jam sandwiches off a Union Jack plate.

It is a plate - but it is also a flag. Genius

Just imagine this on a plate that you could also use on a flag. Double genius

I was sullen, lying on the back seat of the car under the duvet that all parents at that time used as a seat belt to protect their children on a long journey. Occasionally kicking my sister whose legs had strayed into my seat allocation. Sucking miserably on my quarter of cola cubes I had bought for the journey. We didn’t have the luxury of a Walkman at this time so I was forced to listen to my parents’ radio choices or morosely read comics. We dragged our caravan through the South of England, across half of France and onto a (really rather nice) campsite in Saint-Jean-de-Monts.

Now this is a beach. It goes for ages that way - and if you turned around ages the other way too

And our two week holiday began, far away from the Street Party I knew I was missing. If you take away the fact that I was missing the Street Party, it was one of the best ruddy holidays I had as a child. Moules, frites, les glaces, croissants, le baguette, les fromages, Orangina – all in endless supply. I had adventures too! My mum had to dig a tick out of my forehead, a couple got burned in a tent explosion (umm look this was nearly 30 years ago – it was exciting, I hope they are OK now obviously). The beach was vast and sandy, they had these Bugsy Malone style racing cars you could ride all over the place. It was just intense fun from beginning to end. Except for the 29th July. This day, of all days, was washing day. My mother and I watched the Royal Wedding on a black and white TV in a campsite launderette. The news feed kept cutting to scenes of the British public all over the UK sitting at tables in their roads! This still excites me, actually putting a table in the middle of a road and eating at it, this is so anarchic and on a day that celebrates Royalism.

Imagine watching your friends having fun on one of these. Yes, now you are with me aren't you.

In short – I was sad this day. When we returned (once again, thank you Mum and Dad for one of the best holidays ever) I was greeted, not only by that depression that the rest of the summer holiday now is just treading water because the best bit has happened, but also by all my frigging mates telling me what a ruddy good time they had had without me. This has haunted me ever since.

I am neither American or a girl - but this is what a 'haunting' looks like

My wife is taking my memories by the ankles, holding them up like a newborn and spanking them until they cry, for this April, we shall have a Street Party. And I will be the man with the biggest grin because I will know it is all for me.