Christa Ackroyd: Unwelcome reminder of rubbish times in the Seventies

And this week for the first week, in the words of the late great Eric Morecambe, it’s rubbish.

Or at least that is my abiding memory after a few days away at the Edinburgh Fringe. Well, that’s not strictly true. Where else could we see 12 shows in four days from the famous to the yet to be discovered, from music to comedy, theatre to circus in a myriad of venues from huge auditoriums to underground basements for the cost of a fish supper?

And where else would the cost of a supposedly low cost hotel of shall we say a premier variety be a whopping £220 a night? Only at the Fringe.

But I book it every year because I love the energy but above all I love its celebration of the mad, crazy unpredictable world of showbiz. And also meeting the thousands of young hopefuls, who stand on street corners thrusting flyers into your hand, begging you to see their show so they can be “discovered”.

By the end of a walk down the Royal Mile your hands, pockets and bags are positively bulging with brightly coloured, beautifully printed pieces of paper, which after glancing to see if they are of interest you normally dispose of in the nearest bin.

Only this year you couldn’t. This year the bins were overflowing. Because this year in Edinburgh the binmen, or should that be refuse collection operatives, were on strike.

And what a mess that glorious city was. What a blot on the landscape. And what a deliberate decision the strikers had made to make their unsightly mark on the city when an extra half million tourists descend for the largest arts festival in the world.

Quite frankly it was gross, stomach churning and an embarrassment. And it made you realise what a lot of rubbish we produce.

The last time I remember a bin strike was back in the Seventies. Inflation had reached a staggering 26 per cent, spiralling costs, low growth and a growing resentment towards a government that appeared to be dithering (sounds familiar?) had led to the infamous Sun newspaper headline ‘Crisis, what crisis?” after leaders appeared out of touch and the country out of control.

Well, they say history repeats itself. And so we find ourselves potentially in the same boat.

Yes, you could argue that times, as far as rubbish goes, have changed. In the strike of the 1970s the most popular takeaway was the aforementioned fish and chips and then they were wrapped in old newspapers, which by the way we also collected for the local scout troop who then sold them on for recycling. And we bought our pop in returnable bottles which meant they were never discarded by the wayside, or if they were then thrifty kids keen to supplement their meagre pocket money soon picked them up and returned them to the corner shop for a few pence, which incidentally still happens in some countries.

Not here, though. This week in Edinburgh piles and piles of discarded fast food containers containing half-eaten meals joined cans and cans of pop making mountains of stinky rubbish in just three days.

As we head towards winter amid the fear of unaffordable heating costs, discontent is growing once again.

In the Seventies protests usually involved placards and picketing and, as far as I can remember, no-one ever glued themselves to the frame of a work of art or the actual road that you use to get to work. I don’t even think in the Seventies a strong enough glue had even been invented should the madness to do that kick in.

Remember that brand that your dad always used when you had to mix two components with a little piece of wood before you attempted to stick things together with an ugly mustard gunge? That would hardly have worked to stick your head onto the Mona Lisa would it? And if it did you would surely have been spotted by some security guard as you spent 20 minutes waiting for it to go off.

As for the roads, as most people used an efficient and reasonably priced public transport network to get to work they would certainly have been less busy should a group of protesters choose to anchor their ear-lugs to the surface.

Second cars? Cars for kids before they even take their test? Even our one and only first car was used sparingly, because as we were frequently told “Walk, that’s what you’ve got legs for.”

And yet have things really changed? In the Seventies it was Harold Wilson who resigned in 1976 and Jim Callaghan who took over with a laissez faire attitude to the growing crisis in the country.

Now as I write we don’t even know who is running it.

Then unemployment stood at a million. Now there are a million jobs going spare. But a crisis we have when state pensioners are predicted to be forced to spend two thirds of their woefully inadequate pension on the cost of fuel and even those earning £45,000 a year are expected to need help paying for their energy bills. And still no one appears to be listening.

So do I have some sympathy with Scotland’s striking bin workers who earn on average just over £20,000 a year? I do. I have sympathy with every low-paid worker or anyone who doesn’t know how they will heat their homes or put food on the table in the coming months.

And no sympathy at all with a government who is refusing to govern until we know who it is that will be governing instead of putting their feuding heads together and doing something about it. What do we think of them... one word. Rubbish.

And finally...

Every week I want to leave you with one thought. This week that slot goes to my old mate Jon Culshaw, who brought happy memories of one of my dad’s favourites, Les Dawson, to the Fringe last week.

I first came across the genius that is Jon when he was working in local radio, as I was, using his considerable mimicry for voiceovers.

So my thought for the week is this. What, as one who is one three times over, is so offensive about a mother-in-law joke? I leave you with my favourite from Les.

“I can always tell when the mother-in-law is coming to stay; the mice throw themselves on the traps.”

Unwelcome? Outdated? Well, yes we don’t use mousetraps any more. Offensive? No, it’s just funny.