Craftivist on CWR

Mixing craft and politics / she asked me what the use is? Doesn’t have the same ring as Billy Bragg does it?

I was on the radio. I tried not to be too excited, but I was.

It was a bit like the time at primary school when a film crew came and we had to stand in a line, and I was put on the end because I was the tallest and was wearing my Mum’s old mackintosh. I have no memory of the reason why the pupils of Chasewater Primary School, class of 1979 were on the news. I’m guessing it was the swimming pool; our school was famous for the wet white elephant put to sleep not long after birth owing to the costs of running it for 100 ungrateful kids. We didn’t need the exercise; we were all worn out from the sponsored walks around the rec that we had to do to have the thing made. I was on Westward, but never saw myself because my Mum didn’t want the TV switched on that day. One of the other Mums was cross because she said I had been on for ages, and some others didn’t get the chance. That’s been my only brush with the media until today.

I was on CWR with Annie Othen to discuss Craftivism, which amused me in itself because I just made the one thing, and met some craftivists in London when I was doing something else. I had to do some special reading up in case I was asked any awkward questions such as 'What is Craftivism?' As a child, I might have liked to see myself on TV, but as an adult, it seems a bit cringe worthy. I don’t like my plumy voice, coming not from an aristocratic background, but painstakingly copied from 1950’s Radio 4 buy my working class Mum and Nan and passed on to me, reinforced by criticism if any hint of a Cornish accent surfaced. With the passage of time, regional accents have gone up in social value, and BBC English (or RP as I hear it’s properly called) has come to denote right wing snobbery. Ah well, it id’n g’ween alter now is ‘ut my ‘ansome?

In spite of my plumy voice, I enjoyed being on the radio. I liked the strangeness of the small things. While waiting, I was approached by a pink shirted man with a mop of grey curly hair and, although sober, the radiant bonhomie usually associated with two pints of larger. It was evident from his demeanour that he expected that I would recognise him, but I don't listen to local radio, and thus was a disappointment. He had the look of Noddy Holder about him (and if it was you Noddy, sorry I didn’t ask you where your platform boots were) I don’t think he was the real thing though. He asked me what I was in for, and then told me that there was a big story about female linesman. I hadn’t seen the news, and told him I had no idea what a linesman of whatever gender was. He attempted to explain that it was not to do with washing lines or lines of coke as I had assumed, but was a football story about presenters discussing a female linesman off mic and falling foul of ‘ridiculous’ political correctness. I didn’t have the heart to debate the issue, but listening into the show, the listeners were up for it.

Heaven knows what they thought of the plumy voiced woman blathering on about having a voice in social change. Not much, I suspect. I told a researcher I had never listened to the station. ‘Oh, that’s OK,’ she said ‘we’re not your demographic’.