“A lot of my friends are dead.” Jessica Johnson says it without much drama, at 34 years old. Three of his friends committed suicide when he was younger, and a fourth hanged himself not long ago. Like her, others have had to learn to live with an untimely death in Blackpool, the beach town with a suicide rate well above the national average. What was once a paradise for British holidaymakers is also the place with the lowest life expectancy in the UK, where a boy lives sixteen years less than someone from a wealthy region of the south-east and one in five suffers from depression. Years ago Blackpool was something different. It was a paradise of floats, ice cream machines and fine sand. Was. Today it is a place in apparent decline that has become a symbol of those northern cities that fail to assert themselves. (…)
Johnson is a friendly girl with black hair and fair skin who talks while drinking Red Bull (…). The day I met her we were chatting in the little pub she had just opened in Claremont Ward, a difficult area of Blackpool. (…) She was thrown out of Claremont Ward when she was seventeen after her friend and roommate stabbed a man from a rival gang. Years later he decided to return. (…) “Here goes whoever can. Some of my classmates went to London or Manchester. Of those who stayed, many fell into alcohol or depression… In London they don't care what happens here.” (…)
Blackpool, like other English seaside towns, is a place with a double life. On the one hand, it's a beach destination with all the accessories on display along the promenade. There is a Ferris wheel and a pier full of attractions and slot machines. (…) There is a wax museum with Ed Sheeran songs on a loop in the background and a stand selling chocolate bars with customized and supposedly transgressive packaging with messages like “I am against vaccinations” and “Asshole”. There are a handful of fish and chips shops where families line up to buy greasy bags of breaded fish with chips and vinegar. And the sea on the beach. Grey, curly and guarded by the famous Blackpool Tower, reminiscent of the Eiffel Tower and in its heyday the tallest structure in the British Empire. A year later it was even reopened by Diana of Wales herself. But behind this holiday facade lies the real life of the city, everyday life and the off-season. That of poorly paid jobs and unhealthy living conditions. That of antidepressants and that of anger at the London establishment, which they believe ignores them and which they do not trust because they feel it has failed them too often. That of the ordinary men and women who believed they saw Brexit as a chance for a better life.
In Blackpool, 67.5% of the population voted for Brexit and against what they see as London bureaucrats, who they say are being ignored at best. In some parts of the North, like this, poverty is visible and there is a deep sense of sadness towards the South. This is of course an extreme case, but it is representative because it combines many of the problems that also exist in other cities in the north of the country. These regional differences have become a machine that breeds discontent among citizens, in the amniotic fluid that monsters like Brexit or Boris Johnson feed on. For what happened in this cathartic referendum largely explains the territorial fractures that are tearing this country apart, where the divide between London and its surrounding areas and the north of the country runs deep. Here people were crying out for change. There may be much more obvious breaks, such as those of Northern Ireland or Scotland, but the north-south divide and between London and the rest is crucial to understanding the United Kingdom and the recent and profound changes that have changed it forever .
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Blackpool is no longer even a shadow of what it once was, but its glorious past is still very much alive in the memories of its elders. This place was the dream destination of British families for decades. I understood it the morning my eyes opened to a group of elderly women gathered at a social center in the city to chat and have tea for breakfast with sliced toast spread with salted margarine. This morning I learned more from the Golden Girls of Blackpool than from many smart books about Brexit. They helped me understand how longing for an idealized past was a crucial factor in the referendum, particularly for those of their generation who overwhelmingly voted for divorce. I understood how important the weight of memory is in projecting the future and how difficult it is for them to let go of this palpable longing for identity.
Pauline Gedall, approaching her ninetieth birthday, was undoubtedly the clearest person. He retained an astonishing ability to analyze. Maybe because he dedicated his life to music. (…) She remembers the golden years of Blackpool. “The summer here was a dream. It was a very rich city where the hotels were always full. If anyone had a free room they would announce it on the radio.” Factory workers from the northern cities spent their holidays here.” (…) When he first came on holiday with his parents from neighboring Manchester, he was three and a half Year old.
The boom years came to an end with the closure of factories and the traumatic industrial transition in the north of the country. The workers no longer had vacation or money to spend the summer. Then came the boom in cheap flights, which wiped out a city that could no longer compete with the prices and sun of Spain or Turkey. (…) In 2014, the coastal city's airport ceased operations because it was losing £2 million a year. Shops closed and small hotels were eventually divided into one-bedroom apartments, which are now rented out to entire families. (…)
The glorious past here and elsewhere in the UK proved a decisive factor in the referendum. Many wanted to go back and nostalgia emerged during the elections. Gedall, like 52% of Brits, voted for Brexit. “It was about the pride of England, our country. We wanted to have power over our decisions, we wanted to regain our diluted identity. “We thought we could turn back the clock, but we can't.” Now Gedall realizes that this nostalgic daydream has brought them no good. Especially young people and those who, like in Blackpool, are at the weakest end of the chain of political and macroeconomic decisions. As cuts deepen, inflation skyrockets and salaries fall short, the whiplash will be felt particularly keenly in places like these. (…) Doctors even refer to the condition of many people who live here as “shitty life syndrome.” That is, people with anxiety, depression and other mental illnesses that are caused or worsened by the hostile environment in which they live. The data is not very encouraging across the country, but in the north the situation is much more acute.
Ana Carbajosa (Barcelona, 1974) is a journalist. This excerpt is a preview of the book An Island Adrift. A journey through the cracks of a divided United Kingdom and the Peninsula. It will be released on February 7th.
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