The River
In June 2016, the river’s ‘loud dale’ became a chasm. After a long dry spell during which it had provided a perfect practice ground of rills and pools for ducklings, the Liddel rose and the amphitheatre of woodland was once again a stadium of noise. On the evening of the 23rd, we went to sleep with a feeling of anticipated relief. The pound was rising; the markets were confident.
In the early morning, a strained quality in the voices of the radio presenters made it obvious, before the reading of the news, that the catastrophe had occurred. More than half the electorate had decided that England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland should leave the European Union. The United Kingdom would after all become what a Scottish king had once called ‘a little world within itself’.
Almost immediately, there was talk of a new referendum on Scottish independence. Every region in Scotland had voted to remain in the Union, and the Scottish First Minister vowed that Scotland would not be evicted from Europe by the reckless gamble of an English Prime Minister whose primary aim had been to resolve a dispute in his own party.
Not since I lived in the United States had I felt so historically, culturally and personally European. The proximity of the border suddenly had a cruel poignancy: I would be looking over to a country from which I might soon be expelled. Emails of condolence came from friends and acquaintances in France. I replied in what seemed at that moment, like the Scots I had learned from my father, one of my native tongues: ‘La rivière qui entoure presque notre maison sera bientôt plus large que la Manche.’
The oddest detail in that wakening to a state of national hallucination was the map on the computer screen which showed how each area had voted. All of Scotland was neatly severed along the border from the rest of Great Britain. In the regions of Scotland which are contiguous with England, 55.8% had voted to remain in the European Union; on the English side of the border, in Cumbria, 60.1% had voted to leave. I was on the point of completing a book – this book – in which the cross-border community was said to have overridden national differences and administrative divisions. Yet here was proof of the contrary. On a matter of historic importance, the two sides faced in opposite directions.
This seemed especially odd in an area which is heavily dependent on agricultural and other subsidies from Europe. At a recent local meeting, farmers – those who were working rather than retired – had been strongly in favour of remaining in Europe, but the meeting as a whole had been divided.
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The chasm was as unreal as the fantasies of opportunist politicians who had lied about the workings and purposes of the European Union. Scottish voters had been sensitized to the benefits of European membership by the campaign for Scottish independence. On the English side, there was confusion and ignorance. The areas which had most to lose from leaving Europe and which had the lowest ‘educational attainment’ were the areas which voted most heavily to leave.
Lack of higher qualifications is not always seen as a serious disadvantage in Cumbria. Local newspapers publish articles in praise of young people who have decided to stay at home instead of going away to university. This appeared to have played a role in the Cumbrian vote. There was not much evidence of the xenophobia which was said to have inspired some voters in the south. In Carlisle and elsewhere, I had talked to people who had a sincere desire to learn the truth and to form a clear opinion but little idea of how to go about acquiring the necessary knowledge. One young woman explained, a week after the referendum, that, to her regret, she had not cast a vote because she had been unable to discover any solid facts that might have helped her to make up her mind. Information seemed to her a rare commodity to which only certain people had access.
In the absence of information, they had relied on their families, favouring especially the views of grandparents, who claimed to remember some powerful infancy of the nation when Britain had been ‘great’ and had ‘stood on its own two feet’. But the respected wisdom of the elders was an exact regurgitation of slogans. The descendants of reivers had been told a fairy tale of men in suits who lived in a distant city, imposing the laws of another land and plotting the downfall of the little people. And so, setting out on a new adventure, and ready to suffer the economic consequences, they boldly voted for what might destroy them and their community. Meanwhile, that administrative fiction the border, which for so long had been an irrelevance to the people of the borderlands, was hardening into a political reality.
For the rest of that month, it rained, sometimes quite heavily, and by the time I completed this book a few days later, I knew that, once the river was calm again and falling, the shingle beach and the flower-covered banks would be quite transformed.