Perhaps each of us has a place, a town or city or even a village, that means more to us than anywhere we have lived, even our hometown. Darlington is one such place for me, that I am passing through on my way to Andy Davis’ two-day IAASF conference on heritage and museum security, in County Durham.
The last time I was in Darlington – in fact my longest stay there – was at the equivalent event in 2021. The first time was this time of year in 1989. I was a 21-year-old still fresh out of university and went for a trainee reporter’s job on the Northern Echo. Before the afternoon interview I spent the morning in the library doing a crash course in learning the north east from recent copies of the newspaper, reading about the local young and rising Labour MPs such a Tony Blair. Four years later I was in York working for the best editor I have met (so far), Dorothy Blundell, whose journalistic world – and her husband Stephen Brenkley’s (who has a new book out, A Striking Summer, about cricket and the 1926 General Strike) – had been formed by the Northern Echo. Not least indeed because they met there. That world outlook was intriguing not only because it was veiled to me. The Northern Echo like other north east (and other regions’) institutions had a confidence with a long history that they had a culture, economy and politics that could hold its own against London. On visiting in 2021 I could see that had been shattered. Indeed, Darlington had been part of the ‘red wall’ that fell in the 2019 election partly because enough of the electorate sensed and resented that loss, not least in their locality’s power to direct its own affairs. Investment decisions, for well-paid and meaningful jobs, seemingly ever more elusive; who could say where on the planet they were located?
Two comments, one personal, one of security management interest. One is summed up by the Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey’s idea of ‘the tyranny of distance’. In 1989 I thought nothing of seeking a job in Darlington or (within reason) anywhere in England, for a start in journalism. Another vaguely-felt difference between then and now is how – whether thanks to life being more digital and connected, or simply because we have more stuff to carry – it’s harder to re-locate. In working life, it can mean you live somewhere nice in the country and commute a couple of hours into the nearest city; while bearable, it takes its toll. If you’re a security officer or superviser or contract manager, you can’t mitigate that commuting distance by days working from home thanks to Teams and Zoom; you have to attend, or visit, sites, which implies you either need to live near your workplace or have reasonably-priced, reliable and frequent public transport or can afford your own car.
Whether because urban Britain is getting ever more crowded and its infrastructure ageing, or the country isn’t renewing itself economically as well as its rivals, one senses that conditions are becoming more difficult for more working people. In your private life, you’re living in Manchester and you meet a dishy bloke from London (or vice versa), the ‘tyranny of distance’ means that despite wonderful tech like mobile phones, Skype, WhatsApp and email, you can’t easily or sustainably have a relationship – indeed, the tech may only better communicate the ache that you cannot be together (have you seen the price of trains from Manchester to London?!). That throws light on how only the young, if only because they know no better, can up sticks, for lack of physical or mental baggage. That explains why Metropolitan Police DAC Jon Savell in a speech at the International Security Expo at London Olympia last month, like senior counter terror police for some years, remarked on how young some of those radicalized and at risk of extremism are.
Likewise the recent ‘national security threat update‘ by MI5 director general Ken McCullum, when he noted ‘far too many cases where very young people are being drawn into poisonous online extremism’. Because, we can say, only the young have the minds not yet set, whether for love or hatred.
Photo by Mark Rowe: Joseph Pease statue, Darlington town centre, summer 2021.
