The day we built the wall around Westminster

The day we built the wall around Westminster

The day we built the wall was an ordinary day.

The day we built the wall was a powered soup and a tin of beans kind of day.

An ordinary day, as days go.

Just another, ordinary day, in which people were sanctioned, went to the food banks, buried the suicidal teens,  the old, the no use, frozen and homeless dead.

It was 12 days before Christmas.   I had been standing in shopping for Christmas queues,  all day long, since about 8am actually.   The job centre queue, the DWP queue and then the food bank queue. Then the shopping queue. God knows why. I had no money. I was educated, owned my home and worked daily.  how can the workers be poor?

The first two queues were a waste of time.  The last queue? Not too bad actually, thank you for asking. 

In the food bank queue, I walked away with a carrier bag of pasta, butter, tin of beans, powdered soup, potatoes and a tin of custard.  I was quite chuffed actually. My children, at least, would not think me a complete waste of space this Christmas.

Anyway I digress.

The day we built the wall... I was walking along the city street with my carrier bag in my hand. Thinking about food  to feed my family and  general stuff like that.

I remember thinking about food and walking through the town and noticing  there was the usual hustle and bustle and chants  of the;  ‘buying’ classes.  who were chanting

: Here Here! ‘Buy this, buy that, buy booze, buy a burger! ’ .

 The same, ordinary, buying routine as usual.  Nothing unusual to report.

 In fact, the day we built the wall was as an usual day as you could imagine. For example, the homeless were begging, the refugees were pleading and children were hungry and eying up pound land candy. The threat of terrorism was in the news, on bus stop the posters and in our fear and people queued to buy and begged to eat. Yet I had a food bank bag so I was ok. 

Myself, why?   I was eying up and counting the contents of my food bank bag. Beans on Monday, powered soup on Tuesday, pasta on Wednesday, fried potatoes chips on Thursday and custard on Friday.  My own children would be fed!    It was on that custard Friday moment that I heard a tapping sound.   It was a faint tapping sound at first.  A bit like tap shoes practicing on the board walk. A sound like tap, taps, tap pity, and tap. 

Tap, tap pity tap.