A race against my soggy straw

I was in Chelmsford city centre after a council meeting with quite a wait for the next bus back to South Woodham Ferrers and a little thought popped in my head: I have time for a chocolate milkshake. As I went through the door of the restaurant, I wondered why they haven’t got room to keep the sacks of potatoes out the back, and yet I was weirdly interested to learn what farm had grown them. While drinking my chocolate milkshake and pondering how fast the world can change with the news that America will now join Iran, Yemen and Libya as the only countries outside the Paris climate agreement, I remembered that I was drinking through a paper straw and thought ‘yes, this is a blow, but if I don’t hurry up drinking, this straw is going to go soggy’.

“A Complete Unknown”

I had a good night out at the cinema and I told you before that my wife Jill said we don’t just have to watch films about World War II, yet a while back she did come and watch Steve McQueen’s brilliant film Blitz that tells the story of living in the East End of London and how to live during extraordinary times. I cried all the way through, as to me this is our story and it is the first time I have seen it told like this, showing regular East Enders living through war whilst in their own homes.

So, when I had the chance to see “A Complete Unknown” it was not that it was about Bob Dylan, but that it was set in 1960s America in extraordinary times (and Jill could not say it was World War II). I am not quite sure why, but I have been spending some time in 1960s America during the Vietnam War protests. I loved the film, and it gave me hope for the future. The film is about the launch and first few years of Bob Dylan’s music career. After the film, of course I went on a big deep dive into Joan Baez and Pete Seeger – characters from the film I had never heard about before. Now, I think the film should be called Joan Baez & Pete Seeger Help to Launch a Complete Unknown, but this is a bit long and if you don’t know who they are it does not really work.

Pete Seeger and Joan Baez are activists and musicians who, through folk music campaigned for social change, and you find them often with their music involved with so many just causes. The famous Washington March where Dr Martin Luther King Jr gave his “I have a Dream” speech had performances from Bob Dylan singing “Only a pawn in their game” and Joan Baez who sang “We shall overcome”, to which Pete Seeger added new lines and helped to teach many Americans to sing. I have been left feeling that when faced with injustice, songs from this time could be updated with new lines and sung for new causes. I felt reluctant to make this point as I thought I would be accused of drawing parallels with today or that it would be thought I was saying this issue today is equivalent and equal to the wrongs of this issue from the past; this is not what I am saying. History does not repeat itself but sometimes it rhymes and finding the parts that do and don’t rhyme gives a deeper understanding – we should learn about the past before borrowing their songs for the present or near future.

Plastic ain’t back in Chelmsford baby 

Getting back to my chocolate milkshake and the paper drinking straw, a previous UK government banned plastic straws, stirrers and cotton buds all the way back on 1 October 2020, and this was extended to a range of single use plastics in 2024. I just watched the most horrible video linked to from a news article, of a sea turtle having a plastic drinking straw removed from its nose; it was so upsetting and horrible it would not be right to share this with you. In the USA they are going back to plastic straws and government agencies are to stop buying paper straws. If anyone wants to bring single-use plastic back, I can tell you I will take my paper straw and hold it down low, so it does not bend and draw a line in the sand.

Plastic ain’t back in Chelmsford city baby and if this is challenged, I am happy to start singing “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around” with a few new lines added. As Joan Baez said “My dictum is little victories, and big defeats. Every little victory becomes even more important in the face of what we’re facing.” Love your Chelmsford does much work bringing about change and Chelmsford residents care about where we live and want to make positive action to respect nature.

I don’t want plastic getting into one of our five rivers, eventually finding its way out to sea. When I see people using reusable drinking straws or taking their own reusable coffee cup into the coffee shop it just shows me people care. I have to be honest and say I am not doing this yet, but it took me a while to take a metal drinking bottle and that now seems normal. Love your Chelmsford is going to take a picture of me using a metal straw and I asked if I can keep it and try harder to remember to take it with me. I also wangled some for the first five readers of this blog to ask for a free straw. Email lyc@chelmsford.gov.uk if you want to take me up on this offer.

Plastics – Love Your Chelmsford

Check out a few YouTube videos bellow including Joan Baez singing O Freedom & Turn Me Around.

 

Cllr Terry Sherlock

 

O Freedom & Turn Me Around – Song by Joan Baez
https://youtu.be/Le-72HRvblM

If you want to check out some more links, see below. 

The March On Washington: The Spirit Of The Day | MLK | TIME
https://youtu.be/5Q_I_2m5TbA

History of the song  “We Shall Overcome”
https://youtu.be/WXDU3n4HTTY