by Diana Lovell-Pank
As soon as the referendum result was announced, I put a flag pole outside my house at the end of Aldeburgh High Street. The bunting followed, from the garden wall to the first floor windows.
Last year I received a mailed (second-class) anonymous letter, telling me that when we left the EU, there would be ‘education classes’ for people like me who fly ‘God forbid, a foreign flag’.
Since the flag’s presence, I have received constant verbal abuse abuse from passers by. A cyclist, a motorist (he had a ‘love Trump’ sticker on the back of his car) and a pedestrian who kept coming back to continue the barrage saying mindless stuff like ‘and I hate the f*****g French even more than all those other foreigners.’
No one has been prepared to stop and have a discussion.
When I returned from the London march on March 23rd, I put a Suffolk EU Alliance banner (found on the bus) on my garden fence: ‘PUTIN BACKS LEAVE, WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?’.
On the night of Friday 26th April, it was vandalised.
‘EU NAZI’ written across it in pink (!) spray paint.
I have been grateful to all those who have come to the door and express solidarity. It is significant that many passers by say ‘like your flag’ then adding ‘you’re very brave’.
It is devastating that we have come to this.
Brave to fly the flag of my choice in a democracy? Civil war without, as yet, weapons.
It is also terrible for the Brexiteers who voted in what they thought was good faith, now to be labelled fascists and racists.
So many of them aren’t.
Several have stopped to comment on the graffiti saying ‘We didn’t sign up to this’. They sided with fascists and liars. What did they expect?
None of us knows what the future will hold.
Either way, the Britain that we have known and enjoyed since we entered the Common Market will have gone forever. The social fissure that has been exposed will never be be healed in our lifetime or, indeed, the lifetimes of our grandchildren.
One thought on “Whose Side Are You On?”
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Remember us? The family (grandparents, parents, children) who stopped outside because of the flag, and took a photo of us by it? You found us 2 x free parking spaces! We are so sorry for the awful ‘reward’ you have received for your courage in displaying the flag. We wonder whether the utter polarisation of the population as a result of that miserable referendum will ever be reversed. The ignorance and complete misconceptions revealed by some of the Brexiteers beggars belief; all it offers is a sea of toxic emotions which were once, at least, kept submerged. Please remember that there are many of us who are with you in spirit.