Traditional Gang

The human condition compels us to want to belong. We like to live in groups but those groups have to be special. For some bizarre reason humans have to exclude people in order to feel more connected with their group. I have always found group psychology fascinating Tajfel argued that a person’s whole social identity is based upon the groups they belong to. Obviously, as soon as people are excluded from a group and they form an opposite but nearly as  powerful group and conflict arises. Black/White, Male/female, Conservative/labour, Christian/Jew, Muslim/Christian, Leave/Remain.

For some people, these large groups are too big and too full of conflict and so smaller groups within them form. Little rules and traditions form that identify the group and allows the removal of those who aren’t sufficiently committed to the group.

During the last two weekends I observed some groups. It was heritage weekend and some of our wonderful historic buildings were open. I’m a bit of a self confessed history geek and love going in these buildings. I often feel as though I sit on the edge of most groups. I’m interested in all of them but never quite able to fully commit to any of them.

For the first time, the masonic hall was open. Masons have traditionally been very secret. It was part of their appeal: the secret handshakes, trouser rolling ceremonies and corrupt police members that could get you off almost any crime. To open their building seemed a very bold move. I suspect they are actually looking for new members as they seemed exceptionally interested in the Long Suffering Husband. The building is amazing. It’s like a tardis. You go in through the blue door to a traditional working men’s club bar, with a dining room and raffle tombola behind. We were taken upstairs into the secret inner sanctum, where there was so much to see and describe. We were shown chairs that  only the grand master was allowed to sit in and the aprons that the masons wear. I have seen masons  arriving at this building (and it seems to me that being terrible at parking is a membership requirement) carrying a box that I had always assumed was a glockenspiel. I am quite disappointed to find it only contains a white apron. I’m still shocked, a week later, that I had never realised that the masons was a Christian working men’s club of stone masons before. The apron, the block of stone in a lever, the pillars, the square and compasses are just tools of  the trade.  The men showing us around were very proud of their club. They talked of their traditions, especially how complicated and difficult everything was to understand. I behaved myself and didn’t say that the adornments to their  apron, when they got to the next level looked like blue nipples. I did ask if they had to get their mum to sew them on, like when you are in the Brownies. The grand chamber, set up like a court room, was
 very plush. There was a carpet for playing chess on and a big green G in the ceiling, to represent God. The man showing us round was very keen to tell us how wonderful it was to be a grand master, so that he could bang his gavel and everyone would listen to him. Apparently, no one listens to him at home. There was an organ in the corner, that they can’t get anyone to play but they still sing hymns.  

I went away thinking about tradition and our need to belong and feeling as though I’d just glimpsed another group I could never be part of.

In the week my son had his friends round before he went back to university and I overheard one of them say, “But Michael, tradition  is just peer pressure by dead people.”  Very profound, I thought. It’s probably not original but I’d not heard it before.

This weekend was the regatta and I watched as other groups played the belonging game. Boaty people have always seemed to be part of a group that I, as someone who is sick on a canal barge, can never belong to.  There were music groups performing on the quayside. I can belong to music groups but there are so many. If we all got together we could be powerful. We already have our own language.

One of the groups were the Morris dancers. When I was growing up, our neighbour was a Morris man. He wore all white and had sets of bells he tied to his legs. It was like a grown ups version of country dancing, for men only. Yesterday, I saw a different kind of group. Instead of wearing the pristine white they were dressed in rags and had blacked their faces. I was quite shocked. Especially after the flack the Canadian PM has had for blackening his face for a fancy dress party. There is a history of face blackening that has been racist and so now it is generally agreed that it’s best not to do it. Some of the Morris dancers had gone for half red half black, like some deformed ladybird. I wondered why they still did this. My daughter said that they would argue that it’s tradition. I read a few articles where people said that it was just a disguise and that it pre-dates black people in this country and so can’t be racist. For me, it’s a reason I can’t be part of this group either. I just think it’s unnecessary, doesn’t work as a disguise and would be difficult to wash off.

I did accidentally start a club of my own. After my successful EMDR treatment I took a few people out for dinner who had looked out for me when I was really bonkers. I declared that I was now going to sparkle and insisted that people wore something sparkly to celebrate. The sparkle club was born that evening. It will probably fizzle out but if it continues and grows and we get new younger members who continue to sparkle even when I’m dead they can all sit around the table eating nice food in their glittery tops wondering why they can’t wear a plain pair of jeans and jumper and I will be the dead person performing the peer pressure when someone says, “It’s tradition.”