I keep reading and hearing in the local media that St Marks Road in Easton is one of the finest streets in the country. Apparently, it has been shortlisted in the “prestigious” 2020 Urbanism Awards, which, according to the B24/7 website, is organised by the Academy of Urbanism and aims to “celebrate and learn from great placemaking.” In my village, we talk of little else, even though I have no idea what placemaking is.
The only time I ever visit St Marks Road is to visit the Bristol Sweet Mart, unquestionably a world class world food store. Set up by Ugandan Asians when they were kicked out of Uganda by Idi Amin, people come from miles around to visit. There’s a cafe there called Thali and a pharmacists. Oddly enough, there are cafes and pharmacists on other high streets in Bristol but for some reason they don’t gain as much favourable coverage in the media.
The local media is today gushing about tonight’s Grand Iftar, where Muslims will break bread at the end of Ramadan. Well, good for Muslims. As a secularist and atheist, I am more than happy for anyone to celebrate their religious superstitions. Thousands are turning up to celebrate. I might even raise a glass to you at home or in the pub. Live and let live, and all that. But does this really make St Marks Road the greatest street in Britain?
I suppose it’s a matter of opinion. I grew up near Sandy Park Road in Brislington and although there’s no branch of the Sweet Mart, there is a cafe and a pharmacist. In my opinion, Sandy Park is one of the greatest streets in the country, probably because it’s my old stomping ground. I certainly don’t think it’s any worse than St Marks Road.
Perhaps, there’s a bit of bandwagoning going on. It seems to me that the love-in comes from the middle class media types who like to pretend that our society is happy and united and that all we need to do is visit a great food shop or go to the local cafe and our societal problems will all go away. It is not a world I recognise.
I still see enormous cultural differences. Animals being cruelly killed in the name of religion, children attending proselytising religious schools and generally very little by way of integration.
The Sweet Mart, the Thali cafe and of course the long established pharmacists are certainly much loved in Easton and I suppose the wider, not necessarily Muslim, celebrations of the end of Ramadan are more encouraging than the broken Britain in which we live. Yet when I walk or drive through St Marks Road, I don’t find myself thinking, “Wow, what a truly wonderful world class place this is.” That the media is trying to persuade me otherwise don’t, as Shania Twain might have put it, impress me much.
I’ll fetch my tin hat.
