Loving my country

The Brighton taxi driver who took us on the first leg of our journey to Malawi had a ponytail longer than Rapunzel’s. His face was even longer.
“To tell you the truth darling,” he said, when I asked him if he liked living in Brighton, “I grew up in this town and it ain’t what it used to be. I would love to live somewhere else.”
Twenty three years as a taxi driver, twenty two of them on the night shift, may have coloured his view of Britain’s best seaside city, but I got the impression it was the more than that.
The very thing that makes me love Brighton - the feeling that anything and everything goes is probably the same thing that made him weary of his native town.
He cheered up when he dropped at as the bus station for the coach to Heathrow.
“You off anywhere nice darling?” he asked.
“Africa,” I grinned.
“So I took you the first leg of a very long journey,” he said, apparently cheered up by his contribution to my trip. Either that or it was the 30 per cent tip I gave him.
I once said, only half jokingly, that if Scotland ever became independent, then I would move to Brighton.
Excuse me while I indulge in a little bit of personal politics here, but I love being British.
I am proud that we were the first country to develop a National Health Service, that we stood up the Nazis, that we have the best street fashion in the world, and that our small island produced such geniuses as Robert Burns, William Shakespeare and Lennon and McCartney.
I feel at home in Manchester, Stoke, the Lake District as well as Glasgow, Dundee and the Highlands.
I support Manchester United and Hibs.
I cheer for England when Scotland is not around, and 28 years ago I joined the Labour Party because I wanted to be part of a movement that had social and economic justice at the core of its being.
My husband says I am a closet Marxist because I insist that class is at the heart of all politics. I say I am simply someone who wants every child, regardless of their background, to grow up confident that they can be the best they can be – the best brickie, the best father, the best friend.
That is who I am, and I make no apologies for my beliefs.
I don’t believe that Scotland will vote for independence – so I may have to relinquish my dream of living on the Sussex coast, but I will do that cheerfully if it means I get to stay in the UK.