Message in a bottle

2 April 2020

Today’s first guest is Andrew Smith, who I taught at St Andrews more years ago than I care to recall. I would say that Andrew was the most intelligent student I ever taught, but that might go to his head. So, I’ll just say ‘one of the most intelligent’. An external examiner, after reading one of Andrew’s exams, said it was the best he’d read in his life. And he was OLD. He had, some years, before, read an exam written by Gordon Brown, so there you go. (Gordon and I, incidentally, were postgraduate students together at Edinburgh, sharing the same supervisor. I’ve always wondered what became of him.) Anywho, back to Andrew. I was so delighted when he offered me this piece, originally intended for his own blog.

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Andrew teaches at the University of Chichester and writes more generally on resistance, protest and identity in modern France. A Scottish emigre in London’s Korea-town, he lives with his wonderful wife Holly and his precious wee daughter Penny, both pictured here.

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The post comes in like a message in a bottle. Today we were delighted to receive a box of vegetables in one delivery, and in another some activity books for my daughter Penny and a long-awaited copy (for me, at least) of Alain Peyrefitte’s C’Etait De Gaulle (the plus-sized one-volume Gallimard edition from 2002, for anyone that’s keeping score). Michael, our South African postie, continues to do a sterling job, keen for our usual cheery (socially distanced) chat on his rounds. Today, we spoke about the article which I’d ordered that book to support, looking at the commemoration of D-Day in the 1950s. I’d ordered the book a few weeks ago from a second-hand bookshop in France, which must have been just before they went into lockdown. We in the UK followed their lead a fortnight later, and the duration of that book’s journey across borders tracked changing realities across Europe and the wider world. Don’t worry, I gave it a wipe down after it arrived.

Calendar reminders of cancelled events seem like

postcards from another world.

The rhythms and realities of continuing to ‘do history’ under the lockdown are starting to make a bit more sense to me. For our part, we’re a small family (2 adults, one toddler) living in suburban London. We’re all working remotely, my wife helping track the changing realities of employment law, while I pivot to online teaching (and maybe some writing at some point, perhaps?), and my daughter adapts to this odd new world. Today, we all had online meetings. My wife and I spoke to colleagues (as well as students for me), while my daughter had online sessions with her nursery school. If you’ve ever thought that faculty meetings are interesting ethnographic experiences, then seeing a gaggle of 3-year-olds use online meeting software is a real hoot!

Calendar reminders of cancelled events seem like postcards from another world. All that organization and all of those efforts are now up in smoke, though few would sensibly contest their cancellation. Priorities have changed too. My wife and I have been working flexibly to keep my daughter company, play with her, and try to do some educational content. That’s where the activity books have been a lifesaver (and my wife has discovered that audio books are also an excellent tip). It’s tough to find a lot of hours linked together, so jumping between activities usually allows us to get 2 hour stretches of concentration respectively. That gives me space to record lectures and conduct student meetings and allows my wife time to concentrate on updating guidance on complex new legislation for employers nationwide. That being said, we’ve had to be realistic about the fact that strict separation of time and attention isn’t necessarily possible, and my daughter has so far featured in online lectures, student meetings, and a whole host of online meetings. Her advice on research methods to our second-year students was a particular highlight.

… it’s the challenges that make us, and folk

have put up with far worse.

Flexibility and realism seem key to our continuing sanity in this difficult moment, as well as acknowledging where following routines can both help and hinder. I’m still chatting with the postie, but there’s definitely a new anticipation about it (for me), and he does now have to leave the post on the doorstep. We’ve got a wee schedule for my daughter as well, to try and bring some variety to her day. My own teaching now takes an ever-increasing time to deliver, and online meeting requests seem to spring up like mushrooms after the rain. Recently, we realized we can’t hold open days for prospective students, so I’ve been hard at work recording welcome videos for a sort of ‘virtual open day’ using a website as a window on our world. So, work continues, though oddly it seems busier than ever. I’ve also got some archival photos which I can work through as we move into summer (with a planned research trip long abandoned) and I know that finding the right combination to manage some writing will be a challenge. Still, it’s the challenges that make us, and folk have put up with far worse. 

Perhaps these new constraints will create some new leap forward in my life and work. Perhaps not. In the last section of Peyrefitte’s bumper book, he quotes the elderly De Gaulle saying “Pour moi, l’horizon est tout proche” (which translates as ‘for me, the horizon is at hand’, or ‘very close’ if you prefer a literal translation). For our wee family, our horizons stretch about as far as the front door for the moment. And yet, from a screen, I’ve spoken to friends in the US, Europe, the Middle East and beyond. And the postie, of course. If studying history has taught me anything, it’s that the horizon is a movable feast (like Easter, as Michael Gove should probably note). Our horizon is what we make it, marked by the daily rhythms of our lives and our aspirant dreams. Rhythms may change when life is demarcated by the doorstep, but dreams remain unbound. If the post, like messages in a bottle, can conjure up new worlds then I can certainly share my screen with a toddler and explore the new possibilities therein.