Raze the colours, the kids are alright

From where I’m sat in my cold and drafty room in an upstairs flat in the western boondocks of Leeds, my peripheral vision is almost entirely consumed by flags. Proudly displayed in the upper corner of my eye are the three stylised chain-links of the Black Country, stark against their well-meaning but somewhat fascist-coded background of white, black, and red. I’m sure at least one of those stands for battered chips in lieu of racial purity. It’s the pride and joy of my Walsall native housemate, whose daily meanderings are replete equally with complaints and praise for (in his words) the post-industrial hinterland between Stafford and Birmingham. 

In the corner, straddling the awkward space where no furniture quite fits, is the striking tricolour of the Spanish Republic. Its royal purple grossly misrepresents what the short-lived nation stood for, and its position gives the living room the flair of a Hemingwayan flophouse. It would make drinking wine in the daytime feel more romantic, should I ever spiral beyond the Earl Grey that’s getting cold on the coffee table. 

Flags, by definition, mean something more than the colours and figures which immediately meet the eye. Beyond the nation states and cultural regions which they represent, colours arranged in a particular order recall the values, sights, sounds, and smells of whichever corner of the world put them together. However, despite my aesthetic appreciation of flags of all kinds, my walls are noticeably free of any representation of the land of my birth. 

In case any readers have been living under a rock, the union flag and cross of St George have been somewhat controversial recently. This is perhaps the best explanation for why my extensive collection of both flags is stashed in the same place in my parents’ house where I kept my weed when I was 16. The battered duffel bag they’re kept in has the same ominous aura of criminality, and the amorphous bundle of red, white, and blue feels just as shameful to be in my possession. 

The ragged edges of the red crosses and white saltires are testament to the fact that they did not come into my hands through traditional means. As part of the death throes of my adolescent idealism, I spent a white-knuckled evening over the summer clinging onto the overhead handles of my friend’s Vauxhall Corsa as she rounded the hairpin bends of East Surrey’s cul-de-sacs pursuing reports that a series of flags had been hung on lampposts around a hotel believed to be housing recently arrived refugees. Despite having quit gymnastics when she was 14, the way she shimmied up the lampposts put my frantic jumping and grabbing to shame, and by midnight we had accumulated enough spoils of war to furnish a jubilee street party. 

Now, having rejoined mainstream society, I am faced with a conundrum. A bundle of symbols with nothing to symbolise is a big bag of nothing at all. Despite no longer serving to intimidate anyone, they remind me of a happily misspent youth now passed, and that makes the daily barrage of emails and Teams meetings that little bit more difficult to bear. 

My eyes drift to the scenes unfolding beyond my dusty windowpane. A group of local kids have worked out that the mattress shop is closing and are staging homemade WWE matches on the filthy bedding that has gone unsold. How I relate to the feeling of having nothing but time, nothing to fill it with, and the nagging ache of purposelessness when you feel that the word should be yours for the taking.

So, take this as a disclaimer. If you see a grotty first floor student flat that looks ready to host a Reform rally, fear not. The flags are there to inspire the true heart of this country, which doesn’t lie in the institutions of its state or the delirious pining for a non-existent halcyon past. The gobbiness and audacity of our children is perhaps one of the only areas in which the UK still excels, so a jagged old flag being torn by shaking cold hands into sinews and rags can’t possibly be a bad thing. Anyways, I highly doubt they were going to grow up to be shipbuilders.

Words by Will Garrood