Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. Or so claimed Winston Churchill. Old ‘Chuggalugs’ Churchill might have thought he was qualified to speak from experience but I’ll politely disagree. I love the way that we, as a nation, go about the whole business; from the sausage sizzle right down to the ‘People’s forums’ in which impartial and undecided voters are shoved into a room to ask thoughtful, insightful questions whilst a twitter feed from blatantly partisan observers with tag names such as ‘Gransterman’, ‘The Nooger Man’ and the terrifyingly named ‘Thundernuts’, are broadcast below.
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. Or so claimed Winston Churchill. Old ‘Chuggalugs’ Churchill might have thought he was qualified to speak from experience but I’ll politely disagree. I love the way that we, as a nation, go about the whole business; from the sausage sizzle right down to the ‘People’s forums’ in which impartial and undecided voters are shoved into a room to ask thoughtful, insightful questions whilst a twitter feed from blatantly partisan observers with tag names such as ‘Gransterman’, ‘The Nooger Man’ and the terrifyingly named ‘Thundernuts’, are broadcast below.
Democracy throws in to sharp focus the best and worst of all we have to offer. When else are we going to hear about the ‘suppository of human knowledge’ or learn that not everyone likes getting their make-up done? So to all the candidates who summoned up the courage to throw their hat – whether bowler, hard or one of those with a cup holder, straw and the words ‘foam dome’ scrawled across the front – into the ring, I salute you. For I know all too well how it feels to lay yourself bare under the democratic spotlight.
Tyabb Primary School decided to introduce a ‘house system’. Despite what the name suggests, it did not mean we were suddenly allowed to study indoors. Rather, that students would be broken up pretty much randomly into four groups. Sadly, the four ‘houses’ were named after colours; blue, gold and two others I can’t presently remember but for the sake of convenience I’ll refer to as ‘magenta’ and ‘antique white’. I’d though it ridiculous, suggesting instead that the houses be named after either the four horsemen of the Apocalypse or members of the Beatles.
We went church every Sunday and, even at a young age, I took the four horsemen extremely seriously. I would sit in the pew in terrified awe as the Minister gave a sermon on the book of Revelations and how the horsemen – Pestilence, War, Famine and Trevor, would one day sweep down on an unsuspecting earth. Such was my devotion that I even had a number of their albums. To this day, I’ll occasionally slip a copy of ‘Frankie Valli and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ onto the hi-fi as I do the housework. My other great passion was the Beatles. Sure, they’d broken up years earlier, but I’d become obsessed with a cassette entitled ‘The Beatles Ballads’ which my father got free with a Time-Life magazine subscription. When my family got sick of ‘the Apocalypse’, we listened to the Beatles. You can’t tell me that being a member of either ‘Pestilence’ or ‘Ringo’ House wouldn’t have been wonderful, but the idea was rejected at a hastily convened staff room meeting.
To avoid conflict, family members were lumped together; so all five members of the McCullough family were assigned to ‘Gold’ house. This, presumably, was based on the principle that ‘a house divided cannot stand’. But being in a house was not enough – the school demanded that there be ‘house captains’. We’d never had ‘house captains’ before and I had no idea what powers ‘house captains’ might wield. Would they be able to marry people at sea? Or, if not, at least be entitled to wear a blue blazer, white cap and stare off into the distance? Whether wearing a hat can fairly be described as ‘the trappings of power’ is a matter for debate, but I was enthralled. However being somewhat shy, I never for a moment dreamed that I could aspire the exalted rank of house captain.
The odds of winning a popular vote were stacked against me. For starters, at that time I had Ringo Starr’s haircut circa June 1964, only blonde. I wasn’t especially popular with other kids either, with my dominance of spelling bees serving to alienate me from my peers. However, Tyabb Primary School was pretty small then and once the pupils were divided into four houses, the groups only had about thirty or so kids in them. When a call for volunteers failed, the bony finger of both fate and Ms Hocking was aimed squarely in my direction.
Caught off guard, I instantly assembled my pitch for election. I would, obviously, change our name to Pestilence House. And I’d make sure that kids everywhere had the right to demand a Beatle-bowlcut. Although these were obviously wonderful policies, there was another factor at play – nepotism. In a group of thirty, I had two brothers and two sisters. Surely, this would be enough to swing the vote squarely in my direction? Or it would be, if I could count on their votes being cast in my favour. Looking around the room, I couldn’t help but notice that my siblings were studiously avoiding eye contact. I had no idea what was going on. If only the thoughts of ‘Gransterman’ and ‘Thundernuts’ had crawled in front of me. In those days, we didn’t go in for secret ballots; a simple show of hands was enough. As palms reached skywards at the sound of my name, my brothers and sisters remained unmoved. I won, but my term in office was riddled with controversy after I attempted to abolish lunch orders. I may have won the election, but I lost the war. My siblings, I suspect, knew better than I did. They at least, if not the people, had spoken.