FraserWords

I WOULD like to talk to you of banjos, for the banjo is our chosen symbol for the week.

It’s an instrument that for years has been unloved, on the fringes, unregarded, nothing but a jazz percussion aid. Mark Twain, who said absolutely everything that Oscar Wilde didn’t, famously remarked: ‘A gentleman is a man who can play the banjo, but doesn’t.’ It became so beyond the mainstream that the fine singer songwriter Jackson Browne asked: ‘What is the least often heard sentence in the English language? That would be “Say, isn’t that the banjo player’s Porsche”?’

But I’ve always loved the banjo, always, from bluegrass to Take It Easy, from Bruce Springsteen’s Seeger Sessions to the great Pete Seeger himself and the banjo that ‘surrounds hate and forces it to surrender’.

For years now, this once unloved confection of wire and wood has been enjoying a renaissance, with the growing popularity of bluegrass music, the virtuosity of such as Bela Fleck and the populist oomph of Mumford and Sons.

What this has done is re-popularise the instrument, and this evening I have been enjoying, thanks to this place’s Chief Scout, Cornwall’s own The Changing Room and their very pretty CD Behind The Lace, graced by clever and subtle banjo.

So there, brothers and sisters, is our symbol for the day: you may be unloved, you may be out of favour, but one day, like a finely-plucked banjo, you’ll be top of the pops again.

I offer you such triteries because these are difficult times for us all, times that demand we choose symbols of good cheer and look for the encouragement of finding decency in the world.

Thank you, then, Ireland, for the life-affirming ‘yes’ vote to equal rites in marriage for all people, gay or straight. The simple joy of a youthful population saying that everybody should be treated the same was wonderful.

It was instructive, too, to see the opposition coming mainly from an older generation (and from the Catholic Church, of course), because one of the most startling statistics about our own general election came out last week.

An analysis of voting by age group showed that a majority of people in every age group up to 64 voted in favour of Labour (and other parties of the centre and left); the margins between decency and the filth of the right varied between 2 and 6 points; but the over 64s voted Tory or UKIP against decency by a massive margin of 47 to 32. Truly, it was those arch scroungers off the welfare state, the crusties, wot won it for the Tories. Ironic, eh?

But here is our banjo: that generation, stuck between the generation of 1945 who fought for the right to social justice and a modern world that believes in fairness and equality of opportunity, is on the way out. They can’t keep peddling their little Englander fears and prejudices for ever. I’m not sure they even have a musical instrument to stand as a symbol for their pettiness – the drone of the hurdy-gurdy? – but they will soon be drowned by te sound of a symbolic banjo.

More music

The Changing Room can be found on www.thechangingroommusic.com. Our dear Brother Fiddle can be found at www.tonyhazzard.com, which I mention because he has a rare gig coming up at the Plough Arts Centre, Torrington, on June 27, and you would be very foolish to miss it if you can get there. Fine music and great stories.