Angry battlers

I managed to stumble into the middle of one Bidwill family's argument. There had been trouble in the street that morning, the lingering aftershocks of a noisy gathering the night before. Don, injured at work, was living on sickness benefits. The husband of his daughter Sheryl had run off. She had lost the house they were purchasing and had come back to her father's home with her three-year-old son Kain. Kept awake by the party, Kain was in an unforgiving mood. Both of Don's sons were unemployed, and the eldest, Craig, had been arguing loudly in the street most of the morning. Primed for a fight, they battled to control the microphone attached to my tape recorder. Don and Sheryl made weary responses, while Kain struggled to get near enough to record Baa Baa Black Sheep onto the tape. Craig and brother Darren shouted invectives about politicians and bosses and said all such wankers should try living without a job for a few years and see how they liked it. Before joining a fresh eruption of neighbourhood conflict outside, Craig yelled into the microphone, ‘They should fucking come here and live like we fucking do before they fucking crap on about how easy things are’.

Anger also simmered beneath the surface of another conversation, a few streets away and a few nights later.