Free The Year of the Ladybird by Graham Joyce Page B

about how we should support Welsh nationalists’
campaign of burning holiday homes. I said I’d look out for it and he gave me a wink. Colin had disappeared and something was about to start so I quickly took a seat.
    Of course I was furious with myself for being so naive. If someone suggests you follow them your initial question should be:
where to
? You don’t just go along with the first person
who charms you into following them. Or do you? I think that’s what I’d done pretty much all my life. I still think that it’s what most people do, whether we are talking about
social activities, or about politics, or about falling in love.
    After a short delay in proceedings, the two men whose hands I had just shaken in the car park took their places on the platform. I noticed one chair remained empty. Then a familiar figure leapt
onto the stage.
    It was Tony from the holiday camp. Just like Colin, he’d found a suit and tie for the event. He blew into a microphone to check it was working and then launched into a relaxed welcoming
speech, saying how good it was to see so many old friends and so many new faces, too. He came down from the stage and strolled about the place, smiling, winking and shaking hands with one or two
people on the front row without breaking his patter. Then he effortlessly segued into a few Paki jokes.
    They were new jokes and he was very funny. He easily drew laughs from the audience and I found it impossible not to laugh with them. A very edgy joke about the Jews followed and that went down
very well, too. At some point a third man arrived and without fuss took his place on the platform. I assumed this to be the man they’d referred to as Carter.
    Tony threw in another Paki gag about an Indian family eating dog-food and while the audience were howling he handed the microphone back to Norman Prosser. Prosser got to his feet and thanked
Tony not only for his ‘wonderful humour’ but also for his lifelong commitment and dedication to the serious business for which we were all assembled. And, he pointed out, while we can
all laugh, and that it’s good to laugh, the things that were happening to the country were no laughing matter. The Reds and the Jews and the Immigrants were hand in glove – and on this
phrase he paused and looked searchingly round the audience –
hand in glove
, presiding over the demise of a once great nation and the government were like the Emperor Nero, fiddling
while Rome burns. Well that’s all coming to an end, he said, the party was growing and change was coming. There was evidence of all sorts of new people coming forward, workers, school
teachers, people from industry and students. In this latter category I knew with absolute certainty that I was his evidence. I even felt a few eyes flicker in my direction. Prosser went on to say
that we were fortunate today in being able to welcome Harold Carter to the meeting who will outline for us the Way Forward.
    Prosser handed Carter the microphone and Carter got to his feet, taking some early applause from the floor. He was a tall, slightly stooped man with thinning sandy-coloured hair. In a cut-glass
accent he told us that the people of the country were awakening. Evidence of this was to be seen in the numbers of votes the party had received in the last election and the number of deposits that
were not lost in that election. Furthermore, he told us, memberships of the party had increased by several thousand in the last two years alone. Awakening, he said ominously. The people are
awakening and beginning to arise.
    This last bit of rhetoric not only got enormous applause but it got a standing ovation. It also pulled me to my feet. Not because I thought that what he was saying was either brilliant or even
convincing but my sense of self-preservation was working overtime. Perhaps I’m a coward. It’s possible. But I’m not stupid. This wasn’t a rational position to be in. To have
resisted the mob in this