Council Estate Theology

I’d like to offer you a snap-shot; a wordy tableau if you will, of a memory that still lives in my head. Picture this:

A residential street in the summer time. The day is winding down but it’s Northern England so it’s still full light. There’s a rag-bag of assorted children, some with shoes on, some without. Some with jagged home haircuts, some with skinheads, and there’s some definite mullet action too (it’s the 1980s after all.) 

 

There’s a battered ball being kicked against someone’s front gates, and a few kids are riding about on a chipped old BMX; one kid doggedly pedalling away, one standing on the back wheel and one sat on the cross-bar – or “having a croggy” to use local parlance. People are leaning on their gates, chatting with their neighbours and smoking fags. Occasionally, someone raises their voice to scold a kid. Maybe the BMX wobbled into someone’s front hedge, or the ball hit someone’s window. 

 

There’s no cars here. There’s a couple parked further down the street, where there’s three garages coated in half-hearted graffiti and chipped brown paint; the same colour that the council used to paint all the front gates and the front doors. They’re all chipped too.  One of the cars has no front wheels and the other is a beaten up Nissan Cherry that belongs to a mechanic. He keeps a watchful eye on it ever since the local kids let his tyres down. 

 

Everyone is in their front gardens. Old people with saggy wooden chairs taken from the kitchen table, sit having a brew and a gossip with each other, feet clad in fluffy slippers. They sit companionably together and watch the kids play, whilst sharing a packet of Nice biscuits and maybe some custard creams. Someone is playing a tape of The Police on a portable ghetto blaster. 

 

Kids suck on cheap, yard long ice-pops that someone has handed out from their freezer, and toddlers wander around in nappies whilst munching on dummies. There’s a dog chasing the kids on the BMX; no lead, no collar, probably no owner. The kids whoop with mock terror and the dog barks. Maybe it’s this dog who’s responsible for all the white dog muck that’s to be found behind the substation. 

 

Talking of the substation: there’s no kids up there today (too many grown-ups are about) but they can often be found on top of it, much to the horror of the old man who lives opposite. He guards the substation jealously as if it belongs to him, and he polices the kids who take pleasure in thwarting him by climbing up on there regardless. 

“If my wife sees you fall off she’ll have a heart attack!” He yells, brandishing his walking stick. 

“Fuck off!” The kids yell back. 

 

The sun is finally going down now, and everyone is drifting back home. One mum stands at her front gate every evening and shouts “Mickey! Get in here now!” at the top of her lungs, again and again at five minute intervals, until Mickey finally comes home. He gets an audible clout on the back of the head every night as a reward for his tardiness. No one bats an eye, especially not Mickey. 

 

The ball is retrieved and is wearily bounced home. Someone is walking the BMX back up the street, all out of energy to ride anymore. Chairs are taken back inside, toddlers are recaptured, doors are finally shut. The dog still barks. 

 

We go into our house, my brother and me. It’s exactly the same as everyone else’s house because good and solid council houses may be, but imaginatively designed they are not. It’s Sunday, so we’ll probably have a bath, then we’ll eat tinned salmon sandwiches and a Lyons Victoria sponge for tea, whilst watching Bullseye on the telly. Dad goes to the pub on Sundays to play pool (dominoes on Mondays and Tuesdays) so we spend the evening just with mum. 

 

Half way through Jim revealing what they could have won, the electricity runs out, causing the picture on the television to implode like a supernova, leaving only a tiny dot of light visible, like a fading neutron star. I’m sent round the neighbour’s to ask for 50p for the meter, as the jar is empty. By the time I come back with it, Bullseye has finished and it’s time for bed. 

 

I’ve got the tiny box room all to myself; lots of the kids round are way have to share. I climb up into my cabin bed and settle down to sleep. Through the thin curtains by my head, the summer sun finally disappears behind the red tiled rooftops of the houses opposite and night descends as if someone has shaken out a soft, dark blanket over the street. 

 

Sunday came and went with no visit to a place of worship, no liturgy intoned over us, no hymns or prayers, no wafers or wine. But there was communion of purpose, shared resources amongst us and fellowship between us, and in a thousand holy and wonderful ways, God was amongst us. We didn’t have much, but we had church.