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"The word ‘suburbia’ sort of evokes a very fixed idea of a place that is identikit, that all suburbs are the same, that within the suburb everything is the same, that all people are the same, all experiences are the same," says social historian and author John Grindrod, "I think it has this kind of flattening-out facility, that word, that isn't true."
Content note: this episode contains one category B swear. And reference to Margaret Thatcher.
EXTRA MATERIALS:
Can’t be discussing suburbia and gayness without mentioning the Pet Shop Boys - here’s an article by John about that!
Joint graves for queer couples of yore, including Edward Carpenter and George Merrill’s.
The name of the Arts and Crafts movement was coined by Thomas Cobden-Sanderson, about whom I wrote Souvenirs.
Read John Burnett’s A Social History of Housing 1815-1985 that John quotes.
Read the William Cowper poem ‘Retirement’ that John quotes.
“Garden cities were not merely progressive designs for healthier community planning: they were the result of middle class, Anglo-European attempts to civilize the urban working class by resettling them in towns that symbolised the ideal bourgeois built environment.”
I need to reread Lynsey Hanley’s book Estates.
“‘The right to buy’: it was a clever slogan, clear, quick to say, easy to remember, and combining two of modern Britain’s favourite preoccupations, personal freedom and purchasing, while also encapsulating the more seductive side of what the Thatcher government was offering the country. Her use of the word “house” in the broadcast, when millions of council tenants actually lived in flats, was also significant. It gave the policy an aspirational flavour: reassuringly suburban rather than proletarian and urban.”
“Public money was spent on building those homes; public money was lost through giving them away cheap; and public money is now funnelled in housing benefit to the landlords who let them out.”
“The domestic garden increasingly came to function as the battleground upon which competing notions of taste and class were played out and contested, absorbing the tenants of both Estates into complex hierarchies of class and social standing in the process.”
Considering the suburbs made me think about the conversation in The Bell Jar between the protagonist Esther and her uninspiring boyfriend about how she didn’t want to settle in either the city or the country and he a) deems her neurotic and b) suggests she lives halfway between and visit both sometimes, which is not a solution she is satisfied with.
Support the show at theallusionist.org/donate and as well as keeping this independent podcast going, you also get behind-the-scenes glimpses about every episode, fortnightly livestreams with me and my dictionaries, and the Allusioverse Discord community where we hang out, exchange crafting tips and portmantNOs, and watch stuff together like the very good film of the book Maurice mentioned in this episode.
YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
bagasse, noun: the dry pulpy residue left after the extraction of juice from sugar cane.
Origin 19th century: from French, from Spanish 'bagazo' meaning 'pulp'
CREDITS:
John Grindrod is a social historian and author of books about places and the people. His marvellous new book is Tales of the Suburbs: LGBTQ+ Lives Behind Net Curtains; and he hosts the podcast Monstrosities Mon Amour, which celebrates places and things that have been unfairly maligned. Find John and his work at johngrindrod.co.uk
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, on the unceded ancestral and traditional territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch.
Find the Allusionist at youtube.com/allusionistshow, instagram.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, @allusionistshow.bsky.social… Essentially: if I’m there, I’m there as @allusionistshow.
Back in two weeks with a new episode - HZ.
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