Blag Lady was at Buck Pal the other week as she was invited by the Poetry Society to teach a poetry workshop to 14 London schoolkids who were part of a project which had them respond to items in the royal collection. It was pro bono (no money) but as Blag Lady saw it this was a once in a lifetime oh-per-tunity, that could not and should not be missed. What an excitement!
As the day drew near the anticipation intensified to an ecstatic agony of what to wear-what to wear which pendulumed (??can I verb it???) from ‘could I really spend 400 quid on a Missoni in Harvey Nicks?’ (alas, no) to a frenzy of professional shopping in the more appropriately priced Joy in Brixton with Malika Buddy and her stylist Suzanne.
Suitably attired I arrived at the palace fifteen minutes early (a rarified event) and flashed my passport at the front gate. My name WAS on the list and I was going in. At the briefing Blag Lady drank her tea (without milk) from some rather fine bone china and stirred it with a silver spoon bearing the royal crest. We weren’t allowed to take in cameras or mobile phones in the post-squidgy-ate-my-tampon-hell’ era of course, so there are no verite pap shots of the majesterial loos…(big mistake I think I could have got away with it).
Around 200 kids, their teachers and around 30 poets took part. After our sessions on the art and craft of drafting and performance we adjourned to an auditorium with a stage, two thrones and a church organ. Three young poets read their work and Andrew Motion read a poem he had written when he was 20.
Then it was on with the important business: the canape reception, where we spent lunchtime (not) supping champagne (Moet) and nibbling smoked salmon squares laid on by Big Liz 2.0 (really rather little, pink tweed, diamond brooch, immaculate white hair) who focused intently on her subjects with a singularly glazed expression as she mingled her way through the state rooms which were wallpapered with Vermeers and Da Vincis. A lady in waiting carried the royal handbag behind her and we remembered that ‘ma’am rhymes with jam’.
I’m glad I saved my pennies on the credit card: it occured to me as we tried not to rubberneck and stare at HM that she was probably the only person in the room who was being paid. Then I thought, no that’s not quite correct. She was probably the most highly paid. Certainly I suspect her hourly rate clocked in at slightly more than the wages received by the childrens’ teachers, the arts admin professionals, the footmen, aristocrats, MI5/6 agents, the police at the palace gate and the plethora of serving staff who waved silver trays of tiny treats in front of our noses. The children of course could not be paid (‘palace in child sweat shop scandal’).
And thus it dawned on me, the ONLY adults that were not being paid that day were guess who? Yup, the poets. Well one poet got paid if you count those barrels of Canary wine the Poet Laureate gets every seventh Thursday in a leap year or whatever. Being a cash-strapped arts organisation the Poetry Society are in the clear… but seeing as the PALACE were running the whole show you’d think they could have stretched to a tad more than a few sous to cover train and tube travel. Some of those Old Masters knocking about are worth a bob or two. But no: even on a day specifically designed to PROMOTE poetry the poets didn’t see a sheckel.
Despite having long argued that the hoi polloi have nothing to gain from a Republic spearheaded by some wizened old hag who sold this country to the dogs or some such other has-been, my days as an impossibly paradoxical anarcho-royalist are over. From now on you can call me Comrade Blag.
