The
dawn of the modern era saw writers such as Evelyn Waugh, Stella
Gibbons, Arthur Ransome and P.G Wodehouse, amongst others, indulging
in pre-emptive literary nostalgia, as though they had already
perceived the shadow of future war and wanted to write in a way that
would define the 1930s as a British golden age. Even Malcolm
Durbrayn, the only writer from Southampton that anyone has ever heard
of (who, as a lifelong fan of Oscar Wilde, was famous for approaching
customs officials at the ferry port and announcing, “I have nothing
to declare but the five bottles of gin in my luggage”), realised
that events occurring in Europe throughout the Thirties weren't
helping to found the securest future. His first and only novel, a
rural idyll concerning witty, cider-fuelled yeomen and monocled,
champagne-addled aristocracy, was not particularly successful when
published in 1934, mostly due its title; but Durbrayn felt sure that
he would be vindicated by history when he decided to call the book
Enjoy
The Prosperity And Gentle Social Intrigue While It Lasts Because
We’re In For Six Years Of Slaughter and Atrocity Quite Soon.
The
philosophical community, however, was not so prescient. In 1936 the
Southampton-born philosopher, Stanley Gizzard, famous at the time for
attempting (and failing) to reconcile Socrates’ Theory of Forms
with Mr Kipling’s Lattice-Pastry Matrix, convened a philosophical
summit called The Meeting Of Celtic Minds, inviting Bertrand Russell
of Wales, Ayers Dottle of Scotland, and Plat O’Chips from Ireland,
to represent their peoples in a week-long discussion of Man’s
near-future. Despite wide media coverage of the European rise of
Fascism, international trends towards aggressive expansionism, and
recent events like the Reichstag Fire Decree, the Night of the Long
Knives, and the Catholic Church’s support for Franco in the Spanish
Civil War, Stanley Gizzard viewed the next couple of decades
optimistically, considering this to be the perfect time to initiate
The Modern Age of Reason, Happiness, and Emancipation from the
Tyranny of Deities and Dictators.
The
philosophers’ first step toward this goal was to consider the
experimental refounding of Southampton as a city free of religion and
hypocritical moral dogma. Social taboos with roots in religious
doctrine were to be overturned in favour of libertarian freedom.
Fresh from founding the philosophical Beacon Hill School, Bertrand
Russell suggested a less negative view of people who worked on
Sundays. Stanley Gizzard suggested legalising homosexuality. Plat
O’Chips encouraged a less judgemental view of masturbation. Stanley
Gizzard then added that he thought incest should be legal too. Ayers
Dottle expressed an interest in seeing people feel less guilty about
the use of contraception, and then Stanley Gizzard wondered aloud
whether the public acceptance of homosexual incest might be a bit too
much to expect at this stage.
When
Stanley Gizzard’s brother began attending the summit halfway
through the week, the other philosophers were initially happy with
his presence. He was useful to have around, often able to help lower
the group’s stress level during heated debates by making the tea,
preparing snacks, or giving shoulder and foot rubs. But then, in an
unexpected fit of pique, Gizzard suddenly demanded that his brother
leave when he started offering the other philosophers bathing
assistance.
Eventually,
after four long days of intellectual grappling, the philosophers felt
almost ready to announce their intention to transform Southampton
into a Hampshire utopia of the highest ideals, founded on the fairest
democratic principles of laissez-faire
government, in which even a few of the city’s less hysterical women
would be allowed a vote. (Aldous Huxley, Ayn Rand, George Orwell and
Yevgeny Zamyatin visited briefly to suggest an experimental dystopia,
but the Celtic Minds just avoided eye contact with them and quietly
puffed their pipes until the novelists went away.) And Bertrand
Russell’s interest in wresting the freedom of human thought from
the confines of theism, deism and faith-based dogma was to be the
foundation upon which the group would build their new Extraordinarily
Fair and Democratic Republic of Sharing and Equality.
But
Bertrand Russell unexpectedly left the Meeting of Celtic Minds in
disgust, excusing himself by muttering something about going off to
disprove the Doctrine of Internal Relations, when Stanley Gizzard
declared that the Southampton of this new Enlightenment should
appoint a single man to lead its council as figurehead. Plat O’Chips
and Ayers Dottle soon followed Russell along the Avenue out of
Southampton when Gizzard suggested a list of privileges for this
lucky new Mayor, which included criminal immunity, tax exemption, jus
primae noctis,
and the instalment of any one sibling as City Treasurer. And then
Gizzard himself made a one-way journey along the road out of town at
the will of his neighbours when, after assuming leadership of the
Extraordinarily
Fair and Democratic Republic of Sharing and Equality
by default, he called a press conference to publicly declare himself
Ultimate Lord High King Uber-Kaiser Numero Uno For Life.
With
the end of the decade came war, and Southampton became famous as the
town with the lowest number of soldiers killed – or even wounded –
in enemy engagement. However, the emerging myth of the indestructible
Hampshire super soldier was dispelled when it was also revealed that
Southampton contributed the fewest number of servicemen to the armed
forces. This was partly due to the townsfolk’s endemic obesity, but
mostly due to the fact that the majority of the city’s male
population disappeared overnight on 2nd
September 1939 (although the Southampton census recorded a surprise
doubling of the female populace that year). And when army recruiters
began lifting the skirts of the city’s suspiciously swarthy women,
the few hundred men (and several surprised ladies) who were
conscripted, and the few who survived basic training, were returned
barely a fortnight later under court martial for mass desertion.
But
whatever percentage of its population Southampton saved in soldiers'
lives was lost several times over through civilian fatalities during
countless nights of bombing by the Luftwaffe. It was not until after
the war that examination of the decisions made by local authorities
during the six-year conflict unearthed reasons for the city’s
catastrophic levels of damage.
The
first and most obvious cause was the Hide
In Plain Sight With No Blackout During Air Raids
policy, implemented when one the city’s councillors walked into a
wall one dark night (although the councillor’s wife felt that this
policy wouldn’t help because the light had been on when he did it).
An added clause decreed that, during nights of particularly heavy
bombing, the city’s lights would be left on in a specific pattern
that spelt “Fuck you, Fritz!” when viewed from above.
The
second reason for the successful German devastation of Southampton
was the appointment of a man named Otto Von Heil Deutschland to the
position of Managing Director at the Ordnance Survey, which had moved
its cartography team to new offices in Southampton in 1938. The
Ordnance Survey’s maps were world-famous for their accuracy and
detail, and a secret new headquarters in Hampshire was considered
essential to preventing infiltration by hungry Nazi spies.
Recruitment of the team’s new manager by Southampton's local
government was delayed for a couple of days when one or two local
people said they thought Otto Von Heil Deutschland had “shifty
eyes”; but everyone was reassured when Otto declared, “Ich bin as
English as Sauerkraut, Southampton untermensch!” followed by
several minutes of maniacal laughter.
The
mystery of how Ordnance Survey maps of Southampton and its
strategically important docks ended up in the hands of the Luftwaffe,
leading to the most accurate, and most devastatingly ironic,
carpet-bombing ever recorded, was not solved (or even considered)
until 1994, when Southampton historians concluded that Winston
Churchill must have been a spy all along. But then, in 1995, better
historians from somewhere else revealed the surprising true identity
of Otto Von Heil Deutschland as a German spy deep under cover. It is
not known what happened to Otto after the war, but when the
historians visited his former address, a house in Northam named
Lebensraum,
during their research, its elderly occupant denied anyone access to
the house with a sharp “Nein!”
Post-war
recovery in Southampton was hampered by almost a decade of near
poverty when the local Communist Party enjoyed landslide election
victories nine years in a row. The Marxists claimed that their
successes were due entirely to the popularity of their economic
policies, though a few of the city’s deeper thinkers began to
suspect that the way in which the Communists had listed themselves on
the ballot paper, as the
Naked Nubiles Will Pleasure You And Give You Money If You Vote For Us
Party,
might have helped them maintain power.
So,
beginning to realise that Southampton seemed almost incapable of
governing itself due to the ill-luck suffered by successive councils
(a run of misfortune first documented in the Fourteenth Century, when
the city fathers began recommending that people should keep black
rats in their pockets as good-luck charms during outbreaks of the
plague), government of Southampton was divided between the Winchester
and Bournemouth City Councils from 1955 to 1999. The scheme seemed to
work well, with Southampton eventually showing slightly lower levels
of unemployment, school truancy, violent crime, industrial accidents,
human trafficking, famine, piracy, incest, prostitution, genetic
mutation, ethnic cleansing, spontaneous human combustion, leprosy,
fetish-related deaths, under-age pregnancies, political
assassination, slavery, zombie-infestations, housework-related amputations and ritual
sacrifice.
But
the years of external government had helped introduce residents of
Southampton to knowledge of the outside world, and when dozens of the
city’s denizens (instantly recognisable by their smell and unique
feeding habits) began appearing in other Hampshire towns,
self-government was restored to Southampton at the start of the new
millennium – but only upon the acceptance of two conditions.
Firstly, that anyone seen travelling further than five miles from
their home in Southampton would be instantly recalled; secondly, that
everyone born in the city would be tagged and monitored, thereby
preventing any Southampton resident from ever leaving the city again.
© Mark Crutchfield
