At eight this morning I zig-zagged by animal memory to the backroads school where my local polling station appears, like a rare flower, every couple of years. Walking down the street towards it, I could see figures flitting in and out of the gates; a man in short sleeves with his jacket slung over his shoulder, an old man in a shabby t-shirt, a woman looking as though she were about to go for her morning run, another woman pushing a baby buggy.
Inside, the new-style voting forms were being accepted with the slightest shrug of indulgence; it changes, it stays the same. The booths, chipboard and cheap wood, looked identical to every set of polling booths I’ve ever used. Even the stubby brown pencils seem eternal.
As I posted my votes in the boxes, I noticed with a start of pleasure that the lady in charge of ensuring that white forms went in a separate ballot box was my next door neighbour; a retired woman of the type who seems never to go anywhere in particular or do anything in particular. I recalled that she spent her working life in some sort of council activity, and so is liable to feel the ache of civic duty. As we exchanged civilities I felt a peculiar turning inside my chest; I really don’t know, but I think it may have been pride.
As I left, I was thinking about the duty to vote, the long and bitter fight for the universal franchise, suffragettism, the great reform acts. A yeomanly tear was pricking at the corner of my eye as I stepped out across a small junction and was nearly mown down by a scooter.
The young couple crammed onto it, making it ride low on its springs, were both clutching their polling cards.
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