Two Lives in One Day
I recently watched the television series One Day, which is based on a novel that was previously adapted for a movie.
The show brought back a flood of memories. I lived in Britain during a very formative period of my life, including all of my teenage years, at around the same time as the protagonists of the story would have been growing up. This post is an oblique reflection on those years, prompted by a casting decision. It doesn’t really contain any spoilers but you may want to stop reading if you plan on watching.
The producers of the series made a bold and frankly inspired decision to cast Ambika Mod in the role of Emma Morley. Mod is a second generation immigrant of South Asian descent, while the Emma of the novel (played by Anne Hathaway in the movie) was of a different background and complexion. An Emma who looked like Ambika would have had a very different life in the Britain of that time than one who looked like Anne. They may have walked the same streets in Leeds and London, listened to the same music, and fallen for the same kinds of people, but the texture of their daily lives, especially during adolescence, would have been quite different in some very consequential ways.
The series opens in 1988, with Emma about to graduate from the University of Edinburgh. This would put her year of birth at around 1967. That was the year in which the National Front was formed through a merger of four organizations “which had existed on the extreme right fringe of politics for some time.” A year later, Enoch Powell would deliver his disturbing and prescient rivers of blood speech. Disturbing because of Powell’s claim that Britain was “busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre” by allowing large-scale immigration from its former colonies, and his call for voluntary repatriation. Prescient because the sentiments he gave voice to would unleash forces that continue to shape the politics of Europe, and are poised to reach unprecedented heights in the European Parliament elections three months from now.
In 1972, when Emma was five years old, Britain faced an influx of more than 27,000 migrants of South Asian descent following their expulsion from Uganda. In December of that year the National Front contested a by-election in the Uxbridge constituency and received 8.7 percent of the vote. A few months later the party would get more than 16 percent in a by-election in West Bromwich. Its performance in local elections was even stronger over this period.
In 1975, the leadership of the opposition Conservative party would pass from Edward Heath to Margaret Thatcher. Heath had dismissed Enoch Powell from the shadow cabinet following the 1968 speech, a decision that had led some in his party to quit in protest. Many of these would now return to the fold. In a 1978 interview, Thatcher struck a tone on immigration that departed sharply from that of her predecessor, arguing that the country “might be rather swamped by people with a different culture.” A year later her party would triumph at the polls and she would serve as prime minister for over a decade. When Emma and Dexter meet at the start of One Day, it is towards the end of this phase.
What matters more to children than elections and speeches, however, are social interactions in schools and shops and streets. Here Ambika-Emma would have endured ethnic slurs, sometimes preceded by degrading adjectives referencing cleanliness and smell. And her stomach would have tightened at the sight of skinheads sporting steel-toed boots. Anne-Emma would see and hear such things also, but they would not have weighed on her in quite the same manner. Perhaps she herself uttered the slurs that Ambika-Emma had to face, or perhaps she scolded her peers for their intolerance; either scenario is plausible and the book gives us no clue.
None of this is meant to suggest that Anne-Emma was the more fortunate or privileged of the two. The unemployment rate in the UK reached double digits in 1981, and remained there for six years. Older mining and manufacturing industries were in rapid decline. The British band UB40, founded in 1978, took their name from a form that people seeking unemployment benefits were obliged to complete. It is entirely possible that Anne-Emma would have suffered greater deprivations than Ambika-Emma, but these would have been of a different nature. And the differences would have been reflected in their inner lives and personalities.
The two Emmas might also have had much in common, for instance in their listening habits. The soundtrack for the series is packed with music from bands that were relatively obscure even at the time, but had very loyal and diverse fan bases. These include Orange Juice (led by Edwyn Collins) and the Cocteau Twins (by Elizabeth Fraser). I recall seeing the former in concert at a small venue in Birmingham, waiting until 2am for the band to appear. And I hitchhiked all the way from Southampton to Leeds—Emma’s hometown—to see the latter headline a music festival. Among the many memories that the show refreshed for me were these.
And in writing this post, yet another memory was jogged. Uxbridge was (and remains) one of the terminal stops on the metropolitan line of the London Underground. I lived within seven miles of this station from the ages of 11 to 17, and would often take the train headed there, getting off at Rayners Lane or West Harrow. It was a lonely and difficult period of my life, but it gave me perspectives that I would otherwise not have had, and I wouldn’t trade away any part of it.
In his sociological study of the National Front, Nigel Fielding explained why he felt the need to establish close connections with people whose belief system was so abhorrent to him:
It seems necessary to me that we appreciate how deeply felt these beliefs are, for we must tackle them realistically and in recognition of the fact that their advocates are as human as ourselves.
I think it’s worth keeping this thought in mind as we approach the June elections in Europe, where a political earthquake awaits. Accurate prediction, clear understanding, and effective responses to global events depend on a recognition that those with very different belief systems are as human as ourselves.
