Town mouse on protests in London

As the helicopters hover over central London monitoring the student protests, Clive recalls the riots in his own student years

Town mouse; country life
town mouse new
(Image credit: Country Life)

We always know there is something up because of the helicopters. Living in central London, we have become used to the police circling overhead, as they did last week, when monitoring the students rioting in Millbank. They make a terrible noise.

It happened to be the evening when my wife and I were going out to celebrate an important wedding anniversary (which both of us had previously forgotten) at the discretely opulent Goring. As we ate our eggs Drumkilbo and venison, we felt we were living through the revolution scene in Dr Zhivago.

I had seen the protest stirring earlier in the day, when I passed a group of demonstrators, carrying placards. One of the slogans read ‘Wagner to win The X Factor': not even I could think this was a reference to the composer of Parsifal. (Would Richard Wagner have been on the side of the students, or the authorities?)

When I went to Cambridge, the February 1970 Garden House riot (during which the hotel of that name was trashed) was still fresh in the memory. But by my time, agitprop was not what it had been: the cause wasn't Vietnam, but that of the Nursery Action Group, demanding daycare for the children of mature students. The acronym of NAG said it all.

Country Life

Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.