Rosaleen Lynch When writing this story I thought of the marches I went on and those I’ve missed and the walking I’ve done at night just to rock my daughter and grandchild to sleep. I thought of how we do what we can when we can and how in time we can still make a difference, for future generations, like with decolonisation, and how we add asterisks to so much in the world relating to power and meaning, where they might be marking a disclaimer, footnote or correction. I thought of William Blake’s poem London, where he wandered the streets and how he used ‘mark’ as ‘notice’ and ‘marks of weakness and woe’ as signs of all the suffering despite the wealth of the city. And finally I thought of the grass on Parliament Square. the land unadorned, and the power of nature, which the world will return to, in the circle of life and mostly, despite my fears around social justice issues and climate crisis, I thought there was still hope, that in the darkness of the night there was still light, like a little asterisk star.
I can’t get the baby to sleep. She’s not even got her name yet, that’s how old she is and all I can think of is the demonstration tomorrow, so I can say, ‘You were marching before you were named’ but as I went on demos pregnant with her, I can say ‘You were marching before you were born.’
She likes rocking and walking, so in her baby-wrap, I button my coat around us and get the night bus. She settles in the motion of the N15, stirring after midnight, when we stop at Charing Cross.
In Trafalgar Square, I show her the lit-up bronze lions, that maybe she’ll climb one day but maybe not if I tell her their meaning. I take chalk from my pocket and put an asterisk below one and take a picture of it and do the same walking down Whitehall at The Women of World War II memorial, Downing Street, The Cenotaph, the Winston Churchill statue and Big Ben, marking each as I go, telling her about Blake’s wander through London’s darkness of ‘mind-forg’d manacles’ but I also tell her, while feeding her on the grass of Parliament Square, where later others will stand, about The Garden of Love and how in the future she’ll look back on these asterisks on a website and my words about that night’s walk, the same day of the Big Demonstration and how we got there, a little earlier than most, but she needn’t worry, more would follow.