Why I hate glass

Let me tell you about the unique and deep loathing I have towards glass.

It isn’t just the finished product, you understand. I hate silica too, as well as soda ash and limestone. I also hate glass blowers, kilns, and all those ornamental baubles pulled from the molten stuff into the shape of a swan. As for double glazing… don’t get me started on the science of double glazing unless it involves putting a brick through it.

I admit that this condition sounds a bit odd, but you really must understand my experiences as a seven-year-old. That was my age when I first visited the local glass museum. I say “local” when “The World of Glass” is probably the most famous glass museum in the country, linked as it is to Pilkington’s glass works in St Helens.

Yet my loathing for glass didn’t begin right away. That might have developed when I was eight years old when the school took us on our second visit to “Pilks”. Or maybe it was when I was nine, 10, or 11, when we again made annual pilgrimages… All I know is that somewhere in my long but early history with Pilkington’s glass museum, I realised how much I hated glass. I hated the creepy mannequins of the glass blowers. I hated the button we’d press on the exhibit that lit up the kiln and the illuminated chart showing the glass-making process. I even learned to despise the highlight of the tour which, inexplicably, was a Second World War submarine periscope affording a view of the surroundings.

Even through a Second World War submarine periscope, St Helens town centre was very, very dull.

In contrast, I never developed a loathing for zoos (which we only visited once) but, then, I never learned to love them either. As for geology, my first passion as a student, our O-Level geology field trip consisted of a walk down Wigan’s high street, examining the polished stone fascias of the town’s many banks. But if that wasn’t enough to crush my dreams of life as a geologist lost in the Scottish Highlands, pursuing the subject at A-level did. It involved lessons at the local Catholic school, where I would have briefly rubbed shoulders with Andy Burnham. After two lessons, my good friend, Shaun, decided he couldn’t take the weird religious tension given that our school was Church of England. I agreed and we both quit.

The reason I explain all this is to give you an idea of how I view the world and why, when Boris Johnson talks about “levelling up” the North, I immediately thought about glass.

Glass, for me, symbolised the life expectations we all had those many years ago. My father’s generation had been prepared for work in the local foundry – for generations, in the case of my paternal family, my forefathers built trains. My generation, meanwhile, was prepared for Pilkington’s or, much later, British Nuclear Fuel at Risley. It was hard to avoid the gravitational pull of destiny. Burnham managed it, as did I in my less auspicious way. Many didn’t.

None of that was conscious, of course. It was societal, involving the kind of deep cultural barriers that remain to this day. They’re the barely noticeable prejudices that channel us towards certain outcomes in terms of health, wealth, education, and culture. True levelling up would dismantle those barriers. Yet I also know how hard – if not impossible – that would be.

One obvious barrier cuts off the North from our notional capital. London has never been, for me, the capital in any meaningful way. It’s hard to explain why I identify as British and Northern rather than English. In Liverpool, they have a saying – “We’re not English, we’re Scouse” –  which might sound provocative unless you understand the perspective from this end of the country.

Logging into Trainline right now, I’m offered a return ticket to Liverpool (a 50-minute journey) this Thursday, leaving at 8am and returning at 5pm, for under £10. A return to London, for the same day and times, for a journey that takes only 60 minutes longer… £342.60.

Just the ludicrous price of travel in the UK, you say? Well, perhaps, but here’s the interesting bit. Press the button that swaps the departure and destination and recalculate the prices. A return ticket from London to Warrington (for the same day, at the same times) is £94.50.

So, the premium we pay for being Northerners is at least £248.10. (And, yes, I know there are cheaper tickets available if you plan far ahead – but we’re talking about levelling up here – or I could use National Express but I’m a not-so-lithe six-foot-two and I don’t like developing a blood clot because I’ve sat with my knees under my chin for ten hours).

So why the discrepancy?

It’s a simple matter of demand. The whole country would like to get into the capital early in the morning, so the demand is high and prices astronomical. Then the day tourists want to get home in the evening, inflating the prices again. This works to the advantage of Londoners, for whom this reality is reversed. They find it cheap to explore the country if they leave in the morning and return in the evening. Very convenient.

Londoners will, of course, point to the advantages of living outside the city but they’re often the kind of advantages that only exist if you can afford them. Otherwise, the reality is a cultural deficit, expressed in terms of identity, outlook, and opportunity. Very few schools in this part of the world take their pupils to the National Gallery or the V&A or the Natural History Museum, the kinds of places that inspire young minds. Too many northern children are instead taught that life amounts to the limits of Lowry’s grim vision, now handily digested at his museum in Salford, or, perhaps, they visit a glass museum, which is still open to the public, but I’ve not been in many years.

I’m sure it’s changed for the better but, sadly, I haven’t.

I still hate glass.