From The Editor

This article first appeared last week in The Guardian.

It was mid afternoon on August 14 and we were on Kalamaki beach - one of those glorious Greek beaches on the North-Eastern coast of Corfu where the intensely blue sea was so still it seemed to be oil, rather than water - barely a wave lapped. The beach itself was shallow far out from the coast so that families with even very young children could play several hundred metres from the shore, as a large number were doing. There were families throwing balls, people chatting waist-high in warm water, a few young people kissing and some children lazily dragging small fishing nets and wearing snorkels. It was mid-afternoon and we'd all enjoyed a long lunch and were keen to play. The scene was truly idyllic. The focus for most of those playing in the water was a long, rickety, wooden pier which stretched out into the glinting sun from the beach. Children were jumping from it, sitting along it with their feet dangling in the water and running up and down playing tag. My three year-old was in the process of learning to dive off the end, and her cousin was showing her how, when a large green (we think) motorboat, probably 15 feet in length, arrived with a smartly-dressed man standing at the wheel, driving the boat, and several people sitting behind.

At first I was a little alarmed by the speed at which the motorboat drove very determinedly towards the pier. Parents stopped and watched and I began to collect our little ones around me as I could sense possible danger. Small kids, warm sea, balls, fishing nets, families and loud, shiny motorboats combined can make parents feel uneasy. The boat kept coming and I began to worry. Surely, no-one would drive a motorboat through crowded water, and anyway, where was it going? Couldn’t those on board see that there was nowhere to moor the boat as the pier was alive with children playing?

None of us felt it prudent to get in the boat’s way and the games came to an abrupt end though several parents, in several languages, complained loudly that this was not the appropriate place to bring a motorboat. Unabashed, the boat carried on without any hint of apology from those on board and the water cleared out to make way for it, children were hurriedly helped down from the pier and sent back to the beach to play. The diving games were truncated and the pier made way instead for a very smart family which proceeded to disembark, picnic baskets in hand and march at some speed towards the shore. At its head and leading the way quickly was a man dressed in blue shorts and white polo shirt, wearing deck shoes, which he clearly didn't intend to get wet, followed in a line by two young children (some debate here, I think there were 4 children, my husband says 2, my brother says 3, though he has 2 kids), also dressed smartly and not for the beach, a woman, who we assumed was their mother and was carrying a wicker picnic basket and bringing up the rear a Flipina nanny, who was carrying the bulk of the bags. I could tell immediately that these people were English, by the way they were dressed, the way they walked single-file down the pier (no Mediterranean chaos here), the wicker (italics) picnic basket, the nanny and their superior manner. I confess I felt embarrassed that a typically chaotic, relaxed and inclusive Greek afternoon was being so rudely interrupted by one small, well-turn-out, organised, English family.

I recognised George Osborne as he led the way. Shouts continued from the parents which made the Osborne family hurry, but none of them looked back, or exuded that air one would expect, of bashful apology of "sorry everyone, for breaking up the party, but we’ ve got to be somewhere". George, hearing the shouts of protest, simply said, to no-one in particular but addressing everyone, "it’s a pier, it’s what it’s for". He said it loudly, angrily, without looking at any of those whose afternoon he’d spoilt.

Of course he was right. It was a pier, and that is what they are for, but that day the pier was full of families having fun and the boat brought this fun to an end. That wasn’t even what galled the families there the most (lots of us discussed it afterwards), it was the way (italics) it had happened. Not a backwards glance, not an apology, no hint of embarrassment at forcing people from their fun. It wasn’t very Greek at all, indeed it was extremely English in that old Empire way. The Osbornes had to be somewhere, quickly, so everyone had to make way. Perhaps Deripaska was waiting to talk about money. He’s a billionaire, after all, and that’s what they’re for.

by Candida Jones

From The Editor

This article first appeared last week in The Guardian.

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