NationStates Jolt Archive

Westonbury, a city of over three quarters of a million souls, was far the largest anywhere in western mainland Walmington, a major commercial crossroads set in a sleepy cool temperate greenery that contrasted the sophistication of eastern cities. Westonbury’s population saw itself, by and large, as part of the Walmingtonian working class that was still perceived as honest, hard working, and justifiably proud, even if it did lack the (pre-Nazi) continental glitz of the easterners.

Walmington lay in the north Atlantic, east of mother Britannia, and the south and east traditionally kept pace with Britain and continental Europe in terms of fashion and commerce, while the west –owing to the unfailing Walmingtonian rejection of, “the British rebel states”- idled blissfully in tradition. Walmington never did much trade with Yankee Doodle, so –aside from the odd visit to an aunt in Canada- there wasn’t much to be gained by looking west. Certainly, the Royal Walmingtonian Navy launched most of her ships on the west coast, but they quickly made their way around the Stockshire headlands and through the Southend Channel to European waters, or else on to the African and Gallagan dominions.

Yep, Westonbury was traditionally all about wooden shoes, days down the pit, beating Uncle Sam to the best cod stocks, and dragging horse-drawn ploughs about the place one end of the year and ripping-up spuds at the other. This was presumably because the furrows looked good as part of a scene painted and hung on an eastern pub wall, or seen from above on a trip to see auntie Margaret in that other Windsor, since it was fashionable in the east to eat imported foods from the empire and her allies.

(OOC: Being Walmingtonian, this might take a while to get anywhere, and I've only thought so far ahead, and then mostly in vague terms. For those who don't know, WoS is pretty much stuck in an alternate 1950s, having fought an alternate second world war, siding with Iansisle, Calarca, Canada, and Britain against Germany/Der Kriegsmarine, Italy, Chiang Mai, and Ercolana. The end result was something of a stalemate, as the Germans were tempered by less than staunchly Nazi admirals and what not, and never attacked the Soviets. Since then, WoS had invaded the US, crushed it as an industrial power, but remains bogged down by partisan action in an unmanageably large theatre, and can't commit all its resources due to protecting an African and Asian empire, and facing a German-dominated European continent and the Soviet Union... between the upheavals in Iansisle and the fading of Calarca, WoS has put herself out in the cold, which didn't help Mainwaring's government in the eyes of the public.)

The Giant and Trowel, the Council District of Westonbury North

During the Great War, most southern and eastern alehouses in Walmington went the same way as those back in Britain. You know, introduced strange things like windows, last orders, licences, women, games, gardens, toilets, and none-alcoholic beverages and water. Similar attempts on the west, even when backed up by local constabularies, had... not gone well. Most new public houses had received precious little custom; traditional alehouse patrons had their locals, and not enough was done to convince new customers that these establishments were something different to the pre-existing holes. There’d been riots when the government tried to demolish old waterholes, and being Walmingtonian, the establishment hadn’t the stomach to follow through in face of such drunken resistance.

The Giant and Trowel was one of the traditional survivors that had, over the last thirty-odd years, picked up a few bits and pieces of the new, but never let go of the old.

Regulars like Malcolm Gradford and Gerald Bunce these days dared to play darts so long as they didn’t mind peering through the opiate haze, and they could discuss politics so long as they did it quietly and didn’t upset the miners from near-by Norbray.

Today’s discussion, of course, involved the landmark change of power. Prime Minister Mainwaring had received a vote of no confidence from his ministers, and his long innings as head of government was ended, the wartime leader replaced... by HRH King Godfrey III.

Gradford and Bunce, like many others in the Northwest especially, didn’t think well of the change.

They hadn’t thought much of Mainwaring, either.

An initial poll carried-out by The Standard, Walmington’s most popular and respected newspaper, indicated that the majority of those Walmingtonians able and most inclined to vote were in favour of the Tory party “coup”. The exchange of leadership would probably see the ruling party in to a third consecutive term where it had lately seemed to be losing popularity.

This all served only to distance Malcolm, Gerald, and their peers from the whole system of governance, and to keep the dirty businesses of agriculture, mining, and ice hockey safely out of sight on the west coast, along with all the soundly slept nights and the worst of the inebriation.

Tory Walmington was (while in truth hardly less full of ale and opiates) happy to consider that things were still working in the proper fashion and according to the best interests of the elite and of the nation’s vast middle class, an entity that dominated the south and made a good showing in the west’s major towns. This was a great relief to many in a nation surrounded by hostile powers, and one horribly uneasy about the costly and brutal way it was dismantling the long derided United States. Yay, stability! And on such a familiar path! And the King was such a good choice for Prime Minister, one could almost call him cuddly, and he’d spent his whole (exceedingly long) life learning about government.

“...eighty years of hoarding and [burp] presiding over empire building, that’s what he’s done. I’ll bet you a Tory’s balls he won’t back-down from the Americas until he’s run a tram to Oregon.”

Now, Bunce didn’t share Gradford’s violent approach to politics, and replied, “Well, I’d bet you... something else, but that’s exactly it, I ‘aven’t got anything else.” Then he stopped to gesture, more ale!

((Well, I'm willing to wait and see where this is going, anyhow. ;)

EDIT: I also gave it five stars. Beats me who the jerk is.))

(Hehe, I hope it's going off in several directions... for once that's actually the point :) 's funny you mention the stars, as I honestly don't think I'd ever noticed them before I came back to check on my thread. Can I look at the results without voting, myself? I am too... Walmingtonian to vote on my self :) Also, hello, and I am very tired [falls down] (Ah, stay tuned for some Mainwaringing).)

((The already averaged rating shows on the forum itself. I don't know how to look at how many voted how.))

tag

Swallow Bank House, Walmington Street, Great Walmington

“What are you still doing here, Wilson? You must help me, there are more things in my office, naturally. You can clear yours out later.”

“Well...” The Deputy Prime Minister started, nervously pinching at his left ear. “You see, the thing of it is... I...”

“Out with it, man, we haven’t got all day. I’ve to greet his majesty, since I’ve graciously stepped aside to allow him his hour in the spotlight!”

Wilson bit his cheek for the millionth time since he’d known Mainwaring. The chubby man’s extreme degreee of voluntary detachment from reality had not diminished with his post, it seemed, but there was no need to shoot him down right away, it would be enough to see his face when he realised that he was the only one to have lost his job. While the DPM thought on, Mainwaring was still blustering away about what needed to be carried out of his office.

“Won’t the Prime Minister be needing those, sir? The new Prime Minister, I mean...”

“Oh, I think they’ll buy new curtains and filing cabinets for his majesty, don’t you, Wilson? Yes, this is the Prime Minister’s office we’re talking about, not some pen-pusher’s closet room.”

Mainwaring seemed to make a point of unnecessary movement about Wilson’s office as he said that, tucking in his arms and still managing to bump into a bookcase. The ringing of a phone came as a welcome interruption, and Wilson answered it with a limp, “Hello?” Followed by a wide smile and a more emphatic, “Well, hello, Mrs.Mainwaring! Yes, well they were quite right, he is here, yes, I’ll pass you over, all right?”

Mainwaring had again bumped into the bookcase, this time it was certainly not deliberate, and had narrowly thwarted his attempt to flee the office before Wilson was done. He quietly gritted his teeth and turned to accept the receiver.

“...Hello...Elizabeth...” The out-going PM meekly squeaked.

Now, George Mainwaring was out of office, might as well have been out of a job had he not still just status enough to complain, and to do so where where people might listen.
Prime Minister (King) Godfrey (III), new to government, was faced by Mainwaring’s increasingly right-wing reaction to his ousting, and could have gone either way.
I mean, he could have looked to keep ahead of George by being more liberal and by painting the last PM as a Fascist, or he could have tried to embrace the back-lash and beat Mainwaring out of his own support.
Yeah, he went for the latter, because there’s only so former that an ambitious king can be, really.
His Highness was quite liberal for a hereditary chief of state. He wouldn’t hurt a fly by his own hand, and he was all in favour of these new taxes and services. But he was a hereditary chief of state.
A lot of American terrorists got shot and more than a couple of home-front rebels were subject to the rougher edge of the Walmingtonian police force... and controversially to that of the empire’s subject nations as auxiliary policemen were drafted in from Ceyloba, Waynesia, and the Cape Colonies.
Here and there, coloured constables would take batons to white dissenters.

Anyway, Malcolm Gradford was too drunk and isolated to notice this stuff. He’d just parted company with Gerland Bunce, because Gerald Bunce did get-up and shout with him at the town hall. Malcolm Gradford was laughed-out of the town hall when he railed loudly against some Tories. Gerald Bunce had quietly shaken his head, and now he was working part-time at a printer’s and sneaking in some socialistic posters at lunch on Tuesdays. Malcolm Gradford was rabble-rousing on the green near the Giant and Trowel, and was quite set on the idea of having an organisation to represent at some mysterious congress about which he would vaguely speak. Probably he was just trying to sound mysterious and interesting, thought most.

On Newry Island, one Owen Kilbane was packing a bag in readiness for the first modern occurrence of the Walmingtonian People’s Congress.

Indeed, through men like Gerald Bunce, word of the Congress was reaching all sorts of underground organisations interested in change, and surprisingly few parties that would have been found in opposition. It is fair to say that Walmington’s internal security services, “aren’t up to much”, as a gaoled Kilbane once put it shortly after having shot and wounded the Ambassador to the ANH after posing as a member of his staff.

((Still not much room for interaction, perhaps, but oh well, this is what's going on in Walmington these days, so what can I say?))

b]Norbray, north-western Walmington on Sea[/b]

“...call to order –or should I say disorder- this historic assembling of the first Walmingtonian People’s Congress!”

The echoes of a few half-laughs bounced around for a moment on the disused factory-floor, formerly used in the production of some consumer luxury now made instead in Prince Edryd’s Virginia. Now scores of little Walmingtonians and at least a couple of their nation’s imperial subjects from beyond its island shores filled the space with their persons and argumentative refrains.

Malcolm Gradford, Gerald Bunce, Owen Kilbane, Gary Olympio, (Lieutenant) Meredith Sykes, and dozens of others sat in representation of militant communist, African liberationist, national socialist, radical Christian reformist, and who knew what other views and social or political philosophies.

These men, along with scores more, spent an awful lot of time arguing on that factory floor. But this was a new event, if it made any progress at all it would be an historic pivot of some interest at least.

By the end of the meeting, the Walmingtonian People’s Congress had established the basics of how it would be convened a second time, as well as where it would be reconvened and who would attend. The Newry National Socialist Party, the Pan-African Freedom Brotherhood, the New Reform Church of Walmington, Bunce’s Community, and the Gradfordian Soviet would be joined by individual thinkers like Lt.Sykes in an eclectic gathering sure to be better organised. Oh, we all agree!

The Standard
Race riot in Norbray as blacks clash with Newrians
-Chief Inspector hasn’t, “the foggiest what either lot was doing in Norbray”...