One Nation: The London Olympics and Opening Ceremony Revisited
This article has been published previously on Shifting Grounds and then LabourList . I had just finished my last (official) shift at the Paralympics. Sitting down alone with my last plate of food from the wonderful staff at the Copper Box canteen, I got talking to another volunteer who was at the same table. As with just about every conversation in those few weeks, we spoke about how it had been for us – and I quickly discovered that this woman was no ordinary pleb volunteer like me. She had been a volunteer from almost the beginning, from years ago. Retired and keen to do all she could, she had ended up in the midst of the Olympic Opening Ceremony, in charge of one of the maypole groups in the Green and Pleasant Land opening sequence. She loved her experience of course. It was special. And she said a huge part of what made it special was a guy called Danny Boyle . In those precious few minutes while we ate and talked, she told me how Boyle had gathered all of the ...