The Emigration Playlist - 64 years of songs: Meet me on the Corner - Lindisfarne (1972)

 

Is this the most beautiful song on my list? It may well be. For me it's tender, human, hopeful, real. Goosebumps rise as I listen to that bass theme and harmonica coming in at the start and for all of its 2 minutes and 41 seconds (the demands of radio play back then were brutal) they stay there. And then there's the close harmony of the gorgeous chorus. 

And yet it's also a song that brings me deep sadness, because for me it represents an era, a project and a hope that now seems to have come to nothing. 

Meet Me On The Corner is from Lindisfarne's well liked 1971 album Fog on the Tyne, a flourishing of Geordie folk-rock that made its mark over half a century ago. For most of the time since it was a song (released as a single in 1972, hence my locating it in this year) that I knew and loved but which was probably not one to claim a place on this list. Starman by David Bowie would perhaps have made it instead that year.

It's here because of something that happened in 2015. The first (and to date only) comedy ever to appear on British television written about the trans experience from an affirmative perspective and centring an actual trans actor, appeared. That series, Boy Meets Girl, starred Rebecca Root and ran for two series. Set in Newcastle, Meet Me On The Corner was its theme tune. That alone might qualify it to have a place in my memory I guess, but there's much more to it. I was a part of the creation of Boy Meets Girl. I kept the project alive, pretty much on my own, for 7-8 months in 2012, soon after it had been born but before it finally started to get traction at the BBC. Although others did plenty of vital things later in the process to get the show over the line, I do believe that if I hadn't kept the faith and rallied others around it in those early days, it would have never been made. I know that for some of that time, as others lost interest, only I was still carrying the flame. 

The story, in brief, is this:

In 2012 I was highly active in trans rights activism, particularly in working with the media using contacts and relationships I and others had built up (having helped set up advocacy group Trans Media Watch (TMW) in 2009). At the centre of this was a strong relationship with Channel 4. Paradoxically, that had began when I managed to blag an invite via Ofcom to a large industry event being hosted by C4 to celebrate industry diversity. I got hold of the microphone from the floor and heckled the speakers about their treatment of trans people. To their credit, both C4 and BBC panellists approached me afterwards and wanted to meet up. In a climate in which the representation of trans people in tv meant Emily in Little Britain, or a character who was casually thrown through a wall and left for dead for revealing she was trans in Graham Linehan's The IT Crowd, or an episode of the ITV's comedy Moving Wallpaper in which a trans woman character was the subject of wall-to-wall abusive jokes for almost all of its 28 minutes, or a 'comedy' sketch in which Russell Howard dressed up as a flight attendant with an enormous pair of balls swinging from beneath his dress (in response to a story about an airline starting to employ trans women), the time was right to make the point to tv executives that for all their self-satisfied preening about inclusion, their attitude to trans women (in particular) was utterly toxic still. With the help of a contact who'd recorded it all, I got a 30 minute reel containing dozens of clips of demeaning British tv - eight years after the Gender Recognition Act - to show them too, and later they saw that reel - jaws falling open.

Channel 4 eventually signed a Memorandum of Understanding that it would radically reshape its treatment of trans people - bringing some respect for us, authenticity and human decency into its coverage and programming. A minister even turned up to stamp the coalition government's approval on the moment. I spent a lot of time presenting to Channel 4, doing research for them and talking to commissioning editors about how to get it right. It was a team effort, led by TMW with others, and My Transsexual Summer followed, a fly-on-wall documentary that covered the transition of a group of trans people and (despite its grim clickbait title - something Channel 4 has always been addicted to as a 'challenger' channel), this moment represented a big step for British tv. Not since 'A Change of Sex' in 1979 had British tv tried to tackle this subject; the media in the years since descending into the cesspit of ridicule of which David Walliams and Matt Lucas'  transvestite characters in Little Britain were the absolute nadir.

By 2012 we were still pushing forward and working with another initiative, created by On Road Media, Channel 4 hosted 'Trans Camp', a full day conference and set of workshops to which trans people, their relatives, tv execs and production people came. One aim of the day was to develop a set of practical initiatives that the industry could take forward to portray trans people in a more accurate and human light and, as is the custom with such sessions, working groups were set up to explore ideas. The group I was in came up with the Trans Comedy Award - the idea of actually tackling the torrent of abusive 'humour' by taking the controls ourselves. Getting comedy written by the LGBTQ+ community, featuring trans people, starring trans actors, for a wider audience. At the end of the day, when the votes were in, the Trans Comedy Award was selected as one of the initiatives to be developed. 

But how, and by whom? It was a concept. We had a senior BBC figure in our group, but the way forward wasn't clear. For the next few months enthusiasm started to dwindle. The idea lacked a sponsor, someone who could keep the project moving forward - setting up conversations and meetings. I did that - unclear though it was if this thing was going anywhere at all. Channel 4 didn't look like they would pick it up and the BBC couldn't see a way forward. Independent production companies weren't going to take the risk. It needed someone to keep pestering. 

Eventually, the BBC did move forward. Via their 'Writers Room' - a community for aspirant writers incubating work - they launched the award, with a £5000 prize and the promise of development into a pilot. Elliot Kerrigan wrote the winning script, Rebecca was cast, and the show appeared in 2015. With Lindisfarne providing the theme. 

By then, I'd stepped away. There were two trans comedians at the initial event who were far better able than I to oversee the award process, and the creation of tv programming wasn't my space. To add to that, I didn't really want to be in the limelight. Instinctively I hate it and it was then, as now, scary as a trans person to be in the media glare. Although, through the efforts of others with whom I worked, much contact with the print media was taking place, there were still plenty of spaces in that ecosystem that were proving hard to crack, addicted as they were to reactionary, retrogressive hate. I personally recall a particularly unpleasant meeting with senior New Statesman people. And in 2013, just after the Award was presented, trans teacher Lucy Meadows was hounded into suicide by a pack of newspapers, The Daily Mail prominent amongst them. I demonstrated outside the Mail's offices with others, made a speech to the crowd, but I didn't want to be in the paper. I had a family to care for, children to think of. 

Meet Me On The Corner makes me think of all this. The swell of joy and hope that Boy Meets Girl actually got made at all. It was mainstream and comedically safe, and it divided critical opinion...but, incredibly, the reviews were about the show, the writing, the gags, not principally the casting of a trans woman, or the previously preposterous idea of a love affair between a cisgender man and her. That was what arriving looked like. Tellingly, Rebecca who played the lead, Judy, said in an interview that although her character dated, she didn't, because frankly cisgender men couldn't deal with it. But here was it happening on tv. Perhaps things might be starting to change?

The public loved that first series. There was an outpouring of goodwill. The BBC had bottled on screening it on BBC1, taking it to BBC2 where its first few episodes got 1.5 million viewers (big numbers for the channel). A second series was commissioned, but by 2016 when it aired, cold winds were beginning to blow. It got parked in a later slot, in mid summer, and by the end of that series (and the narrative arc) it was down to just under 400,000 viewers. Still reasonable for BBC2 late on a Tuesday night at that time of year, but not enough to sustain it.

Critically, between series 1 and series 2 Britain took a decision that changed it to this day. Brexit. The Zeitgeist changed, as we all know. Hate, exclusion, bitter resentment and scapegoating were back - tentatively at first but gathering confidence in the national discourse. Boy Meets Girl didn't really have a place in that world, and in one of the BBC's first moves that perhaps reflects where they were going, they cancelled the show. 

Boy Meets Girl was never going to win a BAFTA, but it was made. Me and my mates helped make it, all playing our part at various stages. I still know people who were involved, including some who were at that 2012 day. Fawlty Towers it wasn't, but it was a high water mark for trans representation in the UK media. Soon we were to head on the path into the darkness that crystallised in April 2025 in the Supreme Court, driven there by the media we had worked so hard to bring onside. By the BBC that now refers to people like me as "biological males". By Channel 4 that threw away its cheap commitment as soon as it felt commercially expedient to do so, by 2018 trying to inject more energy into their approach by foregrounding abusive TERFs in a car-crash and highly abusive 'live debate' (Genderquake), after which their previous promises meant nothing.

And we all know where it's gone from there. 

That's all in my head when I listen to that guitar and harmonica opening, those warm, inviting harmonies. 

Here I am, eleven years later. House on the market. Our community completely abandoned. Getting out of Britain.

It's still a beautiful song though.

Readying myself for emigration, I am putting together the soundtrack of a whole life spent in England. You can read more about why I am doing this here: https://kierkegaardslunch.blogspot.com/2026/08/mourning-england-in-song-part-1.html