Upport
A guest post by Nicholas Royle, author of 'David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the Sun Machine'.
This summer I had a complete breakdown. We were on a family holiday on a campsite in France. Until it happened, I refused to believe. It reminded me of when my first loved one died. We had a marvellous first couple of days. The children played at the waterpark. My wife enjoyed the strong sunshine. I stayed in our little cabin rereading To the Lighthouse for the first time in forty years. It gave me extraordinary pleasure. Then on the third day I read on my phone that the British government had voted to proscribe Palestine Action. Following some vandalism to murder-making aircraft and to a dictator’s golf-course.
It was a complete breakdown and I am still having it. I tried to go on reading To the Lighthouse and keep my disintegration to myself. But it was unlike anything that had ever happened to me. It tore out every page like the days of a calendar in an old film.
It is nothing compared with the genocide of Palestinians and destruction of Gaza. It is perhaps just (in Adania Shibli’s searing euphemism) a minor detail. But to face fourteen years in prison for expressing support for a protest group? To say or write that single word support – an imprisonable offence?
So this is our fate, the fate of Britain. How to fight madness with madness?
In my breakdown the word support played with me, insupportable. It too broke down. Deliriously a neologism came, here ventured publicly: upport. To upport is to mentally upload, to give consideration to, to take cognizance of.
I oppose genocide. I, in the strongest possible sense, upport Palestine Action. Do it in your sleep in a transegmental drift. Everyone can do this. Upport Palestine Action. All worthy of the name, all British citizens upport Palestine Action.
Press ▶️ next to the 0:00 to listen to Nicholas reading the piece at Hey!
This piece was written for and performed at the Hey! Festival in Newhaven, East Sussex on Saturday 20th October, 2025. The event was organised by Nicholas Royle and a team of volunteers. The Hey! Festival emerged as an idea from the Hard Art Writers night in February earlier this year. Hey! is a writer led initiative: pop up, mobile, micro live-lit spaces where literature and activism collide.
Nicholas Royle was Professor of English at the University of Sussex between 1999-2024. He established the MA/PhD programme in Creative and Critical Writing in 2001 and was founding director of the Centre for Creative and Critical Thought. He has written 15 books, including An English Guide to Birdwatching: A Novel, Veering: A Theory of Literature, and The Uncanny.
His most recent book is David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the Sun Machine.
