Overarching mist the colour of a tramp’s vest. At my minute, I expected Magwitch to spring out at Pip from behind an ancient tombstone. Miles of glorious galloping beach and I thought of our horse Prince Panache, born in our old stables a generation ago. For ZANE donors interested in this sort of thing, prepare for a boast! Our horse, Prince Panache, sleek as a seal, 17 hands, and like riding a Maserati, won the world championship three-day eventing (show jumping, cross country and dressage) in Lexington, USA, in the nineties (rider Karen O Connor. Fantastic achievement. Big obituary in Horse and Hound.

On we plod…

The Empire Fights Back

The accusation by Meghan Markle that she and Harry were driven from the UK to the US – that haven of racial harmony – because of racism is a wicked nonsense. Why on earth did the media allow her and Harry Markle to get away with such a disgraceful slur?

Why do lefty media pundits accuse the UK of entrenched racism just because we once had an empire? Why was “Black Lives Matter” allowed to flourish in the UK, with leaders and sports people taking the knee?

A Matter of Pride

Pundits speak of our involvement in slavery as if the UK had invented it. But they must know the reality – slavery was endemic in all societies throughout history. And although, of course, we have our share of bigots, we should be proud of the fact we are a remarkably tolerant society.

Why aren’t children in schools and universities taught that the abolition of slavery in the late 1700s was brought about because of our Christian conviction in the basic equality of all human beings, regardless of race? And why aren’t they taught that Britain was the first state in the world to abolish slavery within its own territories in the early 1800s? 

Britain’s imperial power was devoted – at vast cost – to the global suppression of slavery for the next century and a half. The campaign attracted widespread support, with an estimated one third of the male population in the UK signing abolitionist petitions. What other country has such a record?

American historian John Stauffer has written: “Almost every United States black who travelled in the British Isles acknowledged the comparative dearth of racism there. Frederick Douglass [the famous black abolitionist] noted after arriving in England in 1845:

“I saw in every man a recognition of my manhood, and an absence, a perfect absence, of everything like that disgusting hate with which we are pursued in [the United States]”.

The fact that Rishi Sunak is now prime minister of the UK, and that the country has more ethnic minorities in the cabinet than all EU member countries combined, is the fulfilment of our liberal, imperial vision. It should be a matter of great pride and not shame.

All these things should be taught to our young.

What’s in a Name?

When I started ZANE, I held a meeting for veterans in Bulawayo. I said that because of their loyalty, ZANE would look after their needs.

One very old but sprightly man called from the front row, “Even me?” 

“Why not you?”

“My name is Hauptmann Smidt. I fought in Hitler’s army!”

The room froze. Then laughter. I muttered that grass grows on all battlefields, and why not?

And so we did!

Here we are two old gits, not two pounds of us hanging straight, minute figures wandering along the Norfolk coast under a vast pale blue canopy of sky. What a wonderful world and what a privilege to be alive at this hour.

God Save the King!

It’s inevitable in our free society that republicans are bound to make a fuss about the cost of monarchy, and some would even glue themselves to the roads to make nuisances of themselves. But what they’ll find is that it’s far easier to moan than establish a decent alternative.

Okay, republicans don’t like the class divisions that the monarchy is said to generate, and they disapprove of non-elected people exercising even modest influence in our democracy. Yet the vital quality of the monarchy and the stability it brings were tested when, between 2016 and 2022, the revolving doors of 10 Downing Street saw five prime ministers taking office across a period of just over six years. While our democracy bent (though failed to break), our magnificent queen ruled calm and serene above the fray bringing a non-political stability to our affairs.

We pray it will be the same under King Charles III.   

Rites and Rituals

The monarchy may look strange in our modern democracy – rather like the bumble bee, it shouldn’t fly but it does.

We will never know the value of ancient ceremony, ritual and traditions until they’ve been destroyed. Imagine, if you will, that the monarchy was swept aside, and we faced our first presidential campaign. The candidates would all proclaim to be “non-political”, but we all know that is simply impossible.

It’s a racing certainty the redoubtable Diane Abbott would appear as the first woman candidate of colour – any accusation that she’s far too stupid to be seriously considered would generate shrieks of “racism”. Her candidacy would be contested by Nigel Farage, furry collar, fag and pint at the ready. Then Peter Tatchell might be paraded by Stonewall as LGBAEM (Lesbian, Gay, Black, Asian, Ethnic Minority), as the first LGBTQ+ president, and Blair would face Corbyn.

You think I am wrong? Want to take a bet? But sanity will prevail, and I can’t see republicanism being introduced here. 

Britain’s Greatest Brand

Most people realise that the UK’s monarchy is one of the biggest brands in the world. It’s the thing we do best that no other country can match. The brand beats Facebook, Virgin, X (Twitter), Rolex, Trump, Amazon and Chanel into cocked hats. The cost is small, but the value in terms of soft power and influence is beyond price.

Twenty million people in the UK watched the coronation on television and many hundreds of millions more looked on from around the world. From Tasmania to Toronto, from St Petersburg to Nairn, and from Newfoundland to Perth, viewers watched in awe as the best of British pomp and pageantry went on display. I bet many of them would love to have taken part and wished their country had even a fraction of our style and chutzpah. 

What other world event could generate such favourable publicity? Not even the Olympics pulls that number of viewers. What monetary value can you attach to it? It’s priceless. What positive effect do these figures have on our tourist industry? How much benefit do these viewing figures bring to our worldwide businesses, the financial arena, and our goods and services?       

God Save King Charles III!

O, to be in England

Here’s a definition of what it is to be English – and one that will not find its way into newspapers:

“Basking in our garden over the weekend, celebrating our temperate climate, a passive spirit, cricket at Lords, tennis at Wimbledon, sports day and the egg and spoon race, the village fete, a car boot sale and real ale. These things are in the English DNA and are a way of life. Those who wish to destroy it cannot understand it, and yet it is the very essence of why they will fail.”

Walking on the beach at Hunstanton, we found ourselves compelled to look at naked UK swimmers. One tanned man in a thong – Jane, avert your eyes! – and, flexing his muscles, looked rather like a condom stuffed with conkers. Then I saw myself in a window, my hat askew, a blob of ice cream on my nose, flies undone, so who on earth am I to judge?

As so often on our walks, we are overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers, the generosity of supporters who take us in, usually sight unseen. One startled lady told me she was actually expecting someone else, “but perhaps you’ll do!” I think I passed muster!

Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing

You may have watched TV’s The Sixth Commandment recently? It detailed the ghastly experience of Peter Farquhar, who was sexually exploited and then murdered by the vicious Ben Field.

I knew Peter in the early 1990s when he was the Benyon daughters’ English teacher at Stowe School. Our relationship was more than casual – I tried to help him, wholly unsuccessfully, to get his books published. He was an excellent writer but publishing novels is a cruel game and he fell into the Clement Freud category: “Any fool can write a book, but it takes a genius to sell one!”   

Peter was a gentle and very shy man. He was gay but as a deeply committed Christian, he had remained celibate. His unhappiness and desperate loneliness were brilliantly drawn by actor Timothy Spall.

In Cold Blood

Years ago, US author Scott Peck wrote a couple of brilliant books. The Road Less Travelled won worldwide acclaim but the less well-known The People of the Lie was equally insightful. In brief, Peck claimed that real wickedness is not just straightforward violence and crookery, which is bad enough. Real evil has yet another dimension, where the cold-blooded perpetrator cloaks his or her wickedness behind a mask of false kindness and virtue. For example, I wasn’t surprised when a large army of priests were discovered hiding behind holy office whilst sexually abusing the children they had caught in their claws.     

Ben Field pretended to love poor Peter. He then “married” him and persuaded him to change his will. Then he drugged Peter to make him feel like he was going crazy before finally strangling him.

Believe this: I attended the funeral service for Peter where Field – who had, of course, callously murdered him – gave the oration in his memory.

Field was caught after trying the same routine on a retired headmistress who lived a few doors away from Peter’s old house in Maids Moreton, Buckingham. Luckily, when Field came to change her will, he tried to employ the services of the same solicitor he had used for Peter. The solicitor smelled a rat – and what a rat he turned out to be! Fortunately, Field was jailed for life and will serve at least 38 years. Good!   

Butter Wouldn’t Melt

Recently, another example of supreme evil dominated news headlines. Smiling, blue-eyed Lucy Letby, hiding behind the mask of the perceived virtue of her profession, murdered at least seven infants. No one could believe that such a gentle, innocent-looking woman, marinated in infant care, would stoop to such evil acts. Now we know.

There are, of course, cries in the Telegraph that we should debate the return of the death penalty. Probably, in the event of a referendum on the subject, its promoters would effortlessly win.

I remember 19 July 1979 well. Parliament debated whether capital punishment should, once again, be available as a penalty in the courts. I was the MP who succeeded Airey Neave (following his assassination by the IRA in the Commons car park). To the consternation of many constituents, I voted against the motion. First, there had been several well publicised miscarriages of justice. Second, experienced lawyers warned me that if a jury knew that a defendant found guilty faced possible execution, the law of unintended consequences could bite. The jury might be afraid to convict, and guilty people might escape justice.

Last, in a debate in 1974, Lord Hailsham told the House of Lords that the death penalty is “a horrible and degrading thing”. He was as right then as he is now.        

In last year’s commentary, I listed the five regrets of the dying. The one that generated the most reader comments was, “When you wake do you think it just another boring day or are you full of wonder that we are still alive in this wondrous world?” Here I am on a beautiful day, contemplating that a man needs three things to bless his life: a battle to fight, a maiden to woo and a cause bigger than himself to live for. I can by the grace of God tick all three boxes.

We read that Fayed is dead. Will anyone mourn him? he had much in common with Trump and Maxwell. All allegedly self-important bullies to whom truth and honesty are moving targets, all living out the insight of author Henry James: “Behind every great fortune is always a great crime.” They blighted everyone they met. The first two are facing their maker… I suspect and hope that sometime soon the Donald will reap his nemesis and spend richly deserved  time in an orange jump suit.

We are walking down Peddars  Way, a 2000 year old track whose surface is hatched into grooves  by bikes; the going  is hazardous in that it’s dead easy to twist your ankle.

Putin’s Divide

Of course, we all know that Putin is a dangerous and corrupt thug. However, he has a worrying point when it comes to his judgement of the west.  

In the New York Times, I read that the Russian president is selling his disastrous war to citizens by proclaiming a “High Noon” battle between a noble, family-orientated and disciplined Russia and the spiritually collapsed and morally dysfunctional west. 

He starts by drawing attention to the US – presently an easy target – where, in 2024, the astonished electorate must decide which geriatric candidate is the least disastrous choice to run the country.   

Putin then proclaims that the west has degenerated from being the home of ruthless capitalism to a “nest of sex changes, the rampages of drag queens, barbaric gender debates and an LGBTQ takeover.” He goes on to claim that today the west is “a hotbed of selfishness, permissiveness and immorality, and in denial of the ideals of patriotism”, and that it is “busy with the destruction of the traditional family through the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations”. 

Parade

To what degree are Putin’s claims true? We can surely agree that his vicious campaign against the gay community is monstrous and cruel. But what about his assertion that here in the UK, there used to be a divide between simply letting people get on with their sexual preferences (within the law) and promoting and celebrating LGBTQ+ issues in the way that happens now? Worried critics remain silent for fear of being labelled homophobic, a career-ending insult. The “Pride” campaign has expanded from one day a month to a whole month, and parades a rainbow of sexual preferences, however bizarre they may be – other, of course, than the one that reproduces our species. Sexual aberration appears to be the new normal. 

Why is it appropriate for “pride” to be involved with any sort of sexual activity? Why don’t we just get on with what we like doing in our own bedrooms, and shut up and try not to frighten the horses? And whilst I think about it, why are we passively conceding there is no such thing as “normal” sexual conduct, even the one that brought all of us into the world? Surely this is anti-family and manifestly not in the public interest.  

Why do we allow bias in the selection of CEOs, leading politicians, military leaders and law officers, instead of just choosing the best candidate – whether straight, gay, white, black, Latino or Asian? If you want proof this happens, just study the circumstances in which Kamala Harris was chosen as vice president of the US.  

And surely Putin is right about our lack of patriotism. Any teacher or professor who dares mention the “ideals of patriotism” to their charges, or who demonstrates affection for our homeland, is considered not just absurd but malign. Teachers at schools and universities persuade the young to be ashamed of our country while cleansing the curricula of our cultures’ classics. Yes, Putin has plenty of ammunition to feed his vicious campaign – all he need do is read our newspapers.   

On the Road

I bought a new car in May. To be accurate, it’s a very old car but new to us.

Anyway, I transferred my insurance cover, and to cut a tedious tale to its barest shreds, the insurance company managed to get a single letter wrong in the new registration. Did you know that the traffic police now have a gadget that automatically reads registration plates and highlights the uninsured? 

Well, they do! Within a week, I was stopped by a cop who politely told me I was uninsured. Of course, I had no paperwork with me, and he was adamant that I couldn’t drive another yard further without proof of cover. 

“Officer, I’m not so stupid as to drive a car whilst uninsured.” 

No joy! 

“Officer, please believe me, I used to be a politician”. 

He began to laugh. I could see it coming. 

“All the more reason not to believe you, Sir!”

He let me go in the end.

Nearly all telly programmes start – ludicrously in my view – warning viewers that watching, for example, Putin’s war in ghastly detail involving bombing, death, and rape “might be offensive to some viewers”. What do they expect? Do they think viewers live in a perpetual world of Little Bo Peep and The Sound of Music?

Anyway, following the nannying trend perpetrated everywhere, my walk commentary may be offensive to some readers. If it is, stop reading and get a life!

Over the years, I am sure I’ve started many walk commentaries with “ Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun,” and so we do today.

Miles of sandy paths cut through the beautiful county on the “Peddars Way”. Kind and generous hosts to see us on our way. Heroes Charles and Angela walk with us often as pathfinders.

Baby Wants Cake! 

Why do people accuse politicians of being liars?

The answer is easy – if politicians told voters the unvarnished truth, they’d never get elected in the first place!

Do people realise how darn difficult it is to run a country effectively when the electorate act like babies who refuse to recognise the inconsistences of their demands? People cry for better healthcare, “free” social care, better paid teachers, more money for defence spending and roads without potholes. Then they simultaneously squeal for lower taxes – while failing to notice the impossibility of having all these things at the same time. Voters want their cake, but they won’t pay for it by voting for the bills.

No, Nein and Non

Of course, it’s not just British citizens who practice such willful blindness. In the US, people want to see an end to gun crime and mass shootings but steadfastly refuse to ban guns. They complain about eye-watering debt but decline to vote for candidates who pledge to do something about it. Remember Ronnie Reagan who quipped, “Our debt’s big enough to look after itself!” – and so he let it balloon. Of course, when the debt parcel finally reaches the end of the line and bursts – as it surely must – the poor sods holding it will face a world-shattering debt crisis, and everyone will blame them for being lying, useless hounds.    

In Germany, voters want energy security but said nein when asked to buy the nuclear reactors that would have delivered what they needed. That’s why they were in hock to Putin’s oil. It’s much easier now for voters to lazily blame poor Angela Merkel and Gerhard Schröder for incompetence than accept responsibility for their own fecklessness. 

In France, poor Macron is trying to deliver vital pension reform – an essential matter that has been ducked by previous presidents who saw that the issue is electoral dynamite. Macron can only deliver it in his last term of presidential office when finally freed from democratic constraints. 

We live like babies, voting for politicians who tell us what we want to hear and then accusing them of being liars when things go wrong – as they usually do in the end.   

DH Lawrence’s poem “We Can’t Be Too Careful” sums things up. Here’s an extract:

“We can’t be too careful
about the British Public.
It gets bigger and bigger
And its perambulator has to get bigger and bigger
And its dummy-teat has to be made bigger and bigger and bigger
And the job of changing its nappies gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger
And the sound of its howling gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger…
And soon even God won’t be big enough to handle that infant.”

Lawrence died in 1930. The baby’s got a bit bigger since then, hasn’t it?

There’s an election in just over a year’s time – another mouthful of cake, Baby Dear?

Time Waits for No Man

Now, something to cheer you up. As you get older, you of course have less time left but it seems to flick by much faster than when you were a babe.

For a 10-year-old, a year seems an eternity, while for a 79-year-old, that same year passes by in a flash. A paradox of course, but the mathematics tell us this. For a 10-year-old, a year adds 10 per cent to their life, a huge amount. For a 50-year-old, a year adds 2 per cent, a tiny amount. And that percentage diminishes each year that passes! 

The sun is like a bishop’s bottom: large, shiny and hot, the first continual sun we have seen for months. Lunch in Castle Acre, a gem of a town with a priory, a castle and a grand house lurking somewhere.

I see the news is dull, which is good when you think of the miseries we have endured these past years. Perhaps our politicians might be persuaded to go on holiday more often! Give me dull at any time! I am reminded of the newspaper competition for the dullest headline ever. The winner was “earthquake in Chile, only a few dead!” ( Sorry to Chilean donors, but I thought it was funny! it shows how tasteless I can be!)

An Unholy Mess

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy,” recalled Nick Carraway in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. “They smashed up things… and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

Readers of my last commentary will recall the case of the great Post Office mess whereby this old British institution prosecuted around 900 sub-postmasters for theft, false accounting and fraud. After a lengthy court case, it was found that 99 per cent of them were wholly innocent and that many had been maliciously prosecuted. Many lives were destroyed. 

Oh yes, I nearly forgot to remind you – the Post Office CEO at the time, the Rev Paula Vennells, is a former Anglican priest. At first, she said she was misled by computer experts – but when she was told the full extent of her mess, she said she was “sorry”. That’s nice, isn’t it? Bound to reassure those whose lives have been wholly destroyed. Pity about those who took their own lives before she issued her apology.

You think the Post Office scandal was a one-off? Think again.

Dirty Money

If any ZANE donor was found to have assisted drug smuggling by laundering money, he or she could rightly expect up to 20 years in the slammer. But not so if you’re too big to jail. The world’s biggest bank is HSBC. During its recent drug-running days, the CEO of HSBC UK was the Rev Stephen Green – yes, these Anglican priests pop up everywhere.

Between 2006 and 2009, the bank – under Green’s watch – allowed a breakdown in money laundering controls in its Mexican subsidiary with the result that at least $881 million of drug trafficking cash flowed through its US accounts. The bank was so blatant in its enthusiasm to assist the drug cartels and enhance profits that bank cashiers’ windows were specially adapted to allow large bungs of dirty drug money to be posted easily. When HSBC was warned – several times – that the practice was illegal, it turned a blind eye. There can be no argument about guilt. There is even a recording of a Mexican drug lord saying that HSBC Mexico is “the place to launder money”.

When finally confronted with HSBC’s crime of profiting from drug running on an industrial scale, Green expressed his “regret”. That’s it. No explanation as to how the bank landed a fine of $91m, the largest penalty ever recorded. Amazingly, when the US authorities decided to prosecute HSBC, it was the UK’s chancellor, George Osborne, who defended the bank’s executives and pleaded that the economic fallout would be so great that prosecution had to be avoided.

Of course, Osborne was right. To bring criminal charges against nice, non-violent people like us, who hail from similar backgrounds and circles, and send us to jail and thereby ruin us and our families is quite another.

I bet you’ll never guess the next bit. Partly thanks to Osborne’s intervention, HSBC survived. And once Osborne had moved on from his chancellor role, he made two speeches for HSBC, one in Davos for which he was paid £51,000, and another for which he received £68,000 (he was obliged to register these fees in the Commons file of financial interests).     

A Blooming Shame

This all makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? You see, the authorities view non-violent criminals differently from violent criminals. They don’t regard them as, well, quite so criminal. Remember the old song “It’s the Same the Whole World Over”?

“It’s the same the whole world over,
It’s the poor what get the blame,
It’s the rich what get the pleasure,
Isn’t it a blooming shame?”

So, what happened next? The key drug runner in Mexico, “El Chapo”, is incarcerated for life in one of America’s most secure prisons, the US Penitentiary Florence Administrative Maximum in Colorado (its nickname is “The Alcatraz of the Rockies”). He’s locked up for 23 hours each day. A former warden claims, “The jail is not fit for humanity… I think being there day by day is worse than death.” 

Meanwhile, Rev Green (Cameron elevated him to Lord Green) “regrets” what happened. So, that’s all right then.  

Just like Rev Paula Vennells, today the Rev Lord Green is rich, retired and free – he’s a member of the House of Lords and he continues his ministry as an Anglican priest.

Careless people these vicars. Smashing things up… and then retreating back into their money or their vast carelessness and letting other people clean up the mess they’ve made.

A Wonderful Beginning

Zimbabwe can be summed up in the words that Bill Clinton’s secretary of state, the late Madeleine Albright, once quoted:

“God made a wonderful beginning,
But man spoiled it all by sinning.
We hope that the story will end in God’s glory,
But, at the moment, the other side’s winning!”

And how! A once wonderful country has been reduced to a comprehensive ruin!

So, Jane and I – along with Moses, the dog – walk to draw attention to the plight of those in Zimbabwe who are trapped in penury and destitution. All too many of them look to ZANE as their only lifeline.

As Stiff as Stoats

The setting for our fourteenth walk is Norfolk – and to be honest, it’s getting harder to find locations we haven’t already covered! This time, I demanded our walk planner look for a route that didn’t involve major roads – in the past, we’ve nearly been mown down by lunatics. Then we proscribed major hills for we’re running out of puff, and told him no plough, for it clogs up our boots. And then last – and pleeease – no minor, overgrown paths that make the job of getting lost all too easy!

Someone asked me why the walks continue to be popular. I reckon loyal supporters assume that after all these years Tom and Jane must be as stiff as stoats – so they back us “one last time”. And then, guess what? The following year, we pop up again like a jack in the box with, “Hello! Here we go again!” And so, our supporters think, “Gosh, one more time it is, where’s the cheque book?” And the process repeats itself!

So, it’s the same old boots, the same old sticks, the same old trousers and the same old dog – and off we go!

Postcard from Paris

I saw a postcard that made me smile. An elderly couple are eating breakfast and she says, “Darling… when one of us dies, I’m going to live in Paris!”

A couple of our closest friends are celebrating 45 years of a wonderful marriage. They told me that before they had even decided on a date for their wedding, James suggested to Mary, “Let’s anticipate the marriage. Come and live with me now?”

“Oh, no,” she replied. “I’m far too fond of you to do that.”  

I suggest that this story would be incomprehensible to today’s young.

The Mystery of Faith

Alec Douglas-Home, prime minister from 1963 to 1964, and a devout member of the CoE reticent, was once cornered in a lift by a woman who roared at him, “Have you been saved?” 

A nervous Douglas-Home said thanks for asking and that he thought he had.

“Then why aren’t you leaping up and down and waving your hands above your head with pure joy?”

The PM anxiously replied, “I thought it was such a close-run thing, I had much better keep quiet about it!”

Winning Souls

Many attempts to evangelise can seem insensitive and impertinent. Alastair Campbell famously said, “We don’t do God!” and I sympathise with his sentiments because the harsh and cynical world of politics, particularly political media management, and “God” are not an easy mix. Christian sentiments can all too easily be mistaken for virtue signalling and are a short ride to mockery.

I think it’s patronising and profitless to badger people we hardly know about God. I was recently asked by a friend how she could persuade her son to take an interest in Jesus? I was astounded by the question, for to my mind, it’s wholly fruitless to even try. Attempts at religious coercion are not something Jane or I would ever have tried on our children. In our (long) experience, children pretty much bring themselves up and the best thing that parents can do is pray (if they are so inclined), try and live decent lives, teach children the basics and otherwise keep out of their way. Persuading the young to slouch out of bed before 11am is hard enough, but hectoring them to go to church, read the Bible, or take even a vague interest in “religion” is highly likely to be counterproductive.

More young people have been put off “God” for life by insensitive parents frog-marching them unwillingly to church and banging on about the Bible than any other factor. Calvin had a point: either we have the religious “gene”, or we don’t; either we are “ripe”, or we aren’t. If parents draw a blank, they should just accept that their child’s time has not yet come – and indeed, may not come in their lifetime.

Whether people come to faith or not is a mystery, and it’s vanity to think family agency has much to do with it.  We have known “churchy” children from ostensibly orderly and devout families, only to watch them slide off the rails into promiscuity or drugs – one even ended up in the slammer. And we have seen parents whose lifestyles were far from ideal (as far as we could tell, for how can one ever judge the integrity of other people’s lives?) produce “model” children, who ended up as hand-waving believers. 

There is a story about a woman who longed for her son to become a Christian. She prayed that whatever was blocking him from accepting Jesus into his life would be removed. Her prayers were answered and she vanished!

I told my friend this anecdote and she looked rather thoughtful. Perhaps I was a bit unkind? 

The penultimate day, spent with delightful ZANE supporters. We discussed a range of subjects, including Brexit and the current political turmoil.

We ended up in Runnymede, where the Magna Carta was signed. When they get their faces out of screens, I wonder if the young are taught the importance of this vital key to history that set the foundation, not only for our legal system but that of the US? Do they know that people have died to win freedom of speech, the right to freedom under the law, and the right to vote? Do they care?

Hocus Pocus

When I was chairman of the Milton Keynes Health Authority – many moons ago – the incidence of drug abuse there was higher than anywhere else in the UK. The town (now a city, of course) wasn’t then regarded as an attractive place to live, as it has now certainly become. 

In the final months of my term, we were required to recruit someone to head up the drug abuse department. As chairman, I was part of the selection committee. 

After “due process” – whatever that means – we were obliged to select someone from, as I recall, a very thin list. In the interviews, we were given a list of questions we were permitted to ask about any candidate’s private life. Undaunted, I asked one dreary looking candidate with pale blue eyes and a small ginger moustache what he did in his spare time? It seemed a harmless enough question to me. I suspected pigeon fancying or perhaps square dancing?

Then an extraordinary thing – the air was sucked from the room and the temperature dropped.  “I’m a witch,” he replied. 

Silence. He had to be joking? 

“Broomsticks and all the trimmings?” I innocently enquired. (Reader, what would you have said?)

The chief executive clicked his teeth disapprovingly. 

The man said nothing. It transpired he was being totally sincere, and I had offended him deeply. Apparently, there is a flourishing coven somewhere near Milton Keynes and the whole thing is a deadly serious business! 

I forget most things, but this event and the man’s face and name are tattooed on my memory. It transpired he was a leader of the coven, no less. 

I couldn’t think of a darn thing to say, so I bowed out of the meeting and let them get on with it. Soon afterwards, I left the authority to become director of another one, but not before I was told by my chief executive that being a practising witch doesn’t preclude you from holding a public post in the UK. Sure enough, the witch subsequently took up his new day job in the drug abuse department. I can’t help wondering if he had declared his Christianity instead, would he have been appointed? I doubt it.

Anyway, if you are driving along in Milton Keynes one dark night and a man suddenly flashes by on a broomstick… please remember I left before this curious appointment was confirmed!

Ho ho! From the perspective of years, I can make silly jokes about it now – it makes a good story. But it wasn’t funny at the time, and, if truth be told, it still bothers me.

Boys Will Be Boys…

Half a lifetime ago, Jane and I were almost content with the birth of our two daughters, Clare and Camilla. But we both wanted to try and complement the family with a boy. How to go about it?

One evening, an aged maiden aunt silenced a supper party with the advice that if we wanted a son, steps would have to be taken – by me! I was curious enough to ask what on earth she thought I should do about it.

“I was told by Great Aunt Hetty that you should eat a vast quantity of kidneys and liver. Then each night, drink a glass of port with a raw egg switched in it!”

“Ho ho,” we laughed. What a farce. What did Great Aunt Hetty know about anything? I forgot the episode.

Sometime later, I wondered why we were eating so much liver and kidneys – always followed by a glass of port and orders to drink up. In fact, Jane would stand over me until I had drained the glass. Afterwards, I wanted to be sick!

Ten months later, our baby son was christened “Thomas”.

I promise this is true!

Trust No One

I have just read a remarkable book, The Great Post Office Scandal by Nick Wallis.

The Post Office, that core member of the establishment – slightly dull, yet a deeply respected British institution – prosecuted around 900 sub-postmasters for theft, false accounting and fraud. After a vast court case, it was found that 99 per cent of those prosecuted were wholly innocent and that many of them were maliciously prosecuted.

The prosecutions were based on evidence drawn from the Post Office’s software system, Horizon. The PO had proclaimed the system to be infallible when in fact it was as full of holes as a rotten Swiss cheese. But it gets worse – the accountants, the solicitors and the managers all went on prosecuting even after the directors had been reliably informed that the system was flawed. The lives of those ensnared in this misery were destroyed – they ended up bankrupt, divorced, disgraced and suicidal. Then, during the trial, the Post Office managers used taxpayer money to try and run the sub-postmasters’ action group out of funds by playing legal games. Of course, none of those responsible for this carnage have been prosecuted. Most are still sitting on their plump arses to this day drawing their wages and seemingly couldn’t care less.

As far as the prosecuted sub-postmasters are concerned, the empirical evidence suggests that those from a minority ethnic background received harsher sentences than their European counterparts.

And, oh yes, I nearly forgot. The Post Office CEO was an Anglican priest. She says she’s “sorry”.

You wouldn’t believe this ghastly story if you had read it in a novel.

Russian Roulette

I’ve been here before. Years ago, against acute establishment resistance, I founded the Association of Lloyd’s Members (ALM) to represent the investors towards the owners of the enterprises that were meant to make them money. It was, I imagine, rather like starting the first trade union for horny handed mill workers. The mill owners were pissed off.

I was amongst the first to expose the scandal where half the investor market (made up of the posh boys) was dishonestly shafting the other half (the common twits) with the losses.

We litigated and won all the cases. I had to fight two defamation cases personally – thank God I settled both before trial.

But my experience tells me that I’d be better off chancing my luck on the Las Vegas roulette tables than relying on justice in the UK courts. At least in Vegas, they lay on drink and entertainment, more than they do in the High Court – and the odds are better in Vegas.

Those fighting the Post Office mafia found – as we did all those years ago at Lloyd’s – that the first implacable barrier that had to be overcome was the iron curtain of certainty of innocence that prevailed. Both Lloyd’s and the Post Office were at the heart of the establishment and virtually synonymous with “respectability”. Allegations by the plaintiffs alleging greed, corruption, deception, institutional ignorance, ingrained superiority, gross dishonesty and venality on the part of the posh boys seemed simply impossible. 

So dear ZANE supporters, I’ve two things to ask of you.

One: Please read the Post Office scandal book and thank God you weren’t a sub post-master under that cruel and wicked regime.

Two: Imagine you are in the office of an institution that’s been around for a generation. You are led through a marble hall into a meeting room with expensive paintings and a crested Latin motto on a wall plaque. The suits are smart, the smiles reassuring, and the overall ambiance is one of deep respectability, honesty and integrity. Before you write the cheque, just remember a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.”