Bright sunny morning, birds chirping, alls well with the world, we feel fine; the walk is going well…

We asked our walk creators to ensure we have no hills, no plough, and please no frightening roads…. and Bingo! Is this a hill? , No it can’t be, yes it darn well is, quite the longest hill we have staggered up in years…

Then a series of small, narrow,  winding roads; what do we do? All that has to happen is a genial half-wit to half glance at his messages as he or she zooms along and it’s good night, sweet Prince for us. Then through the gate and what do we see?  So we stagger swearing through miles of bloody plough. The triple whammy. Grrr!

However, the rest of the walk went well and I am in a forgiving vein.

Not My Cup of Tea

In a tea shop, the lady behind the counter announced she thought I was “cute”.

I belong to the Helen Mirren school of oldies, and I will not tolerate being patronised. All this, “You dear old thing,” and “How well he looks…for his age,” you can stuff where the sun don’t shine. I will not be subject to ageism. Just “sod off” and leave me alone…

A Little About Me

1. What is your idea of earthly happiness?

To love and be loved.

2. What are your main faults?

 Those that dictate my most urgent material needs.

3. Who are your heroes of fiction?

Horatio Hornblower; Flashman; Jeeves; Jean Valjean (Les Misérables); the King’s General (in du Maurier’s novel); Bathsheba Everdene; Richard Sharpe (particularly at Waterloo); Blaise Meredith (the priest in Morris West’s The Devil’s Advocate).

4. Who are your heroes of history?

First Division: General Sir Harry Smith and his wife Juana María de Los Dolores de León Smith (Peninsular War – google them); Thomas Paine; Socrates; Lord Cochrane; Stonewall Jackson; Ulysses S. Grant (commanding general and US president); Lawrence of Arabia; Rev. John Newton (former slaver, who wrote “Amazing Grace”); Blaise Pascal; William Wallace; Joan of Arc; Norman Tebbit.

Second Division:  John Masters DSO, OBE (soldier and novelist); George MacDonald Fraser OBE (soldier and author of Flashman amongst others); Frederic Manning (soldier and author of the Middle Parts of Fortune).

5. Who are your favourite painters?

Caravaggio; Lucian Freud; Turner.

6. What are your most valued qualities in men and women?

Sense of humour; courage, moral and physical; sense of the absurd; kindness towards others in trouble.

7. What are you most proud of?

A long and loving marriage; passing out of RM Sandhurst; leading the revolt at Lloyd’s of London; the horse Jane and I bred, Prince Panache, winning the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, one of the world’s most prestigious events in the sport of eventing; establishing ZANE and a medical programme for veterans and pensioners; the happy marriages of our children; all our 11 grandchildren; the ordination of three of our children; the establishment of Jane’s Community Emergency Foodbank (CEF); our many cherished friends.

8. Who would you most like to have dinner with?

Saint Peter; Oscar Wilde; Cicero; Prometheus; Robert Burns; Oskar Schindler; Anne Boleyn; Lord Cochrane; Thomas Paine; Bill Clinton; Enoch Powell and Tony Benn (who were friends with each other).

9. What are your most valued qualities in friends?

Their continued existence – and their continued affection towards me.            

10. What are your greatest fears?

 Mental incapacity affecting both Jane and me; loss of love from family; loss of sense of humour.

11. Which public figures do you most despise?

Tony Blair; Robert Maxwell; Nicola Sturgeon; Ted Heath; Ed Miliband; Vladimir Putin; Eamon de Valera.

12. Which public figures do you most admire?

Oliver Cromwell; Golda Meir; Alexei Navalny; Volodymyr Zelensky; Vera Brittain; Lord Denning; Cardinal Basil Hume; Gordon Wilson (Irish draper who publicly forgave the IRA for killing his daughter); WW2 fighter pilots; WW2 naval Arctic convoy commanders; men who gave up their lifeboat seats to women and children on the Titanic; Father Maximilian Kolbe (priest at Auschwitz who sacrificed his life for another prisoner); Chidiock Tichborne (who wrote a famous poem before his execution); First World War poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon; Jane Austen; Kate Muir.

13. Who are your favourite poets?

ASJ Tessimond; Francis Thompson; Wilfred Owen; Robert Frost; Edna St. Vincent Millay; Wendy Cope; WH Auden; WB Yeats; TS Eliot.

14. What is your favourite poem?

“Stop all the Clocks” by WH Auden. The poems that make me cry (I have no real idea why) are “Uxbridge Road” by Evelyn Underhill, and “After Apple-Picking” and “The Death of the Hired Man” by Robert Frost.

15. What are your favourite books?

The Pensées by Pascal; A History of Napoleon’s Italian Campaign; The Stars Look Down by AJ Cronin; The Loving Spirit by Daphne du Maurier (in fact anything by her); White Fang by Jack London; The Story of the Treasure Seekers by E Nesbit.

16. What book are you presently reading?

Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell by Simon Heffer.

17. What book are you ashamed not to have read?

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot.

18. What is your favourite play?

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller; An Inspector Calls by JB Priestley; The Winslow Boy and The Browning Version by Terence Rattigan.

19. What are your favourite films?

The Magnificent Seven; Cinema Paradiso; Jean de Florette and its sequel Manon des Sources; Il Postino; Love Story; Schindler’s List; The Night Porter; Blow-Up; The Cruel Sea; Brief Encounter; A Man for All Seasons. 

20. What is the last film that made you cry?

Love Story.

21. What is your favourite TV box set?

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh and adapted by John Mortimer.

22. What are your favourite pieces of music?

“Rigoletto” by Verdi and anything by Schubert, while Rachmaninoff’s “Third Piano Concerto” is the music that most cheers me up. At the gym, I listen to Dusty Springfield’s top hits, ABBA and Elton John.

23. What instrument do you wish you could play?

The piano.

24. If you could own one picture, what would it be?

The Penitent Peter by Guercino (hanging in the Scottish Academy).

25. What are your favourite names?

For women: Cressida; Antonia; Clementine; Cassandra.

For men: Oliver; Joseph; David; Raphael.

26. What gifts do you not possess?

Languages; an eye for a ball.

27. Where do you feel happiest?

In bed with Jane.

28. How would you like to die?

In control of my senses and surrounded by those who love me.

A staccato start in Gravesend as we wound our way out of the town. Heavy showers were punctuated  by an African sun so we dried quickly enough . We walked along miles of Thames Estuary,  in the past swarming with ships, today but a sad ship’s graveyard. Just imagine Turner’s tragic “The Fighting Temeraire”, being towed to the breaker’s yard by that smokey tug. We walked through acres of lumpy tundra: next Thursday we are told it’s a rifle range for the London Met. We won’t hang around.

I reflected on the joy generated last weekend when all 21 of the Benyon/ Hayns/ Sinclair  family, gathered in Bladon and in daughter Clare’s ancient Rectory in Iffley and Rosehill in Oxford. The family is so precious. A party of talk, games, even prayer and huge fun. What a privilege they all wanted to come.

So Long, Dear Friend

It would be remiss of me not to pay a tribute to cartoonist, Tony Husband, who died on Westminster Bridge in 2023. Tony enhanced ZANE’s work with great skill. He was a pleasure to work with. Tony was on top of his profession. We were lucky he agreed to work with us. He will be much missed. RIP.

We are fortunate in attracting the excellent Lee Fearnly as our new cartoonist.

The Art of Saying Goodbye

When our beloved daughter Clare left her role as Chaplain at Christ Church, I commented to a friend that one of the things I missed was the occasional parking spot in the heart of Oxford. 

“Of course,” he responded. “Life’s a series of getting things, then having to give them up!”

That observation triggered a memory from half a lifetime ago when I read The Road Less Travelled. The author, US psychiatrist Scott Peck, wrote about several things we must relinquish as we grow older. For starters, the follies of youth; and then, if we marry and truly grasp the soul-searing vows (not mere promises), we must give up much of our former independence. If we are granted children, we inevitably lose much of our social freedom, and because the ball of life bounces forwards, we must then let go of our children as they grow, forge their own paths, build relationships and love others. As we age, our looks – such as they ever were – wither with the passing years, and our sporting abilities abandon us. If I were to collapse whilst skiing now, I’d be unable to rise unaided – beached like a porpoise!

My shooting friends tell me that if balance falters, that’s it (on grounds of safety), while some of my golfing friends, pinched with arthritis, have had to give up the game altogether. We watch aghast as our work – surely, we were indispensable? – is taken up by the young and our “legacy” (if we ever had one) is shredded (just read Shelley’s “Ozymandias”). Speechless, we look on as debilitating illness or death fells our beloved friends and family, and finally, we begin to lose our health – and then, life itself.

And oh yes, I nearly forgot. Our society is marinated in sex, and for much of my life, I’ve felt as though I were handcuffed to a gibbering lunatic. Now the benign God has cast him into a deep cellar, from where, now and then, I still hear the echoes of his obscene yelling. But the days of early to bed and up with the cock are long gone. I’m resigned to the fact (relieved, even?) that the days of wine and roses are more or less over.

Life’s mighty tough and the adventure is best summed up by Churchill (you can see the quote in my last Christmas poetry book, page 6): “The journey has been well worth making – once.”       

The Great Escape

Some years ago, Jane and I moved from a much-loved house to a smaller one outside Oxford. We gave away many of our possessions – this reflects how we’ve changed as people. It’s not just that the children have left home, our outlook has changed too. What we want today differs from what we wanted in the early days of our marriage. Gone is the insistent need to be successful, make a fortune or be endlessly social. Now, less burdened by anxieties and responsibilities, we think of what makes us happy – relationships rather than grabbing things and parading status – and we buy less stuff. The idea of buying a new car to demonstrate our standing in society is risible (heck, it always was daft).

Our ability to ride horses has gone with the wind. And although I miss it keenly (though not the bills!), the fact that hunting – ­even trail hunting ­– is now illegal (mean-spirited and absurd) has made the choice rather easier. Perhaps visiting many of our paraplegic friends – and two tetraplegic ones, both now thankfully dead – helped us hang up our saddles, for it’s a mighty dangerous sport. So, some time ago, we disposed of our vast quantity of hunting gear – it was gutting.

Today, we busy ourselves with small, unimportant day-to-day things – family matters – but we try to do them well. 

Will our children really want my father’s pre-war diaries, his old papers and newspaper clips from India, his silver pots and ash trays, and his lamp too dim to read by? It’s a ridiculous trip down memory lane, misled by nostalgia and without purpose. And what will our children do with my army commission, or the certificate showing I passed an exam in theology? Or that piece of paper proving I jumped from an aeroplane 40 years ago? Are all these things some sort of defence against meaninglessness, proof to convince someone – who? – that Jane and I and our parents had a past? These scraps are a museum of our past lives, only dimly relevant to Jane and me – and wholly valueless to anyone else.   

We surround ourselves with briefly fashionable possessions and oppress ourselves by hanging onto them far longer than necessary. Then we burden our children with the miserable task of disposing of them.

Best deal with the clutter now. Brace yourself – what’s the address of the nearest tip?

I reckon the reason ZANE supporters give so generously is that, when they read the walk solicitation over breakfast, they say, “For goodness’ sake, not again. Surely, they’re too darn decrepit to be doing another walk! I suppose we’d better sponsor them – next year, they’re bound to be dead… Now, where’s the cheque book?”

So, lo and behold, here we are once more – asking you, please, to sponsor us again…

Cicero Says…

In 44 bc, the great Roman orator Cicero wrote an essay called Old Age to reassure his chum Attica that retirement and growing old were nothing to fear. He praised exercise, gardening, lively conversation, friendship and a good diet. Thanks Cicero – we tick all those boxes.

Two thousand years on, those over 70 are in better shape than ever. A recent International Monetary Fund report, analysing data from 41 countries, found that a widespread healthier approach to ageing means that the seventies and eighties are the new fifties and sixties. “We are getting smarter and staying smarter for longer.”

Sir Muir Gray, Professor of Primary Care at Oxford and a longstanding advisor on healthy ageing, is unequivocal: “Seventy need not be old, and ageing should not cause many problems until your nineties.

So here we go – boots checked, sticks cleaned, Macs oiled and water bottles filled – let’s hope he’s right!

Disclaimer

I hope you enjoy this commentary on politics, death, religion, sex and money – the issues that really matter. Please note that the views expressed are entirely my own and do not reflect those of ZANE or anyone who work for the charity. You may not agree with them, but I hope you’ll keep reading.

The Centre Cannot Hold

Dennis Silk, a great warden (headmaster) at Radley College, used to tell parents that if they and the school stood united on matters of discipline, many problems would simply dissolve and the boys would flourish.

But times have changed. Today, many parents haven’t a clue what’s truly best for their children. Some even try to be their “friends” – how daft and damaging is that? 

Reins and Rules

Years ago, Jane and I were involved in the management of Whaddon Chase Pony Club. Such clubs are hugely popular havens of innocent fun, mopping up the energy – and hormones – of mostly country-based, adolescent children. Meanwhile, their parents enjoy peace of mind, knowing their kids are safe, healthy and happily engaged.

For one action-packed week in the summer holidays, the schedule was filled with pony trials, races, events, competitions and parties. Our children loved every minute and the bonds they formed with fellow campers were so strong that many of those friendships have lasted to this day.

Of course, there were sensible rules – the young need that. We maintained tough parental control: no smoking, no drinking, no sex and no drugs – ever. If that last rule was broken, the culprits were summarily expelled. Parents hoped for the best and it all worked fine.

So, what’s this got to do with Dennis Silk’s speech to parents? One parent, Henry Dupree (not his real name) was father to two of the campers. His background was impeccable: Winchester; Magdalen, Oxford; and a former cavalry officer. In those days, he was a prosperous banker. Charming, with a pink-cheeked aura of entitlement, he wore tailored waisted suits and a gold chain. A mine of mildly dirty stories, he was “Plum Bum” to his friends. You know the type.

Of course, a few kids nicked wine from their parents for illicit parties, and some smoked fags behind the stables. Snogging in the hay happened, of course – if not then, for goodness’ sake when? But the point is, the children mostly respected the rules.

But then I saw Plum Bum actually giving his daughters wine and gin to smuggle in, thereby undermining the authority of the responsible adults. He was “ho, ho, ho” about the sex stuff as well. When I politely challenged him, he looked me at me as if I was a pompous ass. I can still hear the drawl:

“Come on, Tom, don’t be stuffy. Times are changing, they’re only young once.” All the clichés followed – something about “wild oats” and so on.

I was furious. He had learned nothing from his privileged background and simply couldn’t grasp that by ignoring the rules, he was inviting chaos.     

Years later, at a dinner, Henry told me quietly, “I have two grandchildren… both illegitimate. I must say, I don’t like it.”

I said nothing – for what was there to say? He was a nice guy but stupid… I suppose he meant well.

Bacchanalian Chaos

Let’s fast-forward to July 2025, when press reports revealed that up to 500 teenagers – many attending expensive schools, some as young as 14 – were discovered having sex on Polzeath Beach, the so-called Riviera of Cornwall.

They ripped up young trees for firewood and tore benches worth thousands from their moorings to burn. At dawn, rangers discovered a scene of devastation. The sand was littered with broken glass, excrement, smashed bottles, vapes, cigarettes and girls’ underwear. Scattered among the debris were unconscious teenagers who had been using marijuana, cocaine and ketamine.

A local resident said, “There are drugs on the beach. There are teenagers often drunk on alcohol supplied by parents. They drop their young children here at night, in the dark, and leave them with hundreds of older teenagers with no adults present. I cannot understand it.”

Why do the likes of Plum Bum and the parents of the children on Polzeath Beach allow such degenerate chaos? Are they stupid, negligent or just hopelessly naive? Do they simply fail to understand what a duty of care to their children entails? Or worse, do they even know what a duty of care is?

But it’s not just moronic “posh” parents – children are being abandoned across the adult world. The police have all but given up enforcing laws against illegal drugs, thereby effectively decriminalising them – and in doing so, they are enabling more children to use them, causing enormous damage to their bodies and brains. And children are being prematurely sexualised – instead of being protected by adults in a position of authority and trust, they are losing their precious innocence – exposed to debauchery, and in some cases, gross abuse.

Plum Bum might protest that what happened in Cornwall was extreme. But as soon as he and his kind encouraged children to break the rules and defy authority, the seedy Bacchanalian events on Polzeath Beach became an inevitable outcome.

A culture endures through its children. Parents instil in them the values of the society they inherit so that they, in turn, can pass those values on to future generations. Without this, things fall apart – and the centre cannot hold.

Plum Bum may be dead now, but his legacy marches on.

From Our Weaknesses…

Sometimes, it’s not a whole poem that gets me – a mere line can be enough.

I was reading “She Teaches Lear” by Iain Crichton Smith. It’s not a poem that touches me particularly, but then the third line of the last verse smacked me right in the guts:

“From our weaknesses only are we kind.”

Now there’s a thought…  

Booze, Bets and Sex

Let’s unpack this. A friend is not a smoker, so when he sees someone in a cloud of smoke, although he says nothing – he’s English, dammit! – he concludes the person is a moron and is predisposed to look down on him forever.

Then, the demon drink – not his problem! Just a bit of wine now and then, and rarely spirits. He used to share a flat with a buddy who got regularly “stoshered” – a great Scottish slang word – and who regularly lay on the floor, his mouth agape and smeared with vomit. Reasoning with him was wholly pointless ­– and in time, the poor sod pickled his liver and died in his fifties.

So, booze isn’t my pal’s problem, and he feels free to despise all drunks as morally weak. Nor is he a gambler, so he has no sympathy for losers on either horses or tables. And he’s as thin as a string of spaghetti! He could live on a diet of deep-fried Mars Bars, Big Macs and Hob Nobs without adding an ounce. So, of course, as soon as he sees a barrel of lard waddling towards him, his lips curl in horror at the self-indulgent slob!

Is he faultless? Well, I happen to know that sex is his torment. He told me once that fate appears to have chained him to a gibbering sex lunatic and he has difficulty keeping his flies up. So, when a close friend was caught “sleeping” – a ridiculous euphemism, for sleep’s not the thing you do (so I’m told!) – with a hooker, he was hugely supportive. My friend understands that temptation only too well.  

So, “from our weaknesses only are we kind”. Now you know!

I am sure that most ZANE supporters are perfect, but perhaps one or two of you will recognise this more-or-less universal tendency to condemn others for sins that – by the grace of God – are not ours?

Pascal’s on the Phone

French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623–62) wrote, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone”. Of course, he was making the point that without entertainment or distractions, humankind must confront the harsh realities of suffering, pain and death. 

Enter the ultimate distraction: smartphones. They’re hugely addictive because whenever the devices are checked, a stimulating substance called “dopamine” is generated, which affects emotions and behaviour. Of course, its effect is transitory and then users suffer from “Nomophobia”, or NO MObile PHOne PhoBIA. This fear of being without is partly responsible, we now know, for loss of self-esteem and acute depression. And it’s total catnip for the bottom line of the smartphone industry.

Glassy eyed phone addicts stagger down the road, and I expect to bump into one anytime soon. And then at my gym, the cardio machines are strewn with teenagers barely exercising and squinting vacantly at their devices.  

How can this new generation, with a paper-thin tolerance of boredom, produce poets, authors, playwrights, thinkers, actors or philosophers? Instead, it would seem their creative juices are draining into the bottomless fog of Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and X.         

Vets

In 2017 I met a veteran in Bulawayo who was more or less destitute. He was living on a meal a day yet had served the UK and Empire all his military career. And he was dying of prostate cancer, and he couldn’t afford treatment. The services charities were more or less skint.  So what to do?

I asked General Lord Richards (David) whether he would assist if I set up a committee to raise money. He agreed. I then asked Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former Foreign Secretary, if he would act as chair. He agreed.

We had a stroke of fortune in that Penny Mordaunt was Secretary of State for DFID, and when we approached her, she agreed that DFID would fund the operation in partnership with the services’ charities.

So it has come to pass that over 6,000 veterans across the Commonwealth now have two meals a day.

In Zimbabwe, we have established a basic medical programme whereby all the veterans get not only two meals a day but also free pills for diabetes, heart complaints, nervous disorders, and cancer scans.

Three cheers for Richards, Rifkind and Mordaunt.

All is Vanity

Upper-class individuals care a lot about status. Up until the 1980s, they indicated their social standing by owning expensive goods such as a Maserati. However, luxury cars are now more accessible, so proving innate superiority has become much harder. How can they broadcast their high social status to the masses? A clever solution has been found – “luxury beliefs”.

These are today’s new vanity plays, whose sole purpose is to boost the speaker’s reputation in the eyes of listeners. Those who do this know they are insulated from the pernicious effects of the drivel they are touting. 

So, when you hear someone supporting drug legalisation, open borders, defunding the police or permissive sexual norms; or using terms like “white privilege”, they are engaging in status display. “We belong to the upper classes,” they are declaring – but they never face the social consequences of what they are promoting.

For example, when you hear someone bewailing the effects of police “stop and search”, you can be sure they don’t have to worry about their own child being struck with a zombie knife. Another will bad mouth capitalism whilst living on a fat state pension. And I know a young Harrovian who advocates the joys of communism – to be sure, he knows nothing of the reality of the gulags, and I don’t think he’s even read Animal Farm. All he’s doing is demonstrating his luxury belief. Then come the Scottish “hate crime laws”. There is no better example of the consequences of this nonsense, for it won’t be the “progressive” political classes who reap the consequences, but rather the poor souls existing on benefits in the slums of Edinburgh and Glasgow.     

“Luxury beliefs” links naturally with “virtue signalling”. The expression of such views is not to fix a problem but rather to demonstrate how “progressive” the speaker is.

The most damaging luxury belief is the notion of sweeping away the very idea of the stable family. Socialist “experts” claim the traditional family is old hat and pretend that children are bound to thrive in all types of care. But this is rubbish – most mandarins and thinkers live in stable relationships, but those at the bottom on the ladder don’t and their families continue to deteriorate. In 2007, when we started the Oxford Community Emergency Foodbank, families were usually a traditional unit. In 2024, it’s rare to see a child raised by two parents.

Those who are focusing on smartphones and devices as the reason for the misery of the young should look instead at the two-plus generations of unmarried parenting. Today, divorce has been normalised and few couples are prepared to “hang on in there” for the sake of the children – the only thing that matters is one’s own happiness.

The result? We are seeing Zoomers in their twenties raised by a single parent – who were also raised by a single parent. The mandarins have snipped the golden thread of stability that links one generation to the next and are instead passing on chronic instability. It’s hard to turn the clock back – and I doubt even Starmer knows where to look for the key.

Poet Philip Larkin wrote:

“Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself”.

Leader of the Free World

The BBC’s John Sopel wrote that it’s a shame Americans speak English because otherwise we would understand that America is a foreign country.

It’s difficult not to notice – despite all the other worries we face, such as the guy with the funny haircut and bombs in North Korea, Putin’s ghastly war and the miseries in Gaza and Iran – that the leader of the free world, his finger poised on the nuclear button, has the intellectual capacity of a pickled gherkin. And another thing – people in the US don’t seem outraged when the Donald announces the legal system has been rigged against him. Why? US judges are elected and have to please voters along party lines. Al Capone would have loved it.

How can the USA, supposedly the greatest democracy in the world, pretend to be a role model to, say, Zimbabwe?  

A watery few days in beautiful scenery.

Some of those who have hosted or walked with us (and they will, of course, remain anonymous) have related tragic stories of the conduct of their children or in-laws behaving cruelly towards them. Our friends are elderly and vulnerable and, in the main,  widows.

In two cases, the children are denying their parents the opportunity to see their grandchildren unless substantial money is paid.

Of course, we have only heard one side of the story, but we do know the people: we are convinced they are telling the horrid truth.

In a short story somewhere, readers are warned that because of escalating costs, the country will be obliged to cull those over seventy-five by obliging them to go to one of a series of houses where they will be given a dry martini, a medal for past services rendered and then a lethal injection! This may be too true to be funny because my spies tell me that the Starmer government will shortly introduce legislation to allow assisted dying with all the unintended consequences this will bring about. Here are a few thoughts.

The law changes will be irreversible and as years go by – as has happened in Canada  – the scope of the permissions will inexorably widen.

And not all of the younger generation are kind. Many bitterly resent, for example, watching their parents’ cash wasted on care home fees and here is an opportunity to do something about it. Inevitably, intolerable pressure will be applied. Relations in many families will change fundamentally and not for the better.

And if you think that the cautionary barriers promised by the government to protect the vulnerable from abuse will prove to be effective, gosh,  look at those rose-coloured pigs flying past my window.

Rebel Women

When I last drove to Scotland, Jane was rude to me. I concede she had good reason. I was pondering the meaning of life (and as supporters will know, I have a beautiful and sensitive mind), only to discover that instead of nearing Manchester, we were hurtling towards Bristol.   

“You,” she said, “are a freshly minted moron!”

Career Path

Today, Jane is a confident and feisty woman with serious career achievements to her name. However, the fact she has turned out this way is not because she was primed to forge a career. Her brother’s future prospects were taken seriously. He went to “good” schools, and thence to Cambridge and off to make a fortune in the city. But she was not offered the same chances.

When Jane was a child, no one said specifically, “Listen Sunshine, you don’t have to trouble your pretty little head with learning how to earn your living because your destiny is to be number two to men.” But, through a process of social osmosis, she picked up the thousands of negative messages floating around intended to destroy the average girl’s ambition for independence. Many young women were persuaded not to go to university or seek jobs that were deemed “unladylike” – such as joining the police (I know of an actual case of this cruel sabotage in my own family).

So, Jane was sent to a girls’ school that pretended to provide education. There the pupils fluttered around with ghastly nicknames such as “Goonie” and “Dunce” (and there were twins called by their father “Thick” and “Thickest”!) Like many of her chums, Jane was hardly taught anything. She then went to a Swiss finishing school where the agenda was cooking and “how to get on in society”.

The young women of Jane’s generation ended up as cooks, chalet girls, secretaries, flower arrangers or junior teachers (like one O-level Princess Di), waiting for broad shoulders to rescue them. Some, teeming with ability and grit, and blessed by forward-looking parents, couldn’t be stopped by such nonsense, and rose high in the few careers then open to women. But the bulk of Jane’s contemporaries had no proper training or confidence-building, so, if they didn’t marry, or were dumped or widowed, they ended up unable to forge an independent life. By then, the sweet bird of youth had flapped off, leaving them middle-aged, disconsolate and vulnerable.

Where did this misogyny come from? I believe St Paul is largely responsible. In Tim 2, 11–12, his message is parodied by comedian Harry Enfield: “Women know your place!”

In these damaging verses, Paul claims that women should not be in leadership roles and that they should be submissive to men. Because Eve fell for the wiles of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, they can only be redeemed by childbearing.     

My vicar friends insist these verses should be read in conjunction with many others that claim that women are loved by God and are equal to men, but this is sophistry. The verses are as clear as “Don’t walk on the grass”! There’s no ambiguity whatsoever, just wishful thinking.    

Even today, my wonderful, talented ordained daughter is unwelcome to preach in some churches because of these unfortunate verses. And they are why so many women, called by God over the years, were blocked from ordination – and why the Catholic Church still justifies blocking them from leadership.  

Former archbishop Donald Coggan proposed that when he reached heaven, he would ask Paul for an explanation. “Goodness me,” he imagined Paul replying. “Did I actually write that?”

Yes, Paul, I fear you did – and the effect has been profoundly damaging, for these verses have echoed down the ages, allowing men to stymie the careers of generations of capable women.   

Crazy Taxes

The government treats us like idiots.

Tuppence of tax here or there and it’s not what the country needs. For a start, we should be treated as adults.

What the chancellors fiddle about with simply doesn’t help as a political trick and it’s not what we need as a country. Just look at a few features of our tax system that are holding up growth and productivity. 

First are the crazy marginal rates of tax on earnings of £50,000 and above – when child benefit and personal allowances begin to taper, and “free” children’s schemes are lost. Someone earning £99,999.00 with two children under three loses an immediate £20,000 when they earn a penny more! Many studies show how people deliberately cut their hours to avoid marginal rates of tax of 80 per cent or even higher. It makes no sense to earn between £100,000 and £145,000.

Then take the VAT system. If a coffee shop sells £84,000 of coffee, no VAT is payable. At £85,0000, you must charge 20 per cent more on everything so, compared to your competitor next door, you’re no longer competitive! That means tens of thousands of small businesses quite sensibly will do anything to stay under the VAT threshold. For example, they might be reluctant to recruit more staff or a retailer might shut shop in February.

Then why not just scrap National Insurance?  If employers didn’t have to pay 13.5 per cent on wages, people would earn more.   

If Tory chancellors have been hopeless, what can we expect from the new government?

A friend tells me he is about to tell me a funny story. I want to tell him, “Just tell me the story…I ‘ll tell you if I find it funny or not,” but I haven’t the heart to do so.

Victimhood

Politicians of all stripes treat the electorate as babies.

Social security benefits are morphing into a malingerers’ slush fund. There are now millions of adults of working age – excluding students – out of work. Meanwhile, nearly a million vacancies are filled by hard-working immigrants.

Between a fifth and a quarter of the residents of Birmingham, Glasgow and Blackpool are living on out-of-work benefits. The majority, we must presume, are genuine cases, but with human nature being such as it is, of course the system is open to abuse. The malingerers are throwing away their lives, and wasting billions of taxpayers’ cash that could be spent on better things.

Politicians are dodging their duty to tighten the criteria for benefits eligibility for fear of being abused by the media. Anyone who dares to say what he or she thinks risks attracting a cacophony of noise from lobby groups/think tanks/quangos/commissioners/tsars, all poised to scream in self-righteous anger about persecution. Today, victimhood is all.  

Get on Your Bike

Thatcher is of course history and sadly political courage died with her. Her doctrine of “Don’t accept being a victim, pull up your socks and get on with it” is long since forgotten. So too are her messages, “The state can’t solve all your problems, it’s your money they are spending, not theirs” and “Money doesn’t grow on trees”. And what happened to “Taxpayers would spend the cash far more wisely than HMG”?

In 13 years of Tory rule, the Iron Lady’s legacy has gone with the wind. The country is today more or less bankrupt, and self-reliance has become a dirty word. We are all victims now in the sense we are unable to tell the truth to ourselves about ourselves.

Former Tory MP James Daly was flayed when he said that struggling children in his constituency were not victims of insufficient money being spent on them by taxpayers but rather of “crap parenting”. His Labour rival responded by asserting that instead of insulting parenting skills, we would do better to face the fact that children in gangs or carrying knives have nothing to do with poor parenting and everything to do with a “failure to invest in public services”.  

So now the claim is that parents have no real part to play in the crucial narrative of bringing up their own children, and our lives are shaped by forces beyond our control. The focus of shame has moved from the person doing something wrong to the person who has the gall to point it out! All problems, you see, are caused by government, and must be solved by it.

The person “left” teachers most love to hate is “Britain’s strictest headmistress”, Katharine Birbalsingh. Why? Because she is too “judgmental”. Yet intelligent teachers admit privately that poor grades are all too often about crap parenting. in an ordinary comp school, set in one of London’s most deprived areas, Birbalsingh proves it QED. By insisting on firm discipline and manners, she has produced every teacher’s dream – a silent and happy school that achieves top grades. “A school’s problems won’t be fixed by more money,” she claims, but by “better ideas, by tackling bad behaviour and reducing bureaucracy.”   

Will she survive? I doubt it!

Straight to the Point…

Forget small talk. I like a good discussion about sex, money, politics, religion or death. Someone says something, then we discuss it and conclude (or not), possibly modifying our opinions along the way. As Bernard Shaw once said, “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

Sadly, a close friend is not open to changing her views. There’s no point discussing anything or introducing new ideas, for her mind is as closed as a clam.

Her prejudices encompass colonial history and empire (a thing of unalloyed beauty, no criticisms to be tolerated); apartheid (acceptable because pornography was banned); the monarchy (totally for); the EU (totally for – Cameron’s a dolt for the referendum, and the fact that all parties – including the LibDems – promised a referendum is conveniently forgotten); abortion and assisted dying (totally for); and gay partnerships (very much against, and this, apparently, is when the CoE moral rot started – once again, the fault of Cameron. That all free-world governments and their political parties support gay partnerships is overlooked).

No discussion on any of the above issues can be tolerated, for this lady’s iron-clad opinions are primed to be fired even before she opens her mouth. And if you dare to argue with her, she stomps away, quivering with righteous indignation.     

Why is she so submerged in “confirmation bias” that she rejects any discussion that might conflict with her embalmed views? I suspect her aggression is down to fear – she runs scared that debate would require her to think. Intellectually lazy, she has simply closed her mind. Her fixed views are water wings – without them, she’s terrified she might drown.

Lots of people are like this. Sad really.

.

Boris Johnson’s book about his premiership is published in October. Whatever he writes in his own defence, one thing is clear: he clearly didn’t have the self-awareness to be alert to his own failings. He should have known he was incapable of staff control. If he had been aware, he would have authorised a tough cabinet secretary with the disciplinary authority to ensure that the staff at Downing Street were under proper control.  If he had done this “party gate” would never have happened. It’s not that difficult.  When I was in the Scots Guards, an Adjutant’s job was to ensure discipline. The commanding officer’s job was to command. That’s all it would have taken. Simple. Very sad, really.

Of course, Boris’ failings ran deeper than that. Glad he isn’t my son-in-law. I never liked the idea of a mistress in Downing Street.  Sad that his wife left him for it seems that she left with his moral compass – if he ever had one-  when she kicked him out. Such a golden opportunity wasted.

Variety is the Spice of Life

Many of our friends and ZANE supporters are “of an age”.

Jane and I have friends and loved ones who are suffering in the iron grip of dementia. Richard Restak’s book, How to prevent Dementia, is catnip to me. I learned lots. Common sense tells us that what’s good for your heart is good for the brain – daily exercise, not smoking, moderate booze, plenty of fruit and veg, reasonable sleep and going easy on the junk food.

What else is new? Well, Restak reckons that the more we know, the more tools we can muster to prevent the onset of dementia. He thinks that we concentrate too much on the memory loss aspects of the disease whilst overlooking the need to consider the disturbance and emotional changes that occur. Dementia can “start with speech problems… disorders of emotions and behaviour, unreasonable anxieties, hoarding, impatience, sudden flares of temper, delusions and hallucinations.”  Restack concludes that “there’s a continuum of dementia in us all, and that we will travel through periods of memory loss, disordered thinking and emotional disturbance”. Sometimes these symptoms reverse, often they worsen.

Restak has interviewed many thousands of creative and successful Americans thriving in their eighth and ninth decades to establish the basis of healthy brain functioning. The following are all key: (a) education, (b) curiosity, (c) energy, (d) keeping busy, (e) regular exercise and physical activity, (f) acceptance of unavoidable limitations, (g) the need for diversity and novelty, (h) enjoying our own company, (i) the maintenance of friends and other social networks, and (j) the establishment and fostering of links with younger people.      

Phew! Inevitably, this is a limited exercise because Restak’s research was bound to be constrained by the fact that only those without dementia could be involved. But Restak tells stories of those whose lives have been enriched by learning new tasks, and by having a reason and purpose to live as we age. We need plenty of social connections across the generations.

All these things may – we hope – delay the onset of dementia. At any rate, they’ll certainly make life more rewarding. 

Moderation in All Things

And, oh yes, Restak claims that we shouldn’t get hung up on getting eight hours of sleep per night. What we need is enough to feel refreshed and alert – and to just take a nap when needed. Alcohol may be good for our social lives but is bad for the memory. Moderation is clearly important.

Restak suggests we should drop activities that we don’t really enjoy ­– parish council meeting anyone? – and we should spend time in “green spaces”. And he’s an evangelist for lifelong learning. 

Finally, our attitude of mind is more productive than we think. What do you think of the statement, “The older I get, the more useless I feel”? In a study of cognitive impairment, 65 per cent agreed. Bad news!

Restak claims we should be positive. Here’s his final lifestyle suggestion: “Stop obsessing about whether you may come down with dementia at some time in the future, for life’s to be lived and not constantly fretted about.”

Perhaps this quote from philosopher Kieran Setiya sums things up: “What’s needed to live a good and satisfying life is the courage to hope well.” 

To hope well is to be realistic about probabilities, and not to succumb to wishful thinking or to be cowed by fear. We should “hold possibilities open”.

Cheer up – and if you can find the bottle, have a (mild) gin and tonic!

Obese City

My buddy and I share a friend who’s grossly overweight. Recently, we discussed which of us should tell him we’re concerned about his health.

Thankfully, my buddy volunteered. But then I discovered he’d told our friend, “Tom’s worried about your weight!”

Good having friends you can trust, isn’t it?

A few weeks ago, I was sitting on a bench in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens. As people walked past, I decided to count just how many were overweight. Out of 100 passers-by, 76 looked obese and only five were slim!

Obesity has long posed a threat to public health. It’s a risk factor for a range of chronic illnesses, including Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, liver and respiratory diseases and 12 different cancers. NHS statistics for 2022/23 show there were 1.2 million admissions where obesity was a factor, up from 617,000 in 2016/17.

When compared to smoking, obesity is responsible for three times as many hospital admissions.

It’s estimated that last year, the cost of obesity to the NHS was 19 billion so it’s hardly surprising that weight loss drugs are in high demand.

Perhaps Wes Streeting might acknowledge that the real crisis facing the NHS isn’t the lack of funding, but obesity. Unless the nation slims down, we’ll bankrupt the NHS.

Last Meal

We have been hosted by wonderfully kind and generous hosts, and we have enjoyed excellent, wide-ranging debates on, you name it, we have discussed it.

Last evening, we chose what we would select as our last meal before we were to be shot!

Here’s mine. First, a well-made Bloody Mary. It’s a sad fact that hardly anyone knows how to make one. It isn’t a drink, it’s an art form!

A glass full of top-class tomato juice, at least a quarter of a squeezed lemon, a decent amount of Worcester sauce to colour the mix light brown, a quarter spoonful of horse radish sauce, a shot of vodka, and crucially, a shot of medium dry sherry, then a sprinkling of pepper. Add ice. Shake it up, and it’s nectar.

Thence to the supper.

A dozen oysters, with Worcester sauce and half a lemon. Two slices of brown bread and butter. Two glasses of white burgundy.

Then, a medium-rare small fillet steak with boiled new potatoes flavoured with mint, hollandaise sauce if available, and fresh peas. A salad with fresh lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, and a light French dressing. Two glasses of red burgundy.

Raspberries and cream. A glass of iced kümmel.

Coffee

A Bendicks bittermint.

I am now ready to be shot.

Tom Benyon’s Schooldays

Such were the joys of being flogged on my 10-year-old bare bum at Edinburgh’s Angusfield House School. I have no recollection of what my offence could possibly have been – though it couldn’t have mattered much, for it didn’t take a lot for “Tud” (the pervert’s nickname) to bend us over his tweedy knees, stare gleefully at our pink buttocks and inflict pain.

Today, this three-flush floater of a headmaster – whose name prudence dictates I should avoid mentioning – would have ended up serving at least six years at His Majesty’s Pleasure. But those were the days, my friends, that’s just how it was. I got off relatively lightly compared to some of my “pretty” friends who dumbly suffered serious abuse – and the prettier they were, the worse the misery. Would our parents – my father was an Edwardian – have known what to do if I had confided in them? Would they, or the police and the courts for that matter, have understood the long-lasting effects that sexual molestation has on children?  I doubt it.  

And the abuse and bullying grew dramatically worse at public school. Christopher Hitchens relates the tale of a friend captured in 1943 and put to work on the infamous Thai-Burma railway.

Five young officers were sitting in a stinking cell waiting to be interrogated. The heat was stifling, the latrine, a hole in the floor. Mosquitoes and bugs had chosen this particular as their Far Eastern rendezvous, for they clustered in swarms. The screams of an officer being beaten and tortured in an adjacent cell grew to a crescendo.

One of the five, Hitchen’s friend, fell asleep, and soon the exhausted man was in the grip of a nightmare. He began to moan, then shriek and writhe.

“Oh, please stop!” he shouted. “Please stop! I can’t bear the pain anymore.”

His neighbour shook him awake. The man glanced round the cell and muttered, “Oh thank God! I dreamed I was back at Tonbridge School.”      

A to B

Cars are for getting from one place to another, no more, no less. I am always astonished at the sums people squander on them. It all boils down to the vanity of, “Hello Sunshine… I’m much richer than you!”  

Yesterday, I noticed a man sitting in his parked car. Without warning, his sidelights began to semaphore, and then his boot beeped loudly, rising and falling like a runaway guillotine. We couldn’t stop laughing as he tried, wholly unsuccessfully, to control the display. But the more he banged on the buttons, the faster the lights seemed to flash – and the boot was having none of it!

On the (admittedly, remote) off-chance that a motor manufacturer ever reads this, please stop adding electronic accessories to new cars! All they ever do (apart from adding to the gaiety of amused onlookers) is to increase the already vast cost of the car – and they always go wrong, wrong, wrong…   

Fortunately in the UK

On July 4, something remarkable happened that we in the UK take for granted: power changed hands from one party to another. No one died, no one even argued about the process, and control changed peacefully…it just happened.

What astonishes me is that at least one-third of the country just shrugged and failed to vote. They can have no appreciation of how lucky they are to live in a country at peace with established democratic processes, a free press, honest courts and free speech. These non-voters must be plain ignorant as to the quantity of blood that has been shed over centuries to elevate our magnificent country to where it is today. Perhaps they think that the way we are is normal, that all that has happened over the centuries is that the tooth fairy just waived her little wand and bingo! The country provides index linked pensions and an NHS, free education, endless football, and free beer all produced by magic. All they have to do is live on benefits   – which are a right not a privilege – eat pizza, deep fried Mars Bars and whine for an even easier life, all without even bothering to vote.

I think that, in time, they are in for quite a shock.

Tobacco Bastards

Neither of my parents lived to see eight of their grandchildren. They were both killed courtesy of British American Tobacco.

Today, we know that smoking is all too often an early death sentence. So, with horror, I’ve watched the antics of the tobacco companies as they try to lure our grandchildren into taking up the habit that killed their grandparents.

These semi-crooks are spending millions of pounds on research to discredit the idea that vaping is harmful to children. Now you can see an eight-year-old slurping on a cherry-flavoured nicotine bomb – while hoping that someone gives her a Snoopy-shaped e-cigarette holder for her birthday.

Philip Morris International is funding a company that runs pro-vaping “cessation sessions” for hundreds of UK doctors. They are trying to get children hooked on vapes in the hope they will get addicted to nicotine – and then after shelling out hard-earned cash on full-blown ciggies, just shut up and die like the smokers of previous generations! These are the bastards who are selling kids cheap and disposable fruity flavoured vapes with twee names like “Gummy Bear”, “Cotton Candy” or “Strawberry Milkshake” to entice them onto the hard stuff.

Top Your Day with Marlboro!

That’s a slogan from 1968. And indeed, before cigarette advertising was illegal, our fathers were persuaded that smoking would turn them into rugged cowboys or airline pilots, and ordinary women were conned into believing they would morph into hot chicks with a chance to lay “real men”. 

These tobacco conmen pretended that ciggies were a cure for cancer, asthma and other respiratory ailments, and they used their vast profits to promote plain vanilla lies like, “More doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette,” and “You’re never alone with a Strand”. And then they did all they could to bribe doctors to hide the links to cancer, heart disease, strokes, birth defects and all the other unspeakable horrors we now know are caused by tobacco. These creeps are still with us, as are the fat-arsed accountants, lawyers and advertising folk who support them.

My parents must have believed the lies. I recall clearly, when I was 14 – not a good age to lose a father – seeing my handsome Dad, who had fought in both world wars, dying by nicotine-stained degrees of heart disease. He realised too late that smoking was a death sentence and tried to dissuade us from ever taking up the habit. My mother was a courageous and talented scriptwriter who had endured a lot of hardship. Forty years on, I can still see her coughing up her guts against a backdrop of the ghastly paraphernalia of the dying.  By then, she had shrunk to six stone and was addicted to morphine.

Countless others have suffered the same misery, their beloved family members poisoned by these mega-crooks. Direct advertising may have been banned, but this doesn’t stop the conmen from weaselling out loopholes in the legislation with the hope they can add our grandchildren’s names to their tar-blackened butcher’s list. 

A Little List

ZANE supporters know that the chattering classes are routinely disparaging about our empire. A recent book about Churchill describes how India was removed from the “clutches” of Britain. I suppose “clutches” is one way of describing our contribution. Why are we daft enough to expect gratitude for what Britain has done for so many countries? Recall the bleak saying, “If you want gratitude in Washington, get a dog,” and then the Spanish, “Why do you dislike me so much, what favours have I ever done you?” Just watch how they work out today.

In the 1979 film The Life of Brian, John Cleese asks, “What did the Romans ever do for us?” – only to be told, “Education, medicines, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, fresh water and public health!”

It’s a forlorn hope, but before cosying up to the Russians, India might recall a little list of what Britain brought to them: Railways, mass education, irrigation projects, law and order, English as its first lingua franca, democracy, universities, newspapers, standard units of exchange, telegraphic communications, an incorruptible legal system, medical advances and the widespread abolition of the practice of burning widows alive on their husband’s funeral pyres.