A lovely fresh breeze and a sunny day; we were accompanied by two delightful supporters from Maidstone, a retired journalist and his insightful wife. We had a far ranging conversation and they were both well read and as sharp as tacks. I was reminded of the aphorism, it’s hard to get an intelligent person to change their mind but impossible if they are stupid. All ZANE supporters are of course, by definition, intelligent but, in case there is one who has slipped through the net, there are various topics I choose not to write about because they are toxic; after all I am in the business of writing on everyday subjects as an entertainment, and I try not to irritate. So I avoid abortion, Brexit, assisted dying and Gaza. But as an exception to my rule, I will say something about Gaza.
There was a priest and a rabbi who died and went to Heaven. As a tradition, all holy people are allowed a meeting with God. At the end of the meeting, they were allowed a question.
“Please tell us O God, if there ever will be a resolution to the Israeli/Palestine affair?
“Yes, of course, answered God, “but not in my lifetime,”
And that’s as far as I will go – and I was told that story by a Jewish friend. I might add that I have a couple of events in my life that I challenge anyone to emulate. I was once kissed by Yassar Arafat and hugged by Mother Teresa, so beat that if you can. I should add that my reactions with Arafat were entirely temporary and do not affect my views on the tragic conflict, which I am keeping to myself.
What’s in a Name?
The liberal consensus welcomes the cancellation of those whose backgrounds fail to fit with contemporary sensibilities. So, Rhodes must fall and Edward Colston’s statue was hurled into Bristol Harbour. The CoE now prays about statues of unsuitable luminaries with slavery connections.
No modern liberal can afford to be linked with an institution that commemorates people with a problematic background. However, there is one exception. In a quiet church graveyard on the Welsh border – St Giles’, Wrexham – lies the grave of an extraordinary old rogue.
The Rogue Behind the Ivy
The man in question was born in 1649, three decades after the Mayflower arrived in America. As a young man he loathed Puritanism, so he took a job with the East India Company and went to India. As he had no morals or principles, he made a pile of money and ended up as governor of Madras. He maintained several mistresses and enriched himself through smuggling and every kind of crooked practice. One wheeze was to pass a law requiring every European ship to carry a minimum of 10 slaves for sale. He sold them at a huge mark-up – in 1687 alone, he arranged for 655 to be sent on their way. He met the burgeoning demand for slaves by having children kidnapped – and even had his groom hanged for taking two days off without permission.
Even the East India Company eventually lost patience with him. In 1699, after it was discovered that he had been embezzling company funds to purchase land for himself, he was banished to England. He brought back so much loot it couldn’t fit into his two houses, one in London, the other in Wrexham. He became England’s first auctioneer so he could flog off the surplus stuff. It took seven auctions to get rid of several hundred snuff boxes, 500 rings, 7,000 paintings and 116 pairs of cufflinks.
This character had some tenuous links to America, and, in a fit of absentmindedness, gave a minute fraction of his wealth to an obscure college in Saybrook, Connecticut. Later the college asked for more funds, so he sent 417 books and a picture of King George I.
To honour their donor, the new college renamed itself after him and hung his portrait in the hall. It shows him being waited on by a Black servant wearing a metal collar.
Despite that, the college – now a university – still bears the name of this whoring, thieving, slave-trading old monster who gave it a few books. So, let’s applaud Elihu Yale, whose name graces the university from which Bill Clinton and both George Bushes graduated.
