I see that Archbishop Welby has waded into the political arena with a suggestion that forming some sort of committee of all the talents might take the toxicity out of Brexit.

I think he hopes that Brexit might be capable of compromise. As I understand it unless we leave the Customs and Trading Union we would be unable to control our borders  or trade agreements with potential trading partners.

Whether you voted to leave or stay, let’s at least tell the truth. I really dislike the nonsense talked about leaving the EU. We have had a referendum – whether you like or dislike the result you must agree that we have to live with it- let’s stop moaning and make it a success.

When we leave we must be able to control our borders for if we are unable to control them we stop being a home and stay as an hotel.

Then we are told that we have to be in the single market to trade with it. Rubbish! Most of the world seems to be surviving well enough outside it, why can’t we?

And why do all our businesses have to have a tariff free access? The tariffs are low and with currency adjustments we will be able to live with them just fine.

And why would trading under World Trade Organisation rules be a such disaster? Our businesses already trade with a over 100 countries under these rules and we know exactly what we are doing. It’s a commonplace.

Then we are told by experts that we will be palpably poorer outside the EU. Sorry but I don’t believe the experts, they are the same people who told us that we should join the Euro.

And my friends in universities tell us that our institutions and universities will be denied access to the finest minds. Nonsense! No one in HMG wants to stop the coming and going of talent. In fact, I understand that outside the EU our talent pool will be wider.

And why will we be turning our back on the largest market in the world? Of course we will continue to trade with our European friends, yes, we both need each other but heck, the EU is not that successful. In the last fifteen years the Eurozone has grown by 27% and the UK has grown by 40%.

Roosevelt told the American people that they had nothing to fear but fear itself.  That surely applies to us today.

Millennial Snowflakery

My generation was taught the merits of a stiff upper lip. For example, when eight-year old Quintin Hailsham (one-time Lord Chancellor) arrived at his prep school, the bigger boys at once cut up his teddy bear before his weeping face and whooping with glee, flushed it down the lavatory.

Okay my education was not quite as nasty as that – for one thing, I didn’t have a teddy to cut up – but compared to today’s pampering, it was merciless enough. And I’ll bet, dear Reader, that yours was pretty razor-edged as well. I recall vividly that from an early age, any physical peculiarities or pustular eruptions were highlighted by schoolmates who then teased out our character weaknesses and paraded them at every opportunity. One windy friend was called “Farty” for four long years… My time in the army was equally challenging: the Sandhurst staff roared their opinions at top tempo about our physical and mental inadequacies to anyone prepared to listen.

“You ghastly inadequate bastard! ” was the least of the abuse. Just imagine our young tolerating that kind of treatment today.

Harsh Truths

There were rules that governed our behaviour – and anyone who breached the unwritten codes was cast in outer darkness. The lesson was that emotional continence was not an option, it was essential. It was no use complaining or moaning, and to let others see you were unduly sensitive spelt disaster – for if weaknesses could be identified, the sharks would swiftly move in for the kill.

On reflection, I reckon it did no lasting harm: we were toughened to cope with life’s slings and arrows.

But today’s young are obsessed with sensitivity and self. What on earth has happened to us all? Is it raging feminism and political correctness that has reduced the young to a laundry box of big girl’s blouses?

How’s this for offended sensibilities? A student was admitted to hospital for a week having read a novel that was part of her course.  She claimed to have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) apparently triggered by the book. While I accept, of course, that PTSD can occur amongst solders who have been on active duty, I reject the idea that our peacetime life is so traumatic that ordinary citizens need to be treated like shell-shocked veterans of war. That sums it up really:  20 million deaths in the First World War, 62 million deaths in the Second World War. There was no counselling then but here is a weeping student overwhelmed by a daft novel.

And it’s not just our introspection either. Political correctness prevents our telling one another hard truths because we are terrified of giving offence. So doctors daren’t tell patients that unless they – or their children – shed some blubber, they will wear out their hips, hearts and attract diabetes. Who is brave enough to tell a friend they smell? Who dares advise a chum if he drinks any more, he will die an early death? Do we dare tell a friend that if he leaves his wife and infant children to shack up with a Thai girl he found on the Internet, it is bound to end in mayhem with lives destroyed? And he will be sucked dry of money.

The educated middle classes have abandoned the moral authority they once had. What morality is and who holds it is today hotly contested, so we shrug and walk away. Our liberal ideology has persuaded us to abandon the imposition of moral teaching, even formal education on children; so we daren’t teach girls how to cook decent food or even set out clearly what constitutes a nutritious meal. Apparently it is considered to be ”sexist” to teach girls how to cook, so parents let their children choose what they want to eat with disastrous results.

In a local school play, everyone had a part (it was more a crowd control exercise than a “performance”). Out of the hundred or so children, there were three – around eight years old  – who were larded in fat. When the play ended, they waddled out with their parents like tugs towing a steamer. I suppose neither the headmistress nor the school doctor would dare risk the vicious row if they warned of future health hazards.

I reckon that letting your children grow obese is a form of child abuse.

Life and Death

The idea that no one should criticise anyone else can have grave results. Take the ghastly case of baby “P”, beaten to death by his parents. Shortly before his death, Peter was seen by a social worker. However, his face was a mess of chocolate. The social worker was so affected by political correctness that she failed to insist the child be cleaned in case she caused “offence”.  Had the child been cleaned, of course the deep bruises would have been visible ­– and perhaps a life might have been saved. How terrible is that story?

And consider that in the last few years, the industrial rape of young girls in Northern towns by Asian men continued unabated because the social workers and the police chose to turn a blind eye towards the abuse rather than run the risk of being thought to be “raaaacist”.

Some even thought that children should be allowed to choose prostitution as a “lifestyle” choice.

Go figure. How craven and marshmallow-soft have we become?

Walking through West Yorkshire I wondered why the litter was even worse than anywhere else we have been to recently. Why are the footpaths unkempt? When I saw the sign that read: ” West Yorkshire: working for peace” (true, I kid you not), I knew why .

Is this a stupid gesture of council virtue signalling? Or has the CEO gone totally bonkers? As I walked I imagined the letter this pompous ass must have sent round his colleagues:

“Dear Comrade,

My administrative assistants and I have decided that instead of doing boring and mundane things such as looking after the roads and schools and keeping litter collected we are to serve society in the Noble cause of peace keeping. Unlike East Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and Central Yorkshire, and what do you expect from the likes of them?!

We consider that the UN and NATO are inadequate on their own and the world needs the West Yorkshire CC to bring peace in our time.

To that end we propose to send a stern letter to Vladimir Putin and that plump  little git with the funny haircut in N Korea saying that if they decide to bomb the UK please remember that West Yorkshire is neutral and working for peace.

If West Yorkshire is attacked I have asked Councillor Vera Bootle – who stands five feet high and weighs eighteen stone – to walk to the county border,  remove her clothes and moon at the oncoming tanks. We are convinced that  that sight will stop them in their tracks.

At the same time we will erect a vast sign in the football stadium  to be read by passing bombers  that says  “We surrender” made from litter culled from nearby roads.  We have decided not to collect this in past months just  in case it was needed for this purpose.

I am also going to visit the 799 twins with our county (club class) to make speeches about peace. I will bring with me all the councillors who agree with me about everything as well as my new administrative assistant.”

What a pretentious ass the CEO has to be. Please get back to the day job.

Love and Kisses

Have you noticed how often cheeks are turned for the mandatory kiss – often by people you hardly know? Let’s be frank, at least half of the time I’m sure many of us would choose to remain chaste (if that were an option).

But when the cheekbone is presented, what can you do – for it’s expected now, isn’t it? So instead of extending a hand, we cave in and go “mwah mwah” along with everyone else. But it doesn’t stop there, does it? When did you last end a letter with “love from…”  – and to someone you have no particular affection for or have hardly ever met? If we end our letters with the quite solemn and serious word “love” to people we don’t love, how are we supposed to end letters to people we do love? Perhaps to our loved ones, we should now seal our letters – as they apparently did in the last war – with “SWALK”: “Sealed With A loving Kiss” adorned on the envelope. There were other acronyms that even in these rude times seem unprintable (even worse that BURML – Be undressed and Ready My Love!). But at least the soldiers then had the excuse that they were terminally frustrated.

My point is, perhaps we should reserve the world “love” for people we really do care about deeply.

Real Heroes

But there is another serious dumbing down of a word: “hero”. The media continually blurs the distinction between a victim who may have suffered a ghastly mishap or accident, and a real hero. To anyone who thinks about it seriously, a hero is someone who has gone out of his or her way selflessly to try and save someone else’s life – or indeed a community – for a higher purpose. The media on the other hand will add the soubriquet “hero”, for example, to someone who safely lands a stricken plane with passengers (whilst all they were really doing was saving their own life alongside others). Or, they will make a hero out of a soldier who has their leg blown off in a war zone. The truth of the matter is that soldiers sign up voluntarily to take that risk, and becoming a casualty doesn’t make someone a hero (sorry about that). And, yes, the charity title, “Help for Heroes” has always made me cringe. It stems from our peacetime snivelling need, whilst drinking in the pub, to indulge in some recreational grief.

Anyone who served in a perfunctory action as, say, the Afghanistan or Iraq wars, and who was subsequently caught up in a car crash or a court action (for example), will be described in media reports as a “war hero”. Such a precious word should be kept for the real thing – and heroes are as common as hen’s teeth. The Dam Buster, Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC DSO (and bar) was an undoubted hero, as was the great Audie Murphy, the highest decorated US soldier in the Second World War. Then my favourite hero, Sergeant Major Stan Hollis VC, charges in. On D-Day, 6 June 1944, Stan three times attacked German positions that were holding up the battalion advance. He charged them alone with a Sten gun and grenades, and he killed or took the defenders prisoners. After the war, his commanding officer said, “Hollis is the only man I met between 1939–45 who felt that winning the war was his personal responsibility.”

It’s only a tiny minority who have the sense of responsibility or a deep-rooted personal anger that stirs them to heroic actions. They are usually serving among the bulk of their colleagues who resent being shown up by what they perceive as dangerous “gong” hunters. The majority of soldiers would much rather be at home, and have no wish to be “brave” or run the risk of being killed or maimed.

Lord Macaulay’s “Horatius” demanded:

“And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?”        

But that’s a minority belief. Those stirred by that sentiment will be the real McCoy.

Though, to be fair, I never did say I was a hero…! Reader, what would you have done?

By the Way…

I was told that the rings of Saturn are not astral dust at all, but are actually made up of airline lost luggage forever circling the planet.

A far better day if only because the sun shone and the paths didn’t tie themselves into reef knots with hidden holes every few hundred yards. We walked at a pace

—

Sad that so many of the churches seem to be shut. Even the majestic St Laurence Priory, Snaith was shut to the world yet strewn with bunting so I presume it is still used for occasional weddings, the default position for a secular society that does not take the faith seriously but who wants the pretty pictures of a ‘”church'” wedding.

So we are losing our faith with the speed of a hot air balloon spilling air whilst the Muslim community are building mosques financed by Saudi Arabia at an astonishing speed. 259 in Germany in 2015 and 180 in the U.K. so this is an European phenomenon. Do we all understand what is happening here under our uncomprehending noses? The trouble is that anyone who raises concern is called “racist”,and how do you prove a negative? I am bothered that the culture of the UK is altering and no one has been asked whether they want that. Our politicians seem to think that the UK’s traditional liberal outlook on for example women’s equality, gay rights, our democracy,  our freedom of speech, our regard for human rights and our Christian values ( from which much of the above stems) will be absorbed and agreed by the immigrant community. Dream on.

House Rules

When I am King or Emperor – roll on the day – I will make the rules about who can enter the UK and who cannot, and who can stay and who has to leave, crystal clear. I am tired of political correctness, and I refuse to worry about whether or not I offend some individual and their culture.

Here is the letter that I, as prime minister, would send all immigrants when they arrive in the UK.

Dear Would-be Citizen,

Please note that we are really very pleased to see you. Here are some points for you to think about.

First, entry as a citizen into the United Kingdom is a privilege and not a right.

The UK is our home, it is not a hotel.

Our nation’s culture has been developed over many centuries, and it has emerged – bloodstained – from many ghastly struggles, trials and tribulations along the way. Brave men and women have selflessly fought for our freedoms over the centuries, and much blood and treasure have been spent in learning painful lessons. For example, we have learned the hard way how to be a peaceful society, and how to be good British citizens, friends and neighbours. So please respect our ways. And take note: Sharia Law is not recognised in any part of the UK and it never will be.

We speak English… We do not speak Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, French or any other language. Therefore if you want to become a fruitful member of our society, please take the trouble to learn the language – or kindly leave.

Most of the people in the UK, however vaguely, believe in a Christian God; our nation’s structures and institutions are founded on Christian principles and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to parade the essence of our Christian inheritance on the walls of our schools and universities. If this offends you, I suggest you consider making another part of the world your home, because our Christian inheritance is part of our DNA.

We are a very tolerant society: we will accept your beliefs – provided of course they do not involve breaking our laws. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live with us in harmony and peace.

We are proud of our history and indeed our colonial past. We accept that like all human constructs, our empire wasn’t perfect – it was a mixture of good and not so good. But if you want to vociferously protest and march against our history and culture, or criticise our heroes, please do so somewhere else.

We expect you to be law abiding. Kindly note that if you prove to be a serial law breaker, you will run the real risk of being sent back from whence you came.

This is our country, our land and our lifestyle. We will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this as we warmly welcome you. But if you are one of those who want to complain and moan about our way of life, our culture, our religion or our proud history, I encourage you to take advantage of one of our great liberties, namely “The Right to Leave.”

You are most welcome in this country – but you really will need to accept us warts and all!

Yours sincerely,

Prime Minister

Another miserable day marching from somewhere called Drax to Norton trying to wade through rights of way now turned into a jungle by neglectful landowners and councils. Okay, why bother to make these paths walkable? I suppose judging from their vast size that the locals never walk. They must spend their time lolling in front of their tellies eating pan fried Mars bars. Sorry about that but it’s true. The NHS will sink soon in a welter of worn out hip joints, cases of diabetes and heart attacks; everyone saw this health tsunami coming but we did more or less nothing about it.

Like the “where the sod are we bird” Jane and I go round and round in ever decreasing circles.  I expect to find myself jammed up my own backside at any moment. Seriously after trying to find the track we end up in the garden of a rich farmer’s hideously red  house and find ourselves faced by two enormous “sod off” gates with no visible means of leaving the darned place. We had to retrace our steps and we had  a further mile added to our tally.

Poor George Carey. Such a good man too. I know him from way back and I like him. It must be so galling to find yourself caught out like that after so many years. George made his judgments – pre the ghastly Savile rows –  in 1990. Author LP Hartley wrote: “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there”. Quite so. George is being judged in hindsight by 2017 rules, our having learned a few things along the way. I will write to him when I get back. I learned a while ago that when a friend is in trouble always ring or write or visit. Don’t hesitate, just do it.

Happy Person Here!

I wish I had a happy face! But even when I am feeling on top of the world, in quiet repose my face just looks grumpy. People ask me, “What on earth’s wrong?” But when I say, “I’m feeling just fine thank you,” they back away looking bemused. I know lots of mouldy people whose faces look happy. It’s most unfair.

What makes us happy? It has to be more than a warm puppy. It’s not that man doesn’t try to be happy. We put prodigious effort into the search, but like the end of the rainbow, the goal appears elusive.

Futile Pursuit

French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote about man’s great experiment: simply to prove that chasing after money, sex and power would lead to happiness. For countless years, he wrote, man (and of course women too) has tried to make the experiment work – but it always results in failure.

In any other scientific field, this ridiculous experiment would have been junked years ago. But generation after generation tries to make it work all over again.

Of course, money doesn’t bring happiness – in fact quite the reverse is true. It took me years to learn that lesson, but it is now firmly embedded in my skull.

Do people really change? Rarely. Once a philanderer always a philanderer, and the same is true of a liar. Was Monica Lewinsky a one-off conquest for Bill Clinton? Well how credulous can you get?

Vital Ingredients

Freud thought that work and love are essential to happiness. Noel Coward wrote that working was more fun than fun, and I like that. I wrote in an earlier blog that every man needs a maiden to woo, a battle to fight and a cause bigger than himself to live for, and that’s a useful starting point.

Good health is important to the state of happiness, but I have met people who, although permanently bedridden, appeared to live thoroughly fulfilling lives despite all their ghastly drawbacks. Being reasonably attractive helps as people are inclined to be warm towards you. But extreme beauty can be a drawback. The poet Yeats wrote in his poem “Prayer for my Daughter” that he hoped God would give her beauty but not “…such beauty that makes a stranger’s eyes distraught.” The wrong sort of beauty destroyed Marylyn Monroe and countless others besides.

I once employed a woman with an incredibly beautiful face and body. Men immediately thought that she was “up for it” and so would leer at her at every opportunity. However, in character she was as pure as any woman I have ever met, and she hated the looks and inevitable groping she attracted.

Apparently statistics indicate that first-born children have a tendency to happiness, as do children with two parents at home, and men who are married. People can be happy fighting in war because there is the band-of-brothers element, a strong sense of common purpose and the feeling that they are involved in something useful and bigger than themselves. Often those engaged in war are testing themselves. That seems to be important too. And note that happy people are rarely gloomily sitting on a “Lazee-boy” sofa watching daytime TV. They are usually involved in some ongoing interchange with life, however inconsequential that may look at first sight.

Happy people often have work that is a love affair, a passion. Teachers can be like that, and so are vicars. And, of course, actors – you have to be in love with the stage to put up with the insecurity and the rotten money. You can’t accuse anyone engaged in these difficult professions that they are doing it to get rich. But if you actually enjoy your work then you are profoundly lucky, for a passion can see us through the dark periods in life.

Finding your inner leaf

Oh yes, and I read somewhere that we all have to be a “leaf on a tree.” We should be individuals with a sense that we really matter, yet at the same time we need to be part of something bigger than ourselves – a family, a community, a regiment, a hospital, a theatre group, a political party… A leaf that has fallen off a tree has the advantage that it can float around a bit; but then it becomes disconnected, decays and dies. Far better to be an evergreen leaf that hangs on!

It seems that the people who are best protected from anger and heart disease are those who are socially involved. They are socially attractive because they are not introverted – they are the ones asking the questions and they want to know about other people’s lives. If you are complicated or socially needy, people will choose to avoid you. It’s best to avoid introspection – so ask others about themselves, and stop talking about yourself all the time!

Next, embrace change. I’m not suggesting you should move house every second year but have enough change in your life to keep things interesting. Boat rocking can be good for our health while uniformity is a great threat to happiness – so don’t “take care”, instead “take a risk”.

Live for the moment. Focus on the things that you want to do, and then get on and do them (if you reckon they’re worthwhile). If gardening is a pleasure, then garden away. Spend less time working on the family finances, talk to friends and family, and listen to the opera (if that is the thing that floats your boat).

Then audit your happiness. Why do things that make you unhappy? And if you are happy, then tell your face and keep on smiling at others – for it transmits a signal: “Happy person here!” If you feel negative, just tell yourself that you have to be positive.

Act, play the part, listen to Julie Andrews: “Whistle a little tune” and then put on a happy face. If you are feeling miserable, tell yourself to feel happy instead: that in itself can trigger a change in how we feel. A wise old preacher, Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones, once said that one of the greatest tragedies is to say of someone: “He was born a man yet he died a doctor.”  This means don’t let your career eat you alive so you lose your humanity: you are a human being, not a human doing. I know retired headmasters, senior civil servants and generals, and some seem to be stuck like chicken in aspic, stuck where they used to be. It’s essential to be able to reinvent yourself.

Wheat Fields

After George Osborne was introduced on the Andrew Marr show as the MP for Schadenfreude North, he told viewers that Theresa May had boasted that the worst thing she had ever done was to “run through a wheat field.”

As George glanced down to look at the election results, he commented, “Well, she won’t be able to say that anymore, will she?”

A long walk from Yokefleet to Drax, which I was excitedly told houses the biggest power station in England – although what you are meant to do with that sort of information beats me. A dreary place mouldering under indifferent countryside, set off with dirty sheet skies, all accompanied by an intermittent drizzle; the mix matched my mood to a tee. Whose daft idea is this sodding route? Jane was bustling along and as usual issued me with a string of breezy exhortations: ” Come on, Tom, please cheer up for Heaven’s sake and stop being so totally dreary,” Some hope.

Kind hosts last night in Pocklington who kindly made a picnic for us. As it was belting with rain we ate it in the car. Nothing like misted windows, farmyard smells and slanting rain to raise the appetite.

In deep thought all day about the ghastly spot dear Theresa has managed to paint herself into. Poor woman. What a dreadful job she now has. She is surrounded by critics and by people who call themselves friends but who want to ruin her and probably will.

Group Therapy

 I have commented before on the intrusive way the media tries to probe our emotions to enable its readers and viewers to indulge in some recreational grief. It’s a sort of emotional pornography.

“Mrs Peabody,” they ask with a camera up close: “What exactly was your reaction when you heard that your daughter had been killed by a mad axeman?” This is a line of questioning that always makes me want to reach for the sick bag. I always want someone to answer, “Mind your own sodding business!” – but they never do. The media and the public are hungry for emotional outpouring, so why indulge this appetite?

Westminster Weeping

The escalation of our national emotional incontinence became apparent late last year when there was a debate in the Commons about women losing a child in infancy. Some MPs were apparently weeping and others joined in with their sad stories, as if the debate was some sort of group therapy. Is that what the House of Commons is for? Can you imagine the Iron Lady doing such a thing, or the late Barbara Castle, or Theresa May for that matter?

Infant death was a commonplace in previous centuries through poor medical treatment; and then, of course, young sons were slaughtered on an industrial scale in war, and the pulling down of blinds was ubiquitous. These generations had to face their heartbreaks with a considerable degree of stoicism because sadness was everywhere. The prevailing mood was just to get on with it, keep your upper lip stiff, then grin and remember the Sir Harry Lauder’s song: “Keep right on till the end of the road”. (Lauder’s son was killed in the First World War).

You can still see this today, but it is becoming uncommon. When my friend Daily Telegraph columnist Cassandra Jardine sadly died, her actor husband performed on stage that very night. He knew that was what she would have wanted. He didn’t weep on stage and ask for pity: he just did his job. And when home secretary Amber Rudd’s father died, just three days later she appeared on the election leader’s debate on television. Good for her, I’m sure that’s just what her father would have wanted.

Keep Calm and Carry On

There was a time when emotional restraint was considered to be a high form of courage. I think that this general need for public acknowledgement of distress weakens respect.

Reader, we have all had ghastly problems to live with, haven’t we?  However, as Bear Grylls recently said, “When life kicks the shit out of us all, we have to get on with it for Buddha’s ‘Life is Suffering’ is a hole in one.” So when the shit hits our particular fan, we can either give way to despair and self-pity, or we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and start all over again.

Would we rate our Police Chief, Commissioner Cressida Dick, more highly and sleep better in bed at night if we knew the detail of her heartbreaks? (I should add I know nothing of the good lady, all I am saying is we all have our miseries and failures, even she).

Would we feel more secure and respect our generals and admirals – those who are charged with the onerous task of our national security and the protection of our country – more highly if they were seen weeping over the ghastly scenes of carnage and horror in Afghanistan or Syria. Or would we feel less safe?

I would much prefer Theresa May to be tough, gimlet-eyed and unemotional as she negotiates the Brexit road ahead than weeping with stress in Number 10 and asking us to feel her pain. And emotional continence should not be mixed up with a ruthless determination to show the people she is on their side. It’s plain sad she seems unable to do this naturally. Churchill mixed with the crowds during the Blitz as did the royal family. Shyness and caution may cost Theresa her job.

Virtue Signalling

Emotional outpouring was given astonishing momentum at the time of the faux grief expressed when Princess Diana died. I never understood who the weeping donors thought would benefit from their tons of flowers (other than florists and manufacturers of cellophane), for Diana – like Old Marley from A Christmas Carol – was as dead as a doornail.

For a while, the poor Queen was under considerable pressure for not demonstrating that she “cared” enough to satisfy the public’s taste for weeping and the rending of garments. She was obliged to leave Balmoral for London, and make a broadcast to confirm that she did indeed “care”. It’s beyond conceit, of course, for the public to assume to know how someone feels, but’s that’s exactly what happened. Once upon a time, you were once considered to be a good person if you acted honourably according to generally accepted codes of conduct. But today all this has collapsed in favour of individual expression and “feelings”; the public demonstration of suffering becomes necessary as a badge of honour, as it makes a person morally untouchable.

The audience signals its virtue by displaying compassion towards suffering people  – “I feel your pain” – to show how warm and kind they are. Anyone who says this is sentimental and self-indulgent hogwash is accused of being unkind and unfeeling.

Slippery Slope

The young Royals seem to want to try and rebrand the monarchy and let emotion spill out. They seem much more like their mother and father in this respect than their grandparents. It was Charles who, like a big girl’s blouse, began to moan to the press about the way the media was making his life difficult “under the burdens of great privilege.” And can you ever forget Diana endlessly blethering on about depression, bulimia and her emotional longings?

Today William, Kate and Harry appear to have forgotten the words of Walter Bagehot who warned, “not to let daylight in upon magic.” That means preserving the mystery of the monarchy. I read that Prince Harry was pictured kissing his girlfriend Meghan Markle at a polo match: “The first public snog!” screamed the headlines. Then Kate was pictured topless in some foreign magazine, and both Harry and William decided to talk publicly about the pain of their mother’s death. On top of that, they set up “Heads Together” where they all sat on a beach and pretended to talk as normal human beings. They claimed it’s not about them, they were speaking to help others: but there is a lot of virtue signalling going on there, and it was all about them really wasn’t it?

Is all this wise? I think not. Apparently the Palace didn’t approve and the young Royals were told to stop emoting in public. Can you see the Duke of Edinburgh parading his heart on his sleeve, or the Queen?  And have they been successful custodians of the Monarchy or not these past 60 years?  The Queen knows she is hugely popular partly because she doesn’t go on about what is in her head. Nor does the Duke. Can you imagine his retort if he were asked how he felt when Mountbatten was assassinated or when his children got divorced?

The Queen and the Duke are wise old birds and they know instinctively that the public don’t want the Royals to be too familiar. The Queen and the Dukes’ reticence should be copied. If the young Royals go on sharing their pain with us and seeking sympathy, then one fine day, the capricious public will suddenly grow tired… Talk of slinging them out will slowly begin in the very newspapers that have been exploiting them by parading their pain, and pictures of wannabe President John Prescott or Diane Abbot will suddenly swim grinning into focus before our appalled eyes.

The Tale of Two Cities

Yesterday we walked through Hull past the magnificent Humber Bridge which was wrapped in early morning mist. We walked the line of the old docks and read some history. I had no idea of the key role played by Hull and Liverpool between 1836-1914 as gateway to 2.2m European emigrants fleeing religious turmoil and grinding hardship as they fled to the the New World. They arrived in Hull then to Liverpool to the ship that took them terrified but hopeful to the States. These people were the original “huddled masses yearning to be free.”

We lunched in Ferriby and saw the outlines of two 4,000 year old ships, the oldest vessels ever to sail our coasts.

Two helpful cops were wondering if we are bonkers by telling them we are walking to Liverpool. “It’s a long way you know,” said one hesitatingly checking if we were out on day release. I reassured him we know what we are  doing. I don’t think he believed me.

I asked them if they had read Senior policeman John Sutherland’s excellent book “Blue: Keeping the Peace While Falling to Pieces.” John suggested that police do such a difficult job that we should thank them. I did so. He looked even more astonished as he drove off.

The Great Divide

I am well aware that the subject of Brexit leads to argument and ill feeling, which is why I am still not going to say how I voted. I found the choice conflicting and my family divided. There were clearly arguments to be made on either side of the fence, and at the time I wished that Cameron hadn’t called a referendum at all.  However, now that we are Brexit-bound, we had just better get on with it.

The next couple of years aren’t going to be easy: staying in had problems, and leaving will hurt. I reckon that the EU needed us as much as we needed them. The younger democracies benefited from our wisdom as a nation state and we have the best civil service in the world. That may sound a bit patronising but it’s undeniably true – and now these countries have something of a wisdom deficit. From now on there are bound to be large road bumps ahead for us all; stops and starts, good days and dreadful ones. Buckle your seat belts and hope for the best.

Counting the Plusses

However, the UK has certain things going for it that make me optimistic. First, we are an immensely resilient people; we have faced vast and intractable difficulties in the past and we have always surmounted them – and so will we now. Second, whatever Jean Claude Junker says – and with his gross style, he was hardly a valuable advocate to the remain campaign – the world speaks English. It’s the language of commerce, the arts, diplomacy, international science and sport. English is spoken in the USA, Canada, Australia (after a fashion), New Zealand, in much of Africa and in South America  – and it won’t be replaced by Esperanto anytime soon.

Third, we are sited smack on the most favourable time zone for the rest of the world to do business with. Fourth, people enjoy working in the UK and some even like our weather! We are an immensely stable old democracy and it takes a lot to shiver us to our foundations. Thank goodness, despite the efforts of Heseltine, Blair and Mandelson, we never found ourselves wedged in the Euro – which is headed towards disaster. The reason is that countries are only willing to bail out or subsidise parts of their own country – for example, West Germany made vast capital transfers to East Germany, yet German voters refused point blank to bail out another country in the Eurozone bloc however desperate the need (look at the plight of Greece). Yes, such transfers have to be made. It is only a matter of time before the Euro fails, and when that happens, we will be grateful to be like Macavity… just not there.

And finally, the UK is a basically honest country. If you want to do business, the UK is a top choice, for our courts are incorrupt, and in the main our financial exchanges are well policed and honest. Put it this way, I think I would rather transact business in the UK than in Africa, China, India, South America, Russia, anywhere with “stan” in its name, and many parts of the EU that recently emerged from communism in the 1990s.

Let’s face it, we have plenty of advantages. I am sure we’ll survive somehow – and maybe even prosper.

Total Nonsense

How has such a fully-fledged ass as Alan Wilson become a bishop in the Church of England? I heard him in the box recently, talking about the row in the early 1980s caused by John Smyth QC – who was accused of causing grievous bodily harm to a number of Christian youths by flogging them unmercifully. At the same time, Smyth was apparently involved in an evangelical group responsible for teaching the gospel to mainly young men.

I have never met Smyth or attended the camps, but at least 3,000 young men attended and many progressed to serve the Anglican Church. Among their number was the great John Stott, Canon John Collins, Canon David MacInnes, Canon David Cook and many other holy men.

There is no doubt that the teaching was gospel-based and fundamental to the success of their subsequent ministry.

Bishop Wilson claims that the non-liberal teaching taught in the camp in some way spurred Smyth to behave as he did. What total nonsense. Smyth is obviously a one-off weirdo. Let’s hope he will be extradited from South Africa, where he now lives, tried, and jailed. But does Bishop Wilson honestly believe that over the years, there have been no sexual crimes committed by liberal vicars? And if he does believe this, when will he be certified?

Well it’s a roasting day for walking from Hull to Liverpool and it’s best not to think of the distance. I hum the Harry Lauder theme tune as I walk: “Keep right on to the end of the road, keep right on to the end, though you’re tired and weary still travel on etc”. Lauder lost a son in WW1 – the war that has been long been lost to memory: everyone who fought in it has long since died. Poor Lauder never really recovered from his loss. Of course none of us would, I think it would be like losing a limb. Another forgotten war and forgotten warriors.

The Forgotten Legion

We are walking for the benefit of the forgotten people of Zimbabwe, the poorest of the poor living in a sad country whose troubles the UK wants to forget about. But ZANE is in business to ensure that they are not forgotten. These brave people must be allowed to live out their lives in some dignity, especially members of the Forgotten Legion. These are the old soldiers who fought in old wars such as Korea, Malaya, Borneo, Aden and they are living on a meal a day with no medical cover whatsoever. There are still a few like the Duke of Edinburgh who fought in WW2 but they are increasingly few left now. But today’s young are obsessed with Facebook and social media and they read no history, or anything much for that matter. So perhaps someone should remind them whether they are aware of this or not, that their comfortable lives rest on the shoulders of those who lived and served before they were born. These are the old warriors who have made our lives today a little bit more peaceful and better than they otherwise would have been. If that duty falls to me and Jane and our dog, Moses, then perhaps that’s a worthwhile cause to walk for.

The View That Dares Not Speak Its Name

I watched Tim Farron of the Lib Dems struggle with the Inquisition about whether he believed “gay sex” was sinful? Not the tendency to homosexuality –easy to answer – but homosexual sex acts, red in tooth and claw.

Tim has now resigned as leader on grounds that it is no longer possible for practising Christians to head up political parties in the UK. He is a brave and principled man. He was caught by a crew of sanctimonious journalists who hounded him from office. There was no escape; if he answered “incorrectly” in the eyes of the liberal media, it was obvious it would be Good Night Sweet Prince for his career and damaging for his party too.

The question of whether homosexual sex acts are sinful or not has snowed up the CoE for many years and as it wearily tries to shovel itself to freedom, it finds it’s digging in ever decreasing circles. Who knows when or if the Church will ever emerge from the drifts. Poor old Farron wrestled with his questioners for months. Apparently he’s a committed Christian, a serious man and we all know what the Good Book says, don’t we just. At first, he probably hoped that by keeping shtum, the questioners would go away. But then it must have dawned on him that our country is in the grip of an all-powerful metropolitan liberal elite in sole charge of the snide newspaper columns and shrieking headlines that dominate our society.

Theresa May agreed the same thing on the Andrew Marr Show. I don’t know whether anyone bothered to ask Jeremy Corbyn, but perhaps we know that the only act he considers truly sinful is to vote Tory – meaning no one bothered to pop him the question.

Damned If You Do…

Now personally I am tired of the gay subject that has consumed so much of the time and energy of the CoE over past years, and has generated so much ill feeling. I wish we could move on, but round we go. And no! I am not going to give my personal view. Perhaps you’d be surprised by what I think – but either way I’d offend at least half of ZANE’s donors, so I might as well keep my own counsel.

However, I am exercised by the thought police who demand that everyone must have the same opinion, and if you don’t agree you’re forever damned as bigot meat. This is neither liberal or democratic, so poor old Tim. But the liberal consensus questioners appear to be cowards. Why don’t they ask the same question to Muslim politicians?

A glance at the Muslim website indicates a hard line. According to “JustAskIslam” for example, homosexuality is a crime against man’s sexuality (no space is given for women’s views). Homosexual acts are therefore to be punished by either 100 whip lashes for the unmarried or death by stoning for the married. Occasionally for hardliners, Sharia law states that death should be for both partners. What does the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan think?

For all I know, at least half of public opinion may be out of tune with the liberal consensus on gay sex. I think that today many practising Catholics would be unhappy that the debate appears to have been stolen by the liberal elite. They will be joined by many members of most of the Christian churches and many in the Jewish and Muslim communities too. Perhaps there are many secular humanists who don’t support the liberal consensus either? However, no one dares speak out because who wants to be targeted as a bigot, and lose preferment at work or even their job?

It’s surely odd that the archbishops of our established Church have decided to sit on their mitres and perhaps brood about the agenda of the next Lambeth Conference instead of supporting the rights of elected politicians to hold private views without being given the ghastly Star Chamber treatment.

Perhaps our church leaders think it’s prudent not to challenge the liberal consensus. But of course we must remember that Jesus rarely spoke his mind in case he embarrassed the Pharisees… or maybe I’ve got that wrong?

One “I”

Author Joseph Connolly was at a book signing at Hatchards, and after the first hundred customers or so, was looking forward to his lunch. Growing bored, he went on autopilot, and signed away without looking up at the queue of book owners who came for a scribble.

“To whom am I inscribing it?” he asked one man who identified himself as Ian.

“Is that one “I” or two?” Connolly asked.

There was a stony silence until eventually Connolly looked up.

“The guy only had one eye,” Connolly later said.

We are driving up to Hull today. What to do on the way…?

Filling the Void

The young are bound by age restrictions when it comes to gambling, drugs or booze, though there are no such restrictions for Facebook, Twitter and video games – which are, of course, highly addictive too.

These addictions are having a disastrous effect on our young. It has been shown that the more youngsters look at Facebook, the more depressed they are likely to be. When will the young find the time to form proper non-Facebook friendships and talk properly?  How can they find the time to read the likes of Middlemarch or write poetry or pray? Since they don’t spend time developing lasting relationships with real people, what will happen when they feel lonely – will they find comfort in Facebook?  When will they find time to talk to the old? Or, as delayed gratification is today a rarity, when will they become expert in something? There are apps for every darn thing these days but none for the tackling the roots of loneliness: forming deep loving relationships or finding real job satisfaction takes effort.

Modern Plague

Today, the number of youngsters on anti-depressants and committing suicide is spiralling upwards. As machines go faster and faster and devour our attention, and as families disconnect, people are growing ever more isolated and lonely.  And some of the unlikeliest people grow miserable and isolated.

For loneliness is one of the miseries of our time and its blight stretches its tentacles throughout society. A picture taken years ago shows Baroness Thatcher hunched on a bench outside the House of Lords three hours before the doors opened. It was said that, after she was defenestrated as PM, she never knew another day of happiness. When the caravan stopped, as stop it always does, she was desperately lonely.

Seventeenth-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote about loneliness in his Pensées. Cheerful old soul that he was (but a very perceptive one), he claims that humankind seeks to be busy to avoid facing the reality that life always ends in sickness and death.

Pascal tells us that busyness as an end in itself seems to be the key to much human activity from stamp collecting to buying houses to playing sport. Take “the chase” (hunting). Pascal claims that if the hunter were to be given the quarry before the chase, he would not thank you; if the gambler were to be given his winnings before the game is played, he would be angered. The business of travelling helps us forget the misery of the end game.

When American humourist Dorothy Parker was writing Hollywood film scripts, producer Cecil B. DeMille asked why her films always ended unhappily? “Because it’s true to life,” she replied. “Out of the 18 billion people born since Adam, not a single one has ever had a happy ending!”

Pascal reminds us that there is nothing so insufferable for man than to be completely at rest, he gets bored and welcomes strife. “All troubles arise,” he claims, “because of man’s inability to sit quietly with his own company in his own room.”

So Pascal would understand modern addictions: he knew why people leave their mobiles on the dinner table; they are waiting for someone – anyone – to ring with an “important” message, all to assuage loneliness.

But much activity is empty vanity. Malcolm Muggeridge called one of his autobiographies Chronicles of Wasted Time, and Prime Minister Balfour said: “Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all.” Anyone with a modicum of self-awareness must agree with these old saws, yet few dare to dwell on it because we want to kid ourselves that the trivia we are working on really matters. In this often joyless universe, we need such assurances or we’d go potty. But when politicians talk of their “legacy”, I recall that long-serving deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine admitting that most of the things he has done will be forgotten; he’ll be remembered only for the trees he carefully plants on his estate.

To the Ends of the Earth

I’ll bet it was fear of loneliness that motivated explorers rather than practising their navigational skills. After all, when Christopher Columbus sailed away on Santa Maria he had no idea where he was going, when he reached America he had no idea where he was, and when he got back, he had no idea where he had been.  But still he went!

And speed doesn’t help. I read somewhere that when the great explorer Sir Richard Burton (not the actor) sought the source of the Nile, he went at such a pace that soon his porters firmly refused to budge. When he angrily commanded them to move, the headman answered: “We have walked fast for three days, Master; we are waiting for our souls to catch up.”

No Time to be Idle

Jane and I don’t have much time to be lonely. We are privileged to look after a never-ending series of grandchildren, and are in fact so busy we are tempted to add the following message to our answerphone:

“Thank you for ringing Tom and Jane. Press one for babysitting services, two for marriage advice, three for money. Your call will be answered shortly. Please do not hang up for your call is very important to us. Please note that this call may be recorded for training purposes.”

It’s interesting that for much of history, idleness was the hallmark of wealth and class. Beyond needlework and water colouring, classy people didn’t work much but spent time having tea with friends and going to concerts. When Lady Violet Bonham Carter asked her nanny in the early 1900s what life would be like when she grew up, she received this reply: “Until you are 18, you will do lessons. And after 18 you will do nothing.”

That was then, and it sounds very lonely. But I wonder what Pascal would make of our lives today?

Like hitting your head on the brick wall, it’s great when you stop. It’s a blessed and sunny day and it’s a great day not for walking.

We stay once again with kind and indulgent friends: we get up late and drive slowly home. We calculate how many thank you letters we will be delighted to write to so many kind people who have put themselves out for us.

But is saying “thank you” now a rarity?

Our two younger hosts told us that when they had eight friends of their eldest daughter to stay for a weekend – all under seventeen – and worked hard to give them a good time (preparing meals, making beds, more washing up,  the cost, you now what it all entails), not a single one of them wrote to thank their hosts, not a single call, not an email, just nothing. Other friends tell us that when they had a big wedding for their daughter, at least ten people failed to show  and not a word of apology afterwards. Others tell me that that many gifts to his and her relatives go “un thanked”.

When I was a little boy the need for “thank you” letters and saying:  “Thank you for having me”, was drilled into me. I suspect most of my generation were awarded the same treatment.

We recently had a party for Jane’s birthday; about fifty of our greatest friends came; around fifty warm and appreciative thank you letters awaited us when we got home today. It’s not that we asked our friends to supper so they would say “thank you”, of course not, but these letters are a loving response to an act of hospitality; saying “thanks” makes the cold world a little bit warmer, a touch less hostile and more friendly: expressing gratitude for dinners, overnight stays and birthday presents is a gentle and courteous thing to do and it makes the world a little less lonely too.

I’ll bet that all ZANE donors are “of an age” and we were all taught to “thanks”. I’ll bet you are also rather shocked at the casual brutality of today’s ungracious young who seem to take kindness, gifts and hospitality for granted.

Have today’s parents stopped teaching their children manners?

It’s great to be back home.

End Game

We never saw a signpost to “Ipswich” until today, our final day. I was beginning to think the place was bewitched and did not actually exist,  but at long last we found ourselves crawling through the suburbs  towards our finishing point, the  Grammar School. It is a fine place perched atop a series of hills so steep my eyes popped as  we staggered towards it. Well done Jane for leading the way. And to our dog Moses who has been a delight, and to Markus our driver who has flown from Bulawayo to be at the service of the people of Zimbabwe, to whom he is fiercely loyal.

Reaping the Rewards

A few years back, a British ambassador’s wife caused a raised eyebrow or two when she started to flog her handmade jewellery from a spare room in the Embassy. No one cared sufficiently to stop her on the grounds, I suppose, that the ambassador’s wife is not the ambassador.

Now we read of the vast sums of money being made by Blair and Mandelson through the exploitation of their contacts established while in office. Perhaps we are so used to our rulers touting their little black contact books composed at the taxpayer’s expense that we have ceased to notice it. And it is an international phenomenon; there are agencies flogging the speech-making abilities of these “celebrities” and a list of their prices to anyone with a fat chequebook.

We can read of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s vast fortunes from their tax returns: Hillary alone made some $22m from speeches to the business community during the last year. So we just shrug and get on with our lives for everybody’s apparently doing it.

How Quaint!

It was not always thus. When Harry Truman retired in 1953 after an honourable eight-year stint as US president, he went back to Missouri, threw his suitcase in the attic of the house that he and his wife shared with her mother, and started writing his memoirs to make a living. Astonishingly, there was no presidential pension of any kind in the fifties and all he had was $112.30 per month through a military pension.

The Bank of America then asked Truman if he would serve on their board as a director. He replied saying that on reflection he had to refuse. His reason was that the only commercial experience he had was as a failed haberdasher (his shop went bust during the recession in 1921) and therefore it was obvious that the only reason the bank had asked him to serve was because he had been President of the United States – “And taking advantage of such financial opportunities would diminish the integrity of the nation’s highest office”.

What a silly, old-fashioned man!  I wonder what Bill and Hillary and Tony and Peter would make of such nonsense?