Week 6 8.2.11

Tendring Topics…..on Line

‘Double, double, toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble’

So sang the three witches in Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ as they added ever more revolting bits and pieces to their bubbling brew. What, I wonder, will eventually emerge from the currently seething cauldron of the Muslim-majority states of North Africa and the Middle East. As I write, the Tunisian people have overthrown a corrupt and tyrannical ruler, who had enjoyed the support of ‘the West’. The Egyptian people appear to be in the process of doing the same. There is no shortage of similar rulers in the same area and the successes of anti-government forces in Egypt and Tunis have encouraged similar dissidents elsewhere. There are demands for freedom in the Yemen, and the King of Jordan has taken what I am sure he hopes will prove to be effective pre-emptive action to dampen down rebellion in his country.

A sense of foreboding that I feel about these on-the-surface encouraging moves arises from the fact that history demonstrates that the overthrow – particularly the violent overthrow – of cruel and autocratic regimes is all too often followed by the establishment of equally bad or even worse ones.

Liberal minded people throughout Europe welcomed the overthrow of the French Monarchy in 1789 and the advent of the republican government with its slogan of Liberty, Fraternity, Equality (aims that many of us pursue today!) – but the cruel and oppressive monarchical system was followed first by the ‘reign of terror’ of Robespierre, Danton and Marat, which was itself supplanted by that of Napoleon Bonaparte! The medieval tyranny of the Russian Tsarist government maintained by bands of Cossack ‘enforcers’ armed with sabres and whips, the threat of Siberian exile and the CHEKA (a secret police force differing little from the KGB), was followed, ultimately, by Stalin!

More recently in Iran, the overthrow of the all-powerful Shah was followed by the rule of the Ayatollahs, enemies of any form of liberalism. In Afghanistan; was the Soviet rule that ‘the west’ conspired with the ‘gallant mojihadin’ to overthrow, really much worse that that of the Taliban, whom we had supported against the Soviets, and who are now taking an almost daily toll of the lives of our young men striving to oust them?

Will freedom-loving democratic forces emerge triumphant from the present turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East? I very much hope so, but fear otherwise.

We in Britain, where the level of freedom and democracy that we enjoy today has been gained slowly and after centuries of bitter struggle, may overestimate the attractions that parliamentary representative government has to people in an entirely different environment and with an entirely different history and culture. It is worth remembering that, even in Britain, the idea that everyone over 18, men and women, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, should have a vote and therefore a small share in the country’s government, would have been regarded less than two centuries ago as dangerous and seditious nonsense. Only the Chartists, regarded by contemporary ‘responsible citizens' as ‘the loony lefties’ of the nineteenth century, even suggested such an idea.

It was not until within my own lifetime that universal suffrage was achieved. It was in 1928, when I was seven years old, that the right to vote in Parliamentary and Local Government Elections was conferred on all men and women over the age of 21. It was in 1969, when I was 48, that the voting age was lowered to 18. We have yet to achieve the proportional representation that I believe is a prerequisite of true democracy.

It is not very likely that people whose experience of government has been limited to one or other kind of tyranny, and who believe that all the laws of any importance were dictated directly by God some 1,500 years ago, will find the idea of electing human lawmakers an attractive one. Surely, they will think, all that is needed is experienced theologians able to interpret those God-given laws in the light of modern circumstances. To suggest otherwise must undoubtedly be blasphemous.

For this reason I fear that the present turmoil in Africa and the Middle East is just as likely to end in the triumph of one or other of the extreme forms of Islamism as in the kind of liberal democracies that most of us in ‘the west’ would like to see.

The Crime Map of the United Kingdom

I reckon that the publication of the ‘On line Crime Map’ of the United Kingdom was one of the dafter projects of the present government.

Type in your postal address and postcode and a street map will appear of your district with numbers shown in strategic places. Click on the number nearest to your home and you’ll learn how many incidents of various kinds of crime have taken place in the immediate vicinity during December last year. Residents of Clacton’s Jubilee Avenue, just off the old London Road on Clacton’s outskirts, had a nasty shock when they discovered that the number of burglaries that had taken place in their vicinity made them the third most crime-ridden area in the UK. They weren’t aware of any law-breaking whatsoever in their quiet residential road.

The explanation lies in the fact that Jubilee Avenue is adjacent to one of Clacton’s largest and most popular holiday caravan sites (I remember it well from my public health inspecting days!) It was there, ‘in the vicinity’ of Jubilee Avenue, that the crimes had taken place. Several caravans had been burgled ‘by person or persons unknown’.

I typed in my address and postcode with some trepidation. I have lived in my present bungalow in Dudley Road since 1956. My family and I have certainly never felt threatened in any way here and I wouldn’t wish to live anywhere else. It must be said though that Dudley Road hasn’t had an exactly crime-free past. Immediately opposite my bungalow is a narrow passageway in, or in the vicinity of, which at least three muggings have taken place over the years. Some years ago I recall that a small ‘cannabis farm’ was found in the roof space of a dwelling in Dudley Road some distance from my home, and I have heard that drug dealing has taken place in the neighbourhood. I have even, in the over-half-a-century I have lived here, added to the crime statistics myself by reporting to the Police (for insurance purposes, rather than in any hope of the perpetrators being caught) the theft of hubcaps from my car, the theft of a bicycle left in my driveway and, more recently, the systematic destruction of my front boundary wall by vandals. No doubt there were other crimes in the vicinity, some more serious, that I didn’t hear about. I don’t go out looking for trouble!

The work of the vandals! The rubble had already been moved from the nearer section of the wall.

However the ‘crime map’ revealed that during December 2010 the vicinity of my home was relatively crime-free. There was one violent crime, and just one complaint of antisocial behaviour. The ‘one violent crime’ is rather disturbing – another mugging perhaps? There are many kinds of violent crime. Clicking on nearby streets in the area of Clacton in which I live (I have heard it described as ‘working class residential’, which is OK by me) it is clear that the overwhelmingly most common problem is ‘antisocial behaviour’. This is very worrying since I have little doubt that most antisocial behaviour goes unreported either because of fears of reprisals or of the well-founded conviction that ‘there’s not a lot that the Police can do about it’.


My new ‘Vandal-resistant’ garden fence

I whiled away an entertaining half-hour with the Crime Map but, at a time when the government tells us that we must get our pennyworth out of every penny spent, what on earth was its purpose? It doesn’t tell the Police anything they didn’t already know. They supplied the information. How on earth can the crime map possibly, as the government claims, ‘empower’ me? Supposing, for instance, instead of there being one violent crime in my neighbourhood, there had been twenty. I would have been seriously worried but there would be nothing I could do about it. The Police would have already been aware of it. Particularly nowadays, when they are compelled to limit their resources and cut down on staff, they can only increase the policing of one area by cutting down elsewhere. They have more knowledge on which to base their decisions on priorities than either local people or local or national politicians, and I have more faith in their judgement than in that of politicians!

I’m ready to be persuaded otherwise, but it seems to me that the ‘crime map’ will alarm some people unnecessarily, induce a false sense of complacency in others, and move yet others – like the folk of Clacton’s Jubilee Avenue – to righteous indignation. I wonder how much of our money was wasted in setting it up?

‘The easy speeches that comfort cruel men’

As far as I know G.K.Chesterton, author, essayist and minor poet (best known perhaps for his ‘Father Brown’ detective stories) wrote just one hymn. It begins ‘O God of earth and altar….’, and includes a verse that asks for deliverance from, ‘lies of tongue and pen, and from the easy speeches that comfort cruel men’. I think of that verse when I hear some of the speeches of our political leaders today. They are not, of course, cruel men (and women), but well-meaning ones who inflict unintentional (but none the less real!) cruelty on others as a result of their political convictions. It can’t be denied though that they use ‘easy speeches’ to comfort themselves and justify their actions.

They cut benefit paid to the unemployed and tell us that they are actually helping them by giving them an extra incentive to find work. They overlook the fact that thanks to their own policies, there is already a growing army of unemployed competing for fewer and fewer jobs. They cut grants to Citizens’ Advice Bureaux and for the salaries of debt advisers and say rather patronisingly that their aim is to stop people getting into debt in the first instance rather that helping them out of it at a later stage! They overlook the fact that their policies on University Tuition Fees and support for Further Education will put a large proportion of the younger generation heavily in debt for most of their working lives!

There was once a top politician who, between puffs on his pipe, would sometimes begin a televised statement with, ‘Now let’s be absolutely honest about this…..’ That was when we knew that our credulity was going to be stretched almost to breaking point.

Today’s political watchword is clarity. If I had a fiver for every time I have heard a government spokesman claim ‘We have always been absolutely clear……..’, or, echoing one of his predecessors ‘Let’s be absolutely clear about this…….’ or, ‘We stated very clearly…..’ I would be able to buy myself a new mobility scooter!

Usually whatever they were talking about was far from clear. But it leaves us wondering uneasily if we may be exceptionally stupid and that whatever was being discussed was perfectly clear to everyone else.

‘The times are out of joint!’

What a strange world we live in today!

Sex education, including ‘safe sex’ techniques, is taught in schools to senior pupils in mixed classes. Full sexual activity among teenagers is regarded as normal and taken for granted. Yet I have just read of two senior girls at a Colchester school having to face disciplinary action for holding hands – behaviour that would have seemed perfectly natural, even commendable, among the most demure and bashful young lady characters of a staid Victorian novel!

Week 5 2011 1st Feb. 2011

Tendring Topics…..on Line

A Matter of History

It came as something of a shock to hear the newsreader on tv refer to the contender for film honours ‘The King’s Speech’ as ‘a historical drama’. ‘Historical’ means to me crinolines and toppers, or doublets and hose, not events that happened in my lifetime and that I can personally remember. I well recall the constitutional crisis that ended with King Edward VIII abdicating the throne so that he could marry Mrs. Wallis Simpson; not least because the divorce that left Mrs Simpson free to marry was settled in a court in my hometown of Ipswich. The King’s younger brother took his place.

I was a pupil at the Northgate School at the time and we were all given ‘time off’ to cycle down to the Cornhill and, in front of the Town Hall, hear Ipswich’s Mayor proclaim the former Duke of York to be our new monarch, King George VI. Two years later, joining the Territorial Army at the age of 17, I took an oath, ‘to defend his Majesty King George VI, and all his lawful heirs and successors, according to the conditions of my service’.

It was, I think, generally known at the time that the new King had an impediment in his speech that he was struggling to overcome. I have a vague memory of hearing him on the radio (only we called it ‘the wireless’ in those days!) not long after his accession and thinking that his speech wasn’t at all bad. Had I not heard that he had an impediment I might not even have noticed it. He certainly never shirked his duty of public speaking. One well-remembered radio speech was his Christmas broadcast in 1939, made when Britain had been at war for just three months.

On that occasion he quoted from ‘God knows’ a poem by Edwardian poet and scholar Minnie Louise Hoskins:

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown’, and he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way’.

Not, I think, a bad message for a nation embarked on the second world war of the twentieth century. It is also a message (just look at it!) that contains plenty of those words, beginning with a consonant, that those with speech impediments find so difficult. I think that George VI was a man thrust into a position that he hadn’t wanted and for which he hadn’t been prepared, at one of the darkest periods of British history – and that he filled that position with distinction.

Although I suppose that my egalitarian political views could be described as ‘well left of centre’, I have never been a Republican, and think that there is a lot to be said for having a Head of State who is free of all political party entanglements. How else can that be achieved except by a hereditary, constitutional monarchy? Yes, I would prefer ours to follow the Scandinavian model – but that’s another matter!

‘Naught for your Comfort’

As we come to the beginning of the second month of 2011, the pain of the government’s savage cuts to the public services is beginning to be felt locally. A recent issue of the daily Coastal Gazette has as its lead story the outrage of Tendring Beach Hut owners (in Clacton, Frinton, Walton, Dovercourt and Brightlingsea) at an increase in the annual charge for their hut sites of four percent for Tendring District residents and of eight percent for outsiders.

The most enormous increase though is on the one-off fee payable to the Council when a beach hut changes ownership. This leaps from a not-inconsiderable £75.29 to a staggering £360 – an increase of 378 percent!

These increases, hut owners say, will kill the tourist trade. And so they may – but they are only among the circumstances that will damage the holiday and tourist trade. The increase in rail fares and the unprecedented increase in the cost of petrol and diesel, will make visiting our holiday coast increasingly expensive. At the very least it will mean that when visitors get here they will have less to spend on meals, drinks, accommodation and seaside entertainment that is also inevitably becoming more and more expensive.

A recent correspondent to the weekly Clacton Gazette couldn’t understand why people were making such a fuss about a 2.5 percent increase in VAT. Food isn’t subject to this tax, he pointed out, and it simply meant that an object that pre-increase had cost £1 would now cost £1 and two-point-five pence, surely a price rise that everyone will be able to manage.

Perhaps so, though these days there isn’t much that you can buy for £1! It would certainly make expensive items even more expensive. It has to be remembered too that although food and some other items are VAT free, they still have to be brought to the supermarket, outfitter or departmental store that sells them. Soaring fuel prices (including both petrol duty and VAT!) and the rising cost of spare parts and maintenance will mean that prices of VAT-free as well as VAT-liable items will rise. Purchasers of VAT-liable items will be doubly penalised.

The issue of the Coastal Gazette that carries the story of the disgruntled beach hut owners also tells its readers that Tendring Council is all set to cut £100,000 from its grants to voluntary organisations and charities. John Walton, Chairman of the Jaywick Community Forum is reported as saying ‘The implications of these cuts in the deprived area we operate in are enormous’. Ian Archibald, from the Tendring Furniture Scheme (a voluntary organisation supplying donated used furniture to needy home-makers) said that the cutting of voluntary services would see people ending up in hospital or in prison, and the total overall cost would be likely to be higher. No wonder the government is officially urging us all to give more to charity. They know that their cuts to local government finances are indirectly depriving charities and voluntary organisations from carrying out vital work in their local areas.

There will be more bad news to come. We haven’t yet heard how meals-on-wheels and other social services to the old and disabled will be affected. I am only thankful that, so far at least, I haven’t needed those services.

If only there were news from other economic areas to give us a glimmer of hope. There isn’t. Unemployment, especially youth and graduate unemployment, is rising while – at the same time – the government is making it easier for those over 65 to ‘carry on working’, and is trying to get the disabled off benefit and back into work. Inflation is rising towards 5 percent and the Bank of England is – so far at least – reluctant to raise interest rates (their usual solution) because of the effect that this would have on economic growth. Meanwhile wage settlements, where there are any, are below the level of inflation so that all of us are, in effect, worse off.

Finally we learn that the economy, that had been confidently expected to continue to grow, if at a reduced rate, had in fact shrunk during the closing months of 2010, raising once more the spectre of a ‘double dip’ recession. Messrs Cameron and Osborne assure us that this was due to the appalling weather at the end of the year. Perhaps - but independent observers are a little sceptical of this explanation.

I am beginning to feel that our national politicians, on both sides of ‘the House’, have little idea of the full nature, extent and effect of the current economic situation and no clear idea at all about how best to remedy it! I am reminded of a couple of lines from G.K. Chesterton’s Ballad of the White Horse about the struggle of King Alfred and his army against the Danish invaders over a thousand years ago.

I tell you naught for your comfort. Nay, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet, and the sea rises higher.

There is little consolation in the fact that The Ballad of the White Horse has a happy ending!

Our Middle East Peace Envoy

This week I have read with interest a report by Symon Hill in ‘The Friend’, a Quaker Weekly Journal, about Tony Blair’s (our Middle East Peace Envoy) second appearance before the Chilcot Inquiry about the causes and conduct of the Iraq War.

Roderick Lyme, described by Symon Hill as ‘the panel’s most combative member’ said that the way in which the decision was made to invade Iraq was crucially important to many of those who declared in the run-up to the invasion that it was ‘not in my name’. I am proud to be able to say that among them – and among the million who marched protest in vain in early 2003 - were my two sons, daughters-in-law and grandsons!

Quoting cabinet minutes Mr Lyme said that despite the fact that Tony Blair had assured President Bush that Britain was prepared for war, there had been no ‘substantive discussion’ about Iraq between April and September 2002. ‘At what point were you actually asking the cabinet to make decisions?’ Incredibly the answer was that the ministers knew military action was being considered due to stories in the media. Asked if it would have been better to include more ministers in decision-making, Mr Blair replied ‘It would not have made a great deal of difference. I had the right people there’. Well, of course. He had appointed them and could have dismissed them had they proved ‘unreliable’! No, he hadn’t told George Bush that he had received formal advice that the invasion would be illegal. ‘It would have started raising doubts about whether we were really with them.’

Symon Hill says that the members of the panel were far more confrontational this time than they had been at the earlier hearing. Nevertheless, the protestors present weren’t satisfied. Tony Blair should stand trial for war crimes, they said.

Hadn’t they grasped the essential principle of international affairs – that the only top people who have to face war crimes tribunals are those of the losing side. If it were otherwise there would never be any wars – and we couldn’t have that, could we? It would ruin our flourishing arms trade!

‘Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven’!

Regular blog readers will recall that last year my good friends Kornelia and Andreas Kulke of Zittau (the small German town where I was once a PoW but have now found warmth and friendship) sent me a personalised pictorial calendar with a photo of their two lovely children on each page. Hung up in my kitchen/living room, it was a calendar to which my eyes have been drawn every day; a sure antidote for depression induced by gloomy news headlines and bulletins!

Now, thanks again to Konni and Andreas, the 2011 edition of that same calendar has taken its place. The two children (my honorary German nephew and niece!) are a year older. Little Maja will be five towards the end of September this year and her young brother Tom will be two at the beginning of the same month.

Aren’t they cheering and inspiring? It must have been of children like these that Jesus told his disciples, ‘Allow the little children to come to me. Don’t forbid them; for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven’.

Week 4 2011 25 Jan.2011

Tendring Topics…….on Line

‘There is no new thing under the sun’

The author of the Old Testament’s Ecclesiastes exaggerated a little when he made the assertion above. However it is amazing how often, brilliant new ideas turn out to have been tried in the past – sometimes with success, sometimes with failure.

Take the English Baccalaureate for instance. This is an exam aimed at obtaining a broadly based educational standard for school leavers. Candidates will be expected to achieve at least ‘C’ level in five subjects – Maths, English, a foreign language, two sciences and either History or Geography. It seems that only 16 percent of sixteen year olds taking their GCSE exams last year achieved the Baccalaureate standard. That though, is hardly surprising, as that standard had yet to be set and many candidates hadn’t even studied the subjects required!

In the 1930s I was one of the privileged minority who went to a secondary school and stayed at school until I was sixteen. The majority of my contemporaries were thrown onto the Labour Market at fourteen. We studied for and, before leaving, took what was called the University General Schools Certificate Examination. We had to take English (language and literature). Mathematics (arithmetic, algebra and geometry), a foreign language (French was the only one taught at my school), and at least two other subjects one of which had to be a science. Those who achieved the pass mark of 40 percent in five subjects, including the compulsory ones, passed the exam. Those who achieved a credit mark (50 percent) in those five subjects were awarded ‘Matriculation exemption’ – exemption from the entrance exam of the University (in our case London University) setting and marking the examination.

The examiners were granted a little latitude in deciding who had passed, who had failed and who had matriculated. I, for instance, was awarded Matric exemption even though I only achieved a Pass Mark in French, because I had a credit mark in five other subjects, including a Distinction – the highest mark – in English and History.

I took English, Maths, French, History, Geography and General Physics. The last of these was my science subject. It could have been tailor-made for me. It was guaranteed to be about general principles only – no nasty problems involving the use of maths!

I didn’t go to University. My parents couldn’t afford it. There were a limited number of scholarships in those days but neither grants nor loans. In any case the only working class boys that I knew who had been to university became either teachers or priests and neither profession had any appeal for me.

The General Schools Examination of the 1930s may not have been called a Baccalaureate but it was surely remarkably similar to one. No, we didn’t receive any vocational education. School education was aimed at turning us into literate and numerate adolescents, with some knowledge of the world’s history and geography and of our own country’s culture. Vocational education was something one acquired after leaving school and was primarily our employers’ responsibility.

I wonder whether today’s state education has the same goals – or is it aimed at preparing young people for futures as docile Human Resource Units (HRUs), the third millennial equivalent of medieval serfs and of the blue-overalled ‘proles’ of George Orwell’s ‘1984’; with no purpose in life beyond making fortunes for more privileged people, and no leisure interests beyond boozing, promiscuous sex, football, celebrity-worship, video games, and the lottery?

How the Magi got there!

A fortnight ago, I included in this blog a photo I had taken of the ‘Christmas Crib’ at Clacton’s St. James Church, depicting the ‘Epiphany’; the arrival in Bethlehem of the ‘three wise men’ bearing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. On Sunday 16th January, my younger son Andy, with his wife Marilyn, visited Southwark Cathedral and has sent me a picture of the depiction of the Epiphany there. It certainly is very splendid – but I reckon that for a parish church in a small provincial town, St James’ effort has few rivals.

All of this made me think of the monologues that my wife Heather and I wrote nearly ten years ago giving imaginary accounts by ‘ten witnesses’ of their experience of the Nativity. These monologues were, in any case, in my mind. A friend of a friend in Germany, who was very enthusiastic about them, had recently translated all ten into German! Among those ‘witnesses’ was the ‘caravan captain’ who had guided the Magi to Bethlehem – and safely home again. It occurred to me that it might interest blog readers. So here it is, complete with a preamble that I wrote at the time of publication.

The Caravan Captain

‘The Caravan Captain’ was another of our wholly imaginary characters. The three Magi (St. Matthew’s Gospel doesn’t say that there were three of them – that has been inferred from the three gifts) must have come ‘from the East’ in some kind of a caravan, which must have had some kind of organiser and guide.

We invented the thoroughly professional Hussein, whose caravans were renowned for getting to their destination ‘on time and intact’, to fulfil this role. He provided the common sense, which the ‘wise men’ for all their wisdom, seem to have lacked. This is his story.

I’ve heard them described as ‘three kings’ – a ridiculous idea! Can you imagine three kings travelling together in a camel caravan for as much as a couple of miles without falling out, and probably starting a minor war? ‘Three wise men’ is closer though, as you’ll hear, in the ways of the world they weren’t all that wise.

No, they were three Magi, men who claim to be able to look into the future, read and interpret the movement of the stars and to have a lot of other mysterious powers. Their skills are much sought after in Persia. Consequently they’re pretty wealthy, which is how they were able to hire my services.

Me? I’m a professional caravan captain. From Baghdad to far Byzantium, ask any regular traveller. He’ll tell you, ‘Hussein’s caravans get there on time – and intact’. I get the camels together, supervise the loading, plan the route, guide the caravan to its destination and hire sufficient reliable armed guards to deter and, if necessary, fight off any attack.

I needed them too, for the project for which the three magi had engaged me. They wanted me to take them to Judaea to welcome a new king who was to be born there. According to them he was to be a very special king, whose arrival would change the whole world. Judaea, by the way, is a little place way out west. You have to pass through some real bandit country to get there. I suppose that it was the splendour of the Magi’s dress and equipment that made the ignorant and poverty-stricken natives imagine that they must be three kings.

It was just the worst time of the year for a long journey but I got the caravan together and found a few other travellers who were going that way and were glad of our protection. The modest fee that I charged them added to my profits of course. Eventually we were ready and we set out.

Well, we got there without losing a camel, a traveller or any of the travellers’ goods – and we got safely home again! Hussein’s caravans always do. It was touch and go though and once or twice I found myself regretting having accepted the Magi’s gold.

The worst moments arose when we reached Judaea. It is part of the Roman Empire of course but there was a kind of sub-King there, Herod was his name, on whom my Magi insisted on calling to pay their respects and to ask for advice. They needed to get to Bethlehem, where they believed the new king was to be born. They wanted Herod’s help in getting there.

Well, I know the way to Bethlehem, of course. I had strongly advised them to give Jerusalem, Herod’s capital, a miss. You’d have thought that they would have realized that no king, however unimportant, is likely to welcome news of a potential rival in his little kingdom – especially a king who is going to change the world! They took no notice of me. They said that courtesy demanded a social call. It’s my belief that after weeks ‘on the road’, they had hoped to be invited to a slap-up meal in palatial surroundings.

And so they were. They enjoyed their evening of luxury and Herod enjoyed hearing about the baby who was to be the new King of Judaea. He asked them if, when they found the new king, they would let him know, so that he could come and pay appropriate homage. Would you believe it, in their innocence, they had promised to do just that!

While my bosses had been wining and dining with the mighty, I’d been having a cosy chat with some of the palace staff. They were willing enough to talk for a few shekels once they had satisfied themselves that I wasn’t one of the king’s spies. They told me that Herod the Great was a cruel and unprincipled cut-throat who thought nothing of murdering members of his own family if they thwarted him. Fat chance a new baby king would have with Herod looking out for him.

We hastened on to Bethlehem. I doubled the guard at night and told the sentries to look out for anyone following us who might be a spy or an assassin.

Well, they found their baby all right and handed over to his parents the expensive gifts that they had brought – gold, frankincense and myrrh. I looked in on them. The father was in early middle age and – I thought – probably a pretty successful artisan. The mother was a lovely girl, still a teenager I’d have said, and as welcoming and courteous to me as she was to my wealthy clients. The baby was lovely too – he seemed to have a special smile for me – almost as though he understood my problems! He didn’t look much like any king I’ve ever seen though. I enjoyed my brief visit and it saddened me to think that the whole family were almost certainly destined to be slaughtered by a power-drunk tyrant.

Next morning though, events really made me begin to believe for the first time, in the Magi’s superhuman powers. We were to pack up immediately and get out of Judaea as quickly as possible, giving Herod’s Jerusalem a wide berth. At the same time I learned that the parents, with their baby, were packing up and heading for safety in Egypt. I hope that they got there and missed the blood-bath that I was told followed our departure.

I wonder if I shall ever hear of them again?

Times – and attitudes – change!

One would expect attitudes toward marriage and child-birth to have changed in the 2,000 years that have passed since Christ’s Nativity. Listening to the current debate about maternity leave and paternity leave made me realize how much such attitudes have changed in the last half-century! In the 1940s and ‘50s it was normal for couples planning to live together to get married, and for the husband to be the breadwinner, the wife the home-maker. Quite a few young women continued working for the first year or so of marriage but, once children arrived, most of them (some at least, with a sigh of relief!) found that making a comfortable and welcoming home and bringing up children was, in itself, a satisfying and sufficient career.

No doubt as a result of this, a great many potentially brilliant women scientists, public servants and entrepreneurs were lost to society. On the other hand, because mums were always at home to welcome their offspring (and to keep a watchful eye on their activities!), there was much less juvenile delinquency, teenage pregnancy, juvenile drunkenness and drug-taking, and occurrence among juveniles of sexually transmitted disease. There were too, far fewer broken homes and far fewer single mums in those days. Things were very different. It will be for future historians to decide whether they were better or worse.

As for maternity and paternity leave; I took a week or two off work when my sons were born in 1953 and 1955, but I fully expected to have to deduct that from my annual holiday entitlement of, at that time, three weeks. Heather, of course, never thought for a moment of any career other than that of bringing up our two sons and 'Keeping the Home Fires burning’. She was a great success at both!

Week 3 18.1.11

Tendring Topics…….on Line

The Cost of Disillusion

As we move into the second decade of the third millennium, I don’t remember ever before experiencing such general disillusion with all politicians and with all political parties, as there is today.

The Conservative-dominated coalition leaps in impetuously to right wrongs, redistribute power, build a fairer society – and ends up either bogged down (rather like the French cavalry at Agincourt!) or producing the direct opposite of their stated intention. They were going to save millions of pounds by getting rid of all the Quangos, until they discovered that for the most part Quangos were doing a worthwhile job. The most that could be done was merge some of them or pass their functions on to some other body.

They were going to abolish the bureaucratic NHS Primary Care Authorities and hand their responsibilities over to ‘the doctors’ in their areas. But ‘the doctors’ have plenty to do caring for the sick. They don’t want to take on the administrative tasks of the PCAs. They are combining into area consortia, creating little bureaucracies of their own.

They were going to stem the great flow of overseas immigrants – but farmers and others couldn’t function without the foreign workers prepared to undertake tasks that no Brit cared to do. They were going to reduce the power of the government and hand it over to ‘local communities’. They haven’t handed over a single function of central government but they have taken power away from local authorities – the elected representatives of local communities!

They were going to curb the power of the bankers – especially those whose irresponsibility and incompetence had been the immediate cause of our financial woes, who had been saved from bankruptcy with our money, but who were proposing to continue handing themselves five-figure bonuses. If only the government had been prepared to back up fiery words with effective action! The confrontation between bankers and the government was reminiscent of the medieval struggles between church and state – except that the conflict is now between the representatives of the British people and the High Priests of Mammon. The struggle isn’t quite over as I write these words but, whatever face-saving words may be used to make defeat sound like victory, I have little doubt that it will be Mammon who will come out on top.

The Lib-Dems? They had to pay too higher price to become junior partners in a coalition government. Instinctively ‘green’ and ‘Europhile’, they find themselves allied with Climate Change denying Europhobes like our (Clacton) MP, and compelled to support policies to which, up to the day of the election, they were strongly opposed. Student fees, for example, and control orders for suspected terrorists. Poor old Vince Cable was humiliated for saying, in what he had imagined was a private conversation, that he had ‘declared war on Rupert Murdoch’ (well, It was certainly time someone did!). He was replaced by someone whose impartiality had been demonstrated by unequivocal support for the Murdoch media empire!

Altogether I can see little hope of either coalition partner changing ‘The good old law, the ancient plan, that he shall take who hath the power – and he shall keep who can!’

As for the Labour Opposition – I think that Ed Milliband is probably doing his best to breathe new life into his Party. However, I can’t forget that under New Labour the yawning gap between the incomes of the rich and poor widened; we were dragged into two unwinnable wars by blindly following the most reactionary American president in living memory; the infamous ‘Right to Buy’ legislation that had turned urban municipal housing into slums and destroyed rural communities, remained on the statute book; while New Labour’s leaders took their holidays in the palatial residences of their multimillionaire friends! No wonder Lord Mandelson, who – with Mr Osborne, our present Tory Chancellor – had enjoyed the hospitality of a millionaire friend on his luxury yacht, told the press that he ‘had no problem with billionaires!’

I very much fear that the time is ripe for the emergence on the scene of a young, energetic and charismatic politician, with brawny and heavy-booted supporters, who will promise to get rid of venial and self-serving politicians, and the ‘alien riffraff taking our jobs and threatening our culture’, cut our ties with Europe, establish comradely links with Sarah Palin’s ‘Tea-Party’ warriors in the USA, and lead Britain on a new path – toward the kind of future that would have brought joy to the hearts of Hitler and Mussolini! We must be thankful that so far at least, neither the BNP nor UKIP have leaders of that malignant quality.

Footnote – The clear winner of the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election was disillusion. 48 percent of the electorate voted. This means that those who didn’t vote (52 percent) were in a majority. Your guess about the motives of those who did vote is as good as mine. I think it likely though that a great many of the votes secured by the winning candidate were cast against the coalition partners rather than for New Labour.

Disaster strikes Ipswich?

As I switched my tv set on a few mornings ago, the news reader was saying ‘…and Ipswich has been inundated, with 2,000 families rendered homeless’.

I wasn’t at my brightest at that time but it was amazing how many thoughts flashed through my mind in what was probably less than half a minute. I was back in memory to January 1939. Heavy snow and prolonged frost had been succeeded by a rapid thaw with torrential rain. The Gipping Valley had been inundated. The wooden road bridge at Sproughton, a few miles up stream from Ipswich, had been swept away. My family’s home was safe enough but there was severe flooding of low-lying streets in parts of the town. Was this scene from the past being re-enacted with even more flooding than before?

Of course not. I had momentarily forgotten that there is another Ipswich, in Queensland, Australia, not far from Brisbane. That was the town that was under water. It was, in fact, part of an inundated area in north-eastern Australia larger than the combined areas of France and Germany!

Australia is part of the Commonwealth with which we have historical and cultural ties. Some of us have friends and/or relations there. It is hardly surprising that it has been the flooding there that has received most British news media coverage. It is though by no means the only part of the world to have endured almost identical disaster. Sri Lanka and Brazil suffered far more human casualties than Australia and although the flood waters have now receded in Pakistan, the havoc that they wrought remains – and is likely to remain for months, perhaps years, to come.

This is no coincidence. Although the Meteorologists, wary of making a false prediction, say that it is too early to be certain of the cause of these floods, it seems to me to be evident that global warming is responsible. The vast expanse and volume of water in the southern oceans (Atlantic, Pacific, Indian) has warmed up, resulting in more evaporation and a moisture-filled lower atmosphere. At the same time adjacent land masses – South America, Australia, the Indian sub-Continent – have warmed up even more. The warm air above these land masses, rises and is replaced by moisture-filled air from the ocean. As this moisture-filled air cools, particularly when flowing over mountains, the water vapour precipitates as torrential, and potentially devastating rain. It is what happens already in the southern Asian Monsoon.

Climate change deniers delighted in telling us that the bitterly cold weather we experienced in November and December proved beyond doubt that Global warming was a myth, propagated by scaremongers. On the contrary, our icy weather may well have been a result of world-wide warming. We know that the polar ice-caps are melting. Tens of thousands of gallons of fresh water, only just above freezing point, are being precipitated into the North Atlantic daily. I don’t know whether, as some believe, this is affecting the flow of the Gulf Stream on which North-Western Europe’s normally equable climate depends. I am quite sure though that it must have a cooling affect on the waters of the North Atlantic, thus making our winters colder.

I think it likely that weather in Britain will become more extreme. At least until all the polar ice cap disappears, our will winters continue to become colder. Our summers will be cool and cloudy while the prevailing wind direction remains from the west or south-west. When it changes to coming from an easterly or south-easterly direction it will, perhaps only briefly, become abnormally hot.

Unless or until we take Climatic Change seriously that is the future to which we can look forward.

Double Opportunity for Harwich

Last year Tendring Council failed to secure a government grant for Harwich because Essex was considered to be too prosperous a county. Perhaps, overall, it is, but the Tendring District certainly has areas of severe deprivation, parts of Harwich, Clacton and Jaywick among them.

Harwich at least, could have a brighter future. The Council has launched a £5 million bid to attract the wind farm industry to the town. The idea is to build a skills and business centre to support an ever-growing industry. The ultimate aim is to make Harwich a major centre for the maintenance and manufacture of Wind Turbines. The historic port is internationally known as a staging post between England and the Continent and is well placed to serve the now-established wind farm offshore at Clacton and the developing farms both to the north, in the Thames estuary and off the coast of Kent. Councillor Neil Stock, the Council’s leader, says that such a development could result in up to 40,000 jobs and add hundreds of millions of pounds to Harwich’s economy.

The home. in Kings Head Street, of Christopher Jones, master of The Mayflower

To turn this dream into a reality the Council is again applying for a grant – this time from a £1.5 billion regeneration fund established by the government to help areas hit by public service cuts. Mr Stock says that this time they are quietly optimistic as they prepare a compelling case for a grant.

I very much hope they succeed, not only for Harwich but for the future of Western Europe. Quite apart from the need for sources of reliable renewable energy to combat climate change, we have to realize that the world’s reserves of oil and gas are finite. Alternative energy sources must be found well before they run out, or become so difficult to secure that they become prohibitively expensive.

In the meantime are you happy about the fact that most of our oil comes from the always volatile Middle East and our gas from reservoirs in Siberia?

The 2012 Olympics may well give Harwich another economic opportunity. The port is already well-known on the Continent as a gateway into Britain. It could become Britain’s main staging post to the Olympics. From the town there are direct rail and road routes to the Olympics stadium at Stratford, avoiding the need to pass through London. I hope that our Tourist Authorities will publicise that fact among our mainland neighbours and EU partners, and make sure that there is adequate first class hotel accommodation for those who wish to use our area either as a staging post or a base.

Harwich’s historic ‘Three Cups’ Inn. Lord Nelson and Emma, Lady Hamilton are said to have stayed there and in the 14th Century, Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer are said to have obtained horses here before going on to defeat her husband King Edward II. Has Harwich a bright future as well as a colourful past?

Week 2. 2011 11th Jan. 2011

Tendring Topics…….on Line

‘Old unhappy far-off things and battles long ago’
Wm Wordsworth ‘The Solitary Reaper’

A few weeks before Christmas, I had a phone call that took me back into the distant past. It was from someone in Derby who had been a member of the 67th Medium Regiment RA in which I had served during World War II. He had not only been in the same regiment but in the same battery (the 231st) and the same four-gun troop (B Troop) as myself. I had known him, though only slightly; he having been a sergeant and I a lowly gunner and a member of a different gun team. He had learned, goodness knows how, that I was one of the survivors of the regiment and he was keen to make contact.

We didn’t have a great deal in common either then or now – and I have never been all that enthusiastic about this ‘old comrades’ business. However we had a friendly chat about our common experiences in Egypt and Libya and our very different experiences as prisoners of war. He wanted information about the regiment’s casualties, particularly those who were killed by ‘friendly fire’ when the Italian steamer ‘SS Scillen’ was torpedoed by a British submarine while loaded with British PoWs being transported from Libya to Italy. I had a complete list of fatal casualties, one hundred in all (out of a regiment of some 700), together with the date, place of burial where applicable, and names of next of kin. It was on eleven A4 pages. I offered to scan them into my laptop and send them to him by email. He didn’t have internet access (that was something else that we didn’t have in common) but his son had.

He also had some photos that he thought would interest me. And they certainly did. I was amazed to learn that a spool, or possibly a cassette, of film had survived the detailed searches to which, as a PoW, I had been subjected, (but perhaps sergeants were treated differently!) and brought back to England at the end of the war to be developed.

His computer literate son forwarded them to me, but not in a form that made it possible for me to print them or reproduce them. Luckily my elder son and daughter-in-law are I.T. experts and when they brought me home to Clacton after Christmas they reproduced them for me in a manageable format. Here they are. The first is of one of our 6in diameter howitzers in action in the Libyan Desert early in 1942. It has just been fired and the angle of the barrel suggests to me that it was at a target at maximum range. It is in a dug-out gun-pit and has a camouflage net strung over it. On being fired it would have hurled a 100lb high-explosive shell up in the air to drop onto its target. This made howitzers ideal weapons against fortifications but almost totally useless in mobile warfare against enemy tanks. The ‘pole’ held upright by a crew member in the rear is, in fact, the ramrod with which the shell was rammed into the lower end of the gun barrel so that its encircling copper ‘driving band’ pressed tightly against the internal rifling of the gun barrel.

For some time in the spring of 1942 we were positioned in a dried-up river valley or wadi. One night we had a tropical rain-storm.

The heavens opened and within minutes, or so it seemed, the wadi was awash. The gun pits were flooded and so were the shallow trenches in which we slept under ‘bivvy tents’. If Rommel had attacked that night he would have encountered no resistance from us. But probably his forces, just a mile or two to our west, were suffering in the same way. In the North African Desert, nature (an arid featureless landscape, sand-storms blown up by Khamsin winds from the south - like an oven door opening! - and very occasional tropical deluges) was the common enemy of the opposing armies.

Flooded! Libya 1942

Anyway, someone had managed to keep his camera dry, and had captured on film one of our guns half submerged by the flood waters.

There was another picture of interest to me – nine men in less-than-smart battle dress (a gun crew I imagine) in a desert environment. It could have been, but wasn’t, the gun crew of which I was a member. In fact, although most of those faces are familiar to me, I can’t put a name to a single one of them! Well, it was a long time ago. The photo is dated January 1942 and my guess is that it was taken shortly after we had taken part in the capture of the German and Italian strongholds at Bardia and Wadi Halfaya (‘Hellfire Pass’). We were withdrawn to Sidi Barrani, well inside Egypt, and told that we were destined for Palestine. It sounded too good to be true – and so it was! Far away in Tripolitania, Rommel’s reinforced Afrikakorps had counter-attacked in strength. We had had heavy tank losses. Our regiment was ordered back to Gazala where, after some six months of more-or-less continuous action, we were overwhelmed and captured at Tobruk.

Those remarkable photographs transported me in memory across a continent, an ocean, and a time span of nearly seventy years to Wordsworth’s, ‘Old unhappy far-off things and battles long ago’.

Much ado about…….very little!

The Clacton Gazette’s headlines last week (5th January) could have been from the local newspaper at Hamelin before the Pied Piper put in an appearance. The Rat Pack - It’s ‘Christmas for vermin’ as rubbish uncollected for a fortnight piles up.

My word! Are rats running in packs in our streets? Ought we all to be vaccinated against Bubonic Plague? Hardly; it was simply because in those parts of our district that normally have a refuse and salvage collection on a Monday or Tuesday, one week’s collection was missed altogether and the following week the collection was a day later than usual. I live in an area that has a Tuesday collection so I know very well that there were extra filled black bags to deal with. I leave mine just inside my driveway but others are unable or unwilling to do that. Carelessly disposed black bags began to obstruct the pavements. Negotiating past them in a mobility scooter, or with a pram of wheelchair, became difficult.

But it was only for a few days. By 8.30 a.m. on Wednesday of the second week the piles of bags had vanished and the street and pavements were clear. There had been two public holidays on normal working days in Christmas week and one in the following week. I don’t think that either the council or the contractors should be criticised for the way that they dealt with the problem that those three ‘days off’ created.

They could have kept the collectors working, making the overtime payments to which they would have been entitled – but the council has been compelled by the government to save every penny and they would certainly have been told that those overtime payments weren’t essential. They could have put the collections back two days on the first week and back a further day on the second. That would have caused confusion. Few people would have known when their refuse and salvage would be collected. I think that in cutting out the collection completely for one week in part of the district (even though it is the part I live in!) was probably the right decision.

I was amused to see that, as I had forecast a week or so ago, a Government Minister of whom few people had previously heard, decided to take on the role of ‘a knight in shining armour’. He wrote to all local authorities (I wonder what that bit of self-publicity cost us?) urging them to adopt a ‘can do’ attitude and keep the wheels of the refuse vehicles turning. I wonder what he would have suggested – perhaps appealing for ‘big Society’ volunteers to clear the rubbish!

I think that Tendring Council, and their refuse collecting contractors, deserve our thanks and congratulations rather than hysterical criticism. The service kept going through the ice and snow, when collecting filled bags and carrying them across icy pavements must have been a hazardous business. Over Christmas and the New Year, no-one as far as I know, missed more than one weekly connection.

We should remember that, as a result of government spending cuts, a fortnightly refuse collection is a already a reality in many areas. Tendring Council has so far managed to avoid this. I hope they continue to do so. Waiting a fortnight for a collection, just once, and in the depth of winter is one thing. Having regularly to wait a fortnight in the heat of summer (imagine the piles of rubbish, the smells, the flies, the rats!) would really be something to grumble about!

Crisis? What Crisis?

I am not a great follower of either cricket or football. I’m mildly pleased when I note that Ipswich has won a football match (something that hasn’t happened recently!) and I found myself quite excited when the English Cricket Team retained ‘the ashes’ and won the recent test match series in Australia.

Making a contribution to this victory is said to have been the support of the ‘Barmy Army’ of between 15,000 and 20,000 British Cricket fans who religiously – one might almost say ‘obsessively’ – follow the test match team wherever it goes.

Good for them! But I find it difficult to believe that Britain can possibly be in such dire financial straits that public services have had to be cut, taxes like VAT that principally affect poorer people raised, and working people told that they’ll have to work harder for less money, when between 15.000 and 20,000 of us can spare the time and the money to travel half-way round the world to watch a series of cricket matches? I have been told that any fan who stayed in Australia for the six weeks of the test series could easily have spent £2,000 per week there!

Crisis? What Crisis? I reckon that for most of the Barmy Army the most serious crisis that they can envisage is one of England’s leading players twisting an ankle and being unfit to play!

A Happy Ending

I began this blog with pictures recalling ‘old, unhappy. far-off things and battles long ago’. Let me end it with a picture from happier times that I have just come across in a drawer. Taken in 1954, 12 years after those other pictures, it is of my late wife Heather with our first son, then a baby. Heather would have been 30 at the time and I would have been 32.

Those were happy days!

Week 1. 2011 4th Jan. 2011

Tendring Topics……..on Line

Always Winter…….but never Christmas!

Since I last posted a blog I have spent several happy hours in C.S. Lewis’ imaginary world of Narnia. I watched ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ on tv before I left Clacton to spend Christmas with my two sons. On Boxing Day my elder son took me to watch the recently released ‘Voyage of the Dawn Treader’ and on my return I watched Prince Caspian that had been recorded for me by my ‘freeview box’ in my absence. I liked the first – ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ best, though The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’ came a close second. I had – some years ago – read all the Narnia books. There are three others yet to be filmed; The Horse and his Boy, The Silver Chair and the award-winning The Last Battle.

Those acquainted with ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ will know that prior to the fortuitous arrival of the evacuated Pevensea children in 1940, Narnia was under the spell of the Wicked Witch. It was a world in which it was always winter – but never Christmas.

C.S.Lewis must have had truly prophetic vision since that seems to be the fate that awaits us. Our world hasn’t been taken over by the Narnian Wicked Witch. We are threatened by another witch though, Courtesy’s ugly sister – Political Correctness. Increasingly ‘Christmas’ is being phased out in the ludicrous belief that its mention might offend non-Christians. Greetings cards manufacturers nowadays prefer to offer ‘Seasons Greetings’ rather than ‘Happy Christmas’. Christmas (the time of thanksgiving for the birth of Jesus Christ) has become The Festive Season or The Mid-winter Festival.

I was disappointed to discover that Tendring Careline, a local institution for which I have the highest regard (and on which at some time or other my life may depend!) has fallen under the evil spell. I and – no doubt – all other Careline clients have received a useful Careline Calendar indicating when they would like us to check the efficiency of the system. The calendar didn’t come with the Christmas Greetings of the Careline Staff (Christmas is becoming one of those words that are not used in polite society) but with Seasons Greeting. Recipients are told that The Careline team would like to offer all our service users a Happy Holiday Season and a safe and peaceful New Year.

There’s nothing wrong with being wished a safe and peaceful New Year, but a Happy Holiday Season is a pretty poor substitute for a hearty and sincere Happy Christmas! To many of us Careline clients – old, possibly disabled, living alone, almost or completely housebound – ‘holidays’ are things of the past, suggesting activities that are now far beyond our capabilities.

Christmas though, is something different. It is a time when we hear, if only via scribbled Christmas cards, from almost-forgotten friends and relatives far away. A time when, on the whole, people are nicer to each other, and to us, than at other times in the year; when we can enjoy the fairy lights and decorations in other people’s homes even if we can’t manage them ourselves. We can enjoy Christmas church services on radio and/or tv. Some of us, perhaps with help, can get to a Christmas church service ourselves. Had I spent Christmas in Clacton my mobility scooter (my iron horse) would have made it possible for me to attend 8.00 a.m. Mass at St. James’ Church followed by a special Christmas Meeting for Worship at the Quaker Meeting House. As it was, on Christmas Day my younger son Andy took me to a Choral Eucharist that I thoroughly enjoyed at St. Mark’s Church of England parish church in Enfield.

It is a time too when we can enjoy our memories of Christmases past, though ironically it is the happiest memories that are most likely to make us feel sad.

A happy Christmas memory. My late wife Heather manning the Quaker ‘white elephant’ stall at the annual CCVS (as it then was) Christmas sale in Clacton's Princes Theatre in, I think, the early '70s.

I hope that, should I still be around next Christmas (not a possibility on which I would advise anyone to bet too heavily!) Tendring Careline will feel able to send me, and all their other clients, a traditional Christmas greeting. In recent years, our winters have been long, cold, dark and miserable. Please don’t rob us of the interlude of warmth, love, light and joy that Christmas brings!

The Big Freeze – the aftermath!

When, a fortnight ago, I warned in this blog about the risk to domestic plumbing systems arising from successive days and nights of sub-zero temperatures, I hardly expected my gloomy forebodings to be realized quite so spectacularly. On 29th December news bulletins recorded that 40,000 Northern Irish homes were without a mains water supply because of the loss of water from tens of thousands of burst pipes. Scotland, although it had more severe weather for a longer period, was not so badly affected and there have, so far, been no reports of interrupted water supplies in England as a result of burst pipes. The Irish Republic where, in many areas, the weather cannot have been wildly different from that in Northern Ireland, has had many crises recently – but widespread loss of water supply has not been among them.

The Northern Irish Government and the Water Authority are being criticised for not having reacted quickly and effectively to the situation. I think that there should be an investigation into the cause of the crisis as well as into the ineffective attempts to alleviate it. Do building regulations in Northern Ireland incorporate proper frost precautions and, if so, are those regulations rigorously enforced? I saw, on a tv news bulletin, water jetting from a burst in what appeared to be a supply pipe from the water main rising to the upper storey of a house on an external wall. On the same news bulletin we saw a branch pipe taken several feet along an external wall to an outside tap. If builders can get away with such obvious and easily spotted design faults what about the less obvious and invisible ones?

Are water mains buried at a sufficient depth below the streets or footpaths? And what about the connecting pipes (or ‘rising mains’) from the water main to the premises? That connecting pipe should be at least 1ft 6in below ground level throughout its length. In a large housing development reducing that depth by a few inches overall can save quite a lot of money and – once the trenches have been filled in – no-one is aware of anything wrong until, of course, there is a cold spell like the one that we have recently experienced!

We all know, because we have heard it so often from know-it-all politicians, that pettifogging regulations enforced mindlessly by faceless bureaucrats, stifle enterprise and inhibit wealth creation. It is worth remembering that they also prevent disasters like that which, as I write these words, we are witnessing in Northern Ireland.

Footnote – I was disquieted to hear the Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Water Authority, who really should have known better, blame all those burst pipes and leaking water mains on ‘the suddenness of the thaw’. Had he been a reader of this blog he would have known that it was the severe and prolonged freeze that damaged the province’s plumbing systems. The thaw merely made it evident.


‘Give all thou canst. High Heaven rejects the law of nicely calculated less or more’

The above quote by William Wordsworth was inspired by the government’s wish to encourage us towards charitable giving, and their making it easier (by any means other than putting extra cash into our pockets or handbags!) for us to do so. Little ‘nudges’ to urge us toward philanthropy are to be included in Council tax and income tax demands and other official communications.

One of the now-totally-useless skills that I acquired as a PoW in Germany was that of driving an ox-cart (yes, oxen were quite commonly used to pull heavy loads in Germany in 1943/’45). The ox would have a single cord attached to the right-hand side of its mouth, connecting it to the driver. When the driver wanted the ox to turn to the right, he pulled long and hard on the cord. That pulled the ox’s head round to the right and it followed its nose in that direction. If, on the other hand, he wanted the ox to turn to the left he gave a series of short, sharp tugs on the cord. This, the ox disliked and instinctively turned his head away from it – toward the left. ‘Simple!’ as the meerkat says in the well-known tv advert!

I have a feeling that those little nudges toward charitable giving, especially when accompanying some kind of a tax demand, are likely to have the same effect on us as those irritating sharp tugs had on the ox. It’ll turn us away from them.

Most of us, in any case, get plenty of reminders of charitable giving landing on our doormats almost every morning, as worthy charities ply us with heart-rending stories and gifts (ball-point pens, pictorial calendars, greetings cards, shopping bags, electric torches – even a few small coins!) to make us feel guilty if we fail to support them. There are two or three charities that I regularly support as generously as I can. If I attempted to give to all who ask, I’d be in need of charity myself.

I don’t think that I am being unduly cynical in suggesting that the government is well aware of the sterling work that many charities perform, and that they realize that their funding cuts to local authorities are limiting, if not stopping altogether, the financial help that charities have come to rely on from that source. They are hoping that their ‘give more to charity’ campaign will encourage us, as individuals, to make up the shortfall.

Possibly men and women of good will, will respond as generously as they are able to. Surely though, it is the government’s job to ensure that less benevolent citizens also make their fair contribution towards the well-being of the sick, the disabled and those otherwise in need. There’s just one way to do that. Reform the Income Tax system, adding a penny or two per pound to the general rate and making it more progressive, so that the seriously wealthy pay their fair share towards national recovery. Stamp out tax evasion and currently-legal tax avoidance. Those are options that, so far, do not appear even to have been considered in the corridors of power.

‘On the twelfth day of Christmas……..’

…..down come the Christmas trees, the holly and the ivy, the fairy lights and the tinsel. In medieval times that was the end of twelve days of celebration. The fact that Shakespeare wrote a play ‘Twelfth Night’ especially for the occasion suggests that the final day of Christmas (6th January) was reckoned to be almost as important as Christmas Day itself.

On the twelfth day – ‘The crib’ at St James’ parish church in Clacton-on-Sea depicts the Magi arriving and presenting their gifts to the new-born Messiah.

It was remembered and celebrated as the anniversary of the day on which the ‘Three Kings’, ‘Three Wise Men’ or ‘Three Magi’ from the east arrived in Bethlehem to give their gifts of gold, frankincense and Myrrh to the newly born Jesus. It was Epiphany (the ‘showing’), the day on which the Christ Child was presented to the Gentiles, whereby God made it clear that the Christ was his revelation of himself to the whole world, not just to the Children of Israel. All the man-made decoration could therefore be put away because ‘The Light of the World’ had come.

Week 52.10 28th December 2010

Tendring Topics…….on line

Christmas – for Quakers!

Way back in September I wrote an article with the above title for ‘The Friend’, a Quaker Weekly Journal. It expressed my thoughts about the importance of Christmas to Quakers. The Editor thanked me but said that it was rather too long for ‘The Friend’. Could I reduce it from 1,300 to under 1,000 words? I could and I did.

The resultant abridged version was duly published in the Christmas/New Year issue of ‘The Friend’. I felt though that the article might be of interest beyond the confines of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and have decided to publish the original unabridged version in this blog. It could even be of interest to some who don’t consider themselves to be Christians.

Here it is – I hope that you may find it interesting:

Christmas - for Quakers

‘How will you your Christmas keep: feasting, fasting, or asleep? asks Eleanor Farjeon in her poem ‘Keeping Christmas.’

Early Quakers would have answered without hesitation, ‘We don’t keep it at all, nor do we keep any other Christian festival’. This was not because they doubted the virgin birth of Jesus, or that he was God’s Word made Flesh, or the accounts of his crucifixion and resurrection, but because they claimed to celebrate those events in their hearts every day of the year.

There are Quakers today who maintain the testimony against observing ‘times and seasons’ but very few, I think, for the same reason as those early Friends. It is likely that many believe that the Gospel accounts of the miraculous birth in Bethlehem, the shepherds’ angelic vision, and the visit of the Magi are all a myth, invented to add some ‘magic’ to an otherwise prosaic narrative. It is no more literal historical truth, and of no more importance, than the story of Adam and Eve or, come to that, the Greek myth of Pandora and her box.

Nowadays, they say, no one really believes the Christmas story and it’s just an excuse for a spending spree, overeating and boozing! Best to forget the whole silly business and get on with daily life, as those early Quakers did some three centuries ago.

Like early Quakers, I do believe that Jesus Christ was God’s word incarnate (made flesh, personified – whichever you prefer). Unlike them though, I think that it is right to commemorate and celebrate his birthday. Do Friends who pay no heed to ‘times and seasons’ ignore their own children’s birthdays or their own wedding anniversaries? If they do, they must have unusually tolerant and understanding families. I think it unlikely that Jesus’ birth occurred exactly as recounted in the Gospels, but I do think that the Christmas story contains a measure of historic truth. I believe too that even if the whole thing were invented, it would be no less important because of the insight it gives us into the deepest convictions of the early Christian Church.

Think about it. The traditional Christmas story proclaims that the mother of the man who was human but also divine was Mary, an ordinary village girl born and living in Nazareth and engaged to be married to a carpenter. She was to bear her son under circumstances that would bring into doubt his paternity and could even have resulted in her facing an accusation of adultery. He was destined to grow up in an obscure village in the remote province of Galilee, far from Jerusalem and the Temple, the centre of Jewish faith and culture. The first reaction of Nathaneal, when he was told of Jesus, was incredulity; ‘Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?’

After having been told that she was to be the mother of the future Messiah Mary composed a triumphal revolutionary anthem that makes The Red Flag appear pale pink in comparison!

He hath shewed strength with his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts’
He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.

It can only have been thanks to the Grace of God that the Magnificat has survived generation after generation of rule by ‘the proud, the mighty and the rich’ to give hope to the poor and to inspire such martyred Christian leaders as Fr. John Ball of Colchester in the 14th century and Archbishop Romero of El Salvador in the 20th.

The birth took place in Bethlehem. The only inn in the town was fully booked. There was no room available. Temporarily homeless, the expectant mother and her husband found shelter in a stable. It was there that their child was born, a cattle trough serving as a cradle.

These were surely strange circumstances to have been invented by those trying to deceive the world into believing that the child was the long-awaited Messiah, destined to redeem Israel.

More equally inauspicious events were to follow. Those who were first informed of the newborn Messiah were not, as might have been expected, the prophets, scholars and priests of Israel. Nor were they the land’s temporal rulers. Rome was ignorant of, and would have been indifferent to, his birth. When Herod heard of it he sought only the baby’s death!

It was shepherds, tending their flocks on the hillside near Bethlehem, to whom the news of the birth was first given. They were well down the social scale and would have been even lower in the estimate of the rulers of the Temple and arbiters of spiritual life. Shepherds couldn’t, by reason of their occupation, obey the Law of Moses to the letter. Sheep need to be guarded and cared for seven days a week. Nature does not heed the Sabbath. Yet, they were chosen by God to welcome the baby who was to change the whole world.

The first to bring the baby gifts that were symbolic of his kingship, his divine nature – and his cruel and untimely death, were neither Children of Israel nor Jewish converts. They were Magi from a distant land, heathen idolaters of the kind that had been roundly condemned throughout the Scriptures. They were surely symbolic of the fact that Jesus was God’s gift to the whole of humanity, not to Israel only.

More was to follow. Within weeks, Mary and Joseph, with the baby Jesus, were political refugees, fleeing for their lives into the land of Egypt. How long did they stay there? No one knows. At least one apocryphal gospel suggests several years. Other authorities believe a matter of months only. Perhaps it didn’t happen at all and was just part of that meretricious ‘Christmas myth’. Perhaps – but early Christians (and early Friends) believed that, at least in the first instance, the Holy Family was dependent upon ‘the kindness of strangers’ and that they lived for months, perhaps years, among the idolatrous heathen.

Those first Chapters of St Luke’s, St. Matthew’s and St. John’s Gospels tell us that when God’s ‘Word’ (‘that was with God and was God from the beginning and without whom was not anything made that was made’ – and is also the ‘True Light that enlightens everyone who comes into the World’) was ‘made flesh and dwelt among us’, he did not make his home and find his friends among the powerful, the most wise or the most outwardly religious. Throughout his life he made a point of his own lack of worldly possessions (‘The Son of Man hath nowhere to lay his head’) and of his identification with social and religious outcasts, with the poor and the homeless, and with ‘foreigners’ dwelling in a strange land. ‘Inasmuch as ye have done these things (good or bad) to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done them unto me’. This, early Christians clearly believed, was the nature of their, and our, God.

I do not know how much of the Gospel stories of Christ’s Nativity is true. I have no doubt though about the truth of that summation. If the Christmas story is ‘just a myth’ what a magnificent myth it is; a myth that reveals fundamental truths more clearly than could any cold recounting of historical events! For Quakers (whether believing, half-believing or disbelieving the familiar Christmas story), this revelation of the nature of God deserves to be remembered and celebrated, if not every day of the year, at least at Christmas time.

The time draws near the birth of Christ,
A present that can not be priced,
Given two thousand years ago.
And if God had not given so,
He still would be a distant stranger
And not the Baby in the Manger.

‘Advent 1955’ by John Betjeman

HAPPY NEW YEAR?

I had intended to put the customary exclamation mark after that New Year salutation. I altered it to a question mark because it is clear to me that for a great many, perhaps most, of us 2011 threatens to be a far-from-happy year. Not for everybody, of course. The chief difference that the seriously wealthy are likely to notice is that when they get their P.A. to insert an advert in the press for an under-gardener, a nursemaid, scullery maid or some other member of the lower classes to perform a menial task ‘about the mansion’ or on the estate, they are likely to have a really tedious number of applications to sort through.

But there, I expect that they’ll get the P.A., the Press Secretary, the Chef or the Estate Manager to sort through them! Strange how – after ten years of ‘New-Labour’ government - the ever-widening gap between the really wealthy and the poor is beginning to replicate the ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ of Edwardian days, but in a third millennium context. It’s much the same really – just that the upper servants; the butler, housekeeper, cook and head gardener, now have different, and rather less servile, designations.

As for the rest of us, I reckon that until now most of us have only ‘heard of’ the government’s saving plans. We have been able to persuade ourselves that they’ll really only affect ‘other people’. We’ll be immune.

We won’t be. As we move into the New Year, whatever may be our age, physical condition or financial situation (unless, of course, we’re millionaires) we’re going to be affected by the swingeing reductions in governmental financial support for public services. Perhaps we’ll be losing our job, either because we are employed in the public service or because we’re in the private sector but much or all of our work is under contract to a public authority. We may be losing our home because we can no longer keep up the mortgage payments and, in any case, falling house prices may mean that we now owe more than our home is worth!

You’re fit, you intend to stay fit and you use the Council swimming pool and fitness centre? It is likely to close, have restricted hours of opening, or vastly increased charges. Perhaps you’re not so fit, or you’re elderly, and you use the public library. That will be affected in the same way. Meals on wheels, social services generally? Expect increased charges and a reduction in services. Refuse collection and street cleaning? Weekly collection is likely to become a thing of the past. Our streets will become shabbier and more litter-strewn. Potholes and broken paving stones will remain unrepaired. Economies with policing are likely to lead to an increase in crime. Going out alone after dark could be unwise – especially as the highway authority may be economising on street lighting!

And, of course, it will be local councils who collect the Council Tax and will have to impose the cuts, who will get the blame! Central Government will be seen as the knight in shining armour to whom the public can appeal to save them from ‘rapacious and incompetent bureaucrats at the Town Hall’.

Well, I do wish all blog readers a happy and peaceful New Year! – there’s no harm in wishing, and no harm in hoping!


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