Week 34 2011 30.8.2011

Tendring Topics………on line


Nonagenarians Reunited!


I am, I think, becoming accustomed to being very old and feeble. I am reminded of it every time I try to do anything in the least strenuous, walk even a short distance without my stick, or try to remember the name of someone to whom I had been introduced half an hour earlier. What still comes as a shock though is meeting others that I used to know well seventy years ago, and finding that they too have become ancient and feeble strangers whom I completely fail to recognise, and who fail to recognise or remember me!

It happened at a reunion last week of the surviving members of the 67th Medium Regt. RA, a Territorial Army Regiment formed in Ipswich in the spring of 1939 and consisting of volunteers from Ipswich, Felixstowe, Woodbridge and the East Suffolk villages in those areas. We were in (largely successful) action in the Egyptian/Libyan border region from November 1941 till June 1942 when we were over-run in Tobruk by Rommel’s Deutsch Afrikakorps. Most of us spent the remainder of the war in Italian and German prisoner of war camps.



At the reunion.  With me is a son of one of the veterans

The reunion took place in the comfortable bungalow home of one of our members in Felixstowe. There were only half a dozen of us, all over 90! It was the first time in my life that I had ever seen (never mind having been one of them!) so many nonagenarians gathered together. There were more of us still around – perhaps as many as twenty (out of an original 700 to 800) but we few were all who were able to get to Felixstowe. I was reminded of an old song with the chorus:
Old soldiers never die, never die, never die.
Old soldiers never die – they simply fade away!


We were all, it must be said, a bit faded!

Jane Bradburn of Ipswich had arranged the meeting. She and her friend Diana Watts, who sadly died last year, had been researching the lives of their fathers, both of whom had been members of the Regiment. I had been able to help a little with my own memories and, more importantly, by introducing them to my German friend Ingrid Zeibig. Ingrid had traced the Austrian family who had helped and sheltered Diana’s father at the end of World War II. As a result Diana had been able to visit them two or three times in Austria, and they had become firm friends, as had Ingrid.


At Felixstowe most of us had someone younger and sprightlier, supporting us. One or two younger (though not all that much younger!) guests represented a dad who had been in the Regiment but whose life had ended.

. I was unique in having an attractive German lady as my chauffeur and supporter!



Ingrid and I in the Restaurant of the Kingscliff Hotel Holland-on-Sea

 Ingrid Zeibig had happened to be visiting England and was staying in Ipswich. She and Jane Bradburn were already friends. She drove over to Clacton to pick me up and take me to Felixstowe, and drove me home again afterwards. I had wondered how she would fit in with a group of ex-servicemen nostalgically recalling Word War II. Her father had served briefly in the German Navy in the war and her grandfather, an army lieutenant, had been killed on the Eastern Front.

I had no need to feel the least anxiety. Ingrid had been born many years after the end of the War and few, if any, of us retained any animosity toward the Germans. Anyway it was all a long time ago. Ingrid mixed happily with us old soldiers and  quickly became ‘one of us’!

I was glad that I went. We nonagenarians did have shared memories that were worth reviving. I think that we had all just about worked out who was who, before it was time to go home. I felt too that the mutual understanding and friendship that flowered that afternoon between Ingrid and we British war veterans was a tiny step on the path of Anglo-German friendship, a cause which I wholeheartedly support, particularly since I have always had such a warm and friendly welcome on my post-war visits to Germany.

A Hospital Outpatient – A not-so-minor Miracle!


A few weeks ago I wrote in this blog about my less-than-happy experiences in the Outpatients’ Department of the Essex County Hospital in Colchester. I have had to go there every three months for two years for a check-up on my ears from which cancerous skin and cartilage has been excised in three operations, two in 2008 and one last year.

I had always had to wait at least one hour, and on one occasion two hours, after the time of my appointment, to see the Plastic Surgery Registrar. When I did get to see him, he would look at my ears, feel my neck for signs of swollen glands (which could mean that the cancer had spread) and, so far, had been always been able to tell me that I was OK.

I had no complaint about the examination. I felt though that it could have been carried out equally efficiently by my own doctor in Clacton who would, of course, have contacted the Consultant had she found anything amiss. Surely my time and that of the Plastic Surgery Registrar, the clinic nurse and the outpatients’ clerical staff was being unnecessarily and expensively wasted. I was also finding the long wait very exhausting. Members of the Plastic Surgery staff are surely well aware that I am, to say the least, long past my ‘best by’ date. Once or twice while waiting I had felt that if I didn’t soon receive attention I might first be making an urgent and involuntary trip to ‘Accidents and Emergencies’!


Another check-up was due last Friday (19th August). I wasn’t worried about the outcome. My ears were fine and my neck unswollen. Had things been otherwise I would have contacted my own doctor promptly. I was a little worried about that long wait for attention though.

I need not have been. My appointment was at 2.15 pm. I was, as always, fifteen minutes or so early and settled down for a long wait. There wasn’t one. Promptly at 2.15 pm I was summoned by a friendly and helpful nurse. In the past this has just meant being parked on a chair in a corridor outside the door of the consulting room for a further half-hour wait.

This time it didn’t. I was shown directly into the consulting room where a friendly young woman Registrar (who clearly regarded me as a fellow human being and not just as ‘that old man with ear trouble’) gave me a very thorough examination and told me that she wouldn’t need to see me again for six months but that if I thought there might be anything wrong I should see my doctor; how eminently sensible!

Nor was that the end. Hitherto I would then have had to join another queue at the reception desk to get the time and date of my ‘in six months time’ appointment. This time though, that friendly and helpful nurse asked me if I would like her to make an appointment for me, of which I would be notified by post. By 2.45 I was getting myself a cup of tea and phoning for my taxi! Yesterday, 24th August, the appointment arrived – for 2.20 pm on 17th February 2012. God willing, I’ll be there!

It was really quite miraculous. Has there been a change of policy or some kind of brilliantly conceived and executed reorganisation of the Outpatients’ Department – or could someone at the hospital have read my blog, looked up my records, and decided to give me a nice surprise? Whichever it was – and indeed, if there is some other explanation of the transformation – I am very grateful, and only hope that they can keep it up!

‘Carry on Camping!’


So says the headline in the current issue of the Clacton Gazette and nearly everyone else will agree.

It isn’t surprising that local residents were dismayed when a succession of trailer caravans turned up on the playing field of the branch of the Coastal Academy (formerly Bishops Gate College) in Jaywick Lane. Could they be ‘travellers’ evicted from some other site in Essex and making their home indefinitely in our midst?

Dismay turned to relief when it became known that they were all members of the East Essex Branch of the Camping and Caravanning Club of Great Britain, a long established and highly reputable institution whose purpose is explained in its title. My wife and I were members for some thirty years when every year we spent at least one holiday either under canvas or, later, in our motor caravan.

The Club has a network of well-appointed and well-managed camping sites all over Britain. From time to time it also hires land for short periods for rallies of its members. They have on several occasions used the playing field of the Southend High School for Girls for this purpose and this was the first time that they had chosen Clacton-on-Sea. They were staying for a fortnight only.

The Camping Club’s local spokesman Colin Roper is reported as saying that members were enjoying their stay; ‘It has been excellent here in Clacton. The weather has been good (that was a week ago!) and the ice cream van has been here every day. The fish and chip shop up the road and the pubs in town have also had lots of visits from us all’. The campers have, no doubt, also visited shops, cafes and restaurants in the town and, I hope, will be passing on their experiences of Clacton to their friends and neighbours when they return to their homes. My own experience of the Club tells me that when they leave the playing fields at the end of their fortnight’s stay they will leave them exactly as they found them.

Clacton’s attractions have caught the attention of a prestigious national holiday organisation, local businesses have benefited and the Academy has had a welcome addition to its funds.

Every one is happy; well, almost every one. The exception, it appears, is Councillor Stephen Mayzes, described in the Clacton Gazette as ‘Tendring’s tourism boss’ who, one might have thought, would have been particularly pleased. Not a bit of it - the Gazette reported that he was unimpressed by the makeshift camp site.

‘I think it is awful that they are doing this’, he is reported as saying, ‘There must be other ways of making money. Putting caravans on the playgound – where will it end, what next? I shall be writing to them about this and asking them to stop, and I have asked officers to assess if planning permission is required’.

What next indeed? A suggestion that comes to me is that Tendring District Council should find itself a new ‘Tourism Boss’ without delay!

Week 33 2011 23.8.2011

Tendring Topics…….on line


‘I wouldn’t want to be a bobby……..’

Among my very early memories are Sunday School outings from St. Thomas’ Church, Ipswich in the late 1920s. There would be about twenty us aged between six and ten, in an open charabanc (an early 20th century word for a motor coach) on our very excited way to Felixstowe or, if the church’s finances were particularly healthy that year, to sandy Walton-on-the-Naze or Clacton-on-Sea. A couple of still-young Sunday School teachers would be striving to keep us in order.

As we travelled we sang at the tops of our unbroken voices the not particularly edifying folk songs of our age, time and place. The words of one verse of a song that our treble voices bellowed with redoubled enthusiasm as we approached a policeman on point duty (this was long before there were traffic lights!) were:

I wouldn’t want to be a bobby;
Dressed in other people’s clothes.
With a belly full of fat
And a sausage on my hat.
I wouldn’t want to be a bobby!

Well, I suppose that a uniform was ‘other people’s clothes’ and I do remember policemen as being rather corpulent in those days. But, ‘a sausage on my hat’? Perhaps in those days policemen’s helmets had a crest vaguely resembling a sausage. I just don’t remember – it was over eighty years ago!

I’m not quite sure what policemen looked like in the late ‘20s – but there’s no doubt that this is what I looked like. I wasn’t much good at rifle drill – either then or later!


Most of the policemen took it in good part, waved to us and smiled good-naturedly. There really were quite a few ‘Dixons of Dock Green’ in the Police Force when I was sevenish.

A policeman’s life (no-one calls them ‘bobbies’ these days) may or may not have been an enviable one in those days, but I think that they were generally liked and respected by most of the population.

That isn’t so today. Nowadays there are whole neighbourhoods in which they are regarded as natural enemies and the very worst thing that any member of such a neighbourhood can do is ‘grass to the cops’ about anything whatsoever. I remember one of my grandsons telling me, when he was in his early teens, that that was one of the lessons that he had learned at his school in North London.

Then again, those of us who regard ourselves as law-abiding citizens have been shocked and disgusted at allegations of bribery and corruption at high level (and no doubt lower level too) in the Police Force and of, sadly well documented, cases of police brutality.  Nor should  forget that it was Tottenham Police's inept, incompetent and ill-considered actions that resuted in the death of an unarmed (and presumed innocent) man, and triggered the nation-wide riots.

Against that though, we must set the dogged determination and acts of heroism of ordinary policemen (and firemen and ambulance staff) during the recent unprecedented scenes of violent rioting. Recalled from holiday and – at the beginning – grossly outnumbered, they did all that they, or anyone else, could have done to counter and contain the violence.

They were, we are told, unprepared for the scale and extent of the violence. Of course they were. Never before had there been such destruction and widespread looting, aided and encouraged by electronic means of communication. Within three days though, the situation was well under control. Recall of police officers from leave and effective co-operation between the country’s police forces had stopped the riots, hundreds of alleged rioters had been arrested and restoration work had begun.

By that time of course, the top politicians had returned from their holidays. They then had the unbelievable impudence to suggest that it was their return and their ‘decisive action’ that had turned the tide! I am not a bit surprised that the Chief Constables were outraged – and that they haven’t hesitated to voice their feeling. It isn’t so very long ago that David Cameron rebuked an army chief in Afghanistan for having dared to criticise some of the government’s policies and actions. ‘You do the fighting’, Mr Cameron suggested, ‘and leave me to do the talking’. Perhaps someone should now tell him ‘You do the talking’, no-one would deny that he is very good at that ‘and leave the details of the policing to the Police’.

I am not surprised either that our senior police officers are offended at David Cameron’s inviting a former Police Chief from the USA to lecture them on gang control. He is said to have had some success in that field in New York and Los Angeles. London is not New York; Birmingham is not Los Angeles, the Met. is not the NYPD and British Police Forces, unlike those in the USA, are not yet, thank Heaven, under the direct control of politicians.

If England’s top policemen need to know more about ending gang power they’d be better advised to see how Scotland’s Strathclyde Police Service successfully tackled Glasgow’s notorious gangs. Come to think of it, Mr Cameron might find it a good idea to invite Scottish Chief Minister Alex Salmond to Westminster to advise him and his political colleagues in the government, on future avoidance of riots of the kind that we have recently seen in England.

I am sure Mr Salmond would be pleased to suggest reasons why, while England’s High Streets were being trashed, plundered and burnt, Scotland’s remained riot-free!


The worst – and the best – of human nature


Extraordinary how those riots seem to have shown us the very worst and the very best of human nature and of our fellow mean and women. While they were taking place we saw people consumed by greed, hatred and delight in chaos and destruction. In the immediate aftermath though there were the hundreds of willing volunteers who turned out with their brooms and their buckets to try to clear up the mess.

There were scores of examples of  acts of kindness to the victims of the violence too. Neither of my sons lives very far from the scenes of some of the worst of the rioting in Tottenham. One of them has told me about a local barber who at 89 (he makes me feel like an idle layabout!) was still cutting hair in his own barber’s shop in Tottenham. His premises were among those trashed by the rioters. His customers and other local people launched a ‘Keep Aaron Cutting!’ campaign with its own web site and raised thousands of pounds to help him re-establish his business. I have no doubt that there have been other such incidents that have remained unreported.

I do not find the demands for zero tolerance and tough sentencing from the press, Members of Parliament (who think they have found a vote-winner!) and some members of the public, very appealing. A great many of those who are being convicted had hitherto had clean records but were caught up in the excitement and frenzy of the moment. Whatever penalty they may receive from the court will be nothing compared with the fact that they will now have a criminal record that will affect them for the rest of their lives.

Nor do I think it right that Council tenants should be faced with eviction if they, or any members of their families, are convicted of an offence that has nothing whatsoever to do with their tenancy. Why should they alone be subject to the extra punishment of homelessness for which the council, who may or may not know all the circumstances, acts as judge, jury and executioner?

I was impressed by remarks made in a tv interview by Sir Menzies Campbell, former leader of the Lib.Dems. and an experienced prosecuting barrister. He said that MPs in Parliament make the laws, but that it is the magistrates and the judges, who are able to acquaint themselves with all the relevant facts of each case, who should pass judgement and determine the sentence. Politicians should neither applaud nor condemn their decisions.

‘Let he who is without sin among you, cast the first stone!’


Mr David Cameron, our Prime Minister, was on terms of intimate friendship with people accused of bribing the police and prying illegally into the private lives of innocent citizens. He appointed as his head of communications Andy Coulson, a former editor of the News of the World who had been arrested in connection with the phone hacking scandal, and whom it now appears was being paid large sums by News International while working for the Prime Minister! Mr Cameron justified his appointment by saying – rather self righteously I thought – that he believed that ‘everyone should be given a second chance’; everyone, it seems, except young rioters and especially young rioters who live in council houses!

Building a New Jerusalem, ‘In England’s Green and Pleasant land’

I have been reading the Church Times, and passing it on to friends, for almost a year. It is an independent Anglican weekly that covers the whole spectrum of Church of England tradition, and comments, always sympathetically and constructively, on news from other Christian traditions. I have particularly appreciated its friendly assessments from time to time of current Quaker faith and practice. In last week’s issue there was a long feature article, Vision of service, not private gain by Jill Segger, a Quaker, who urged that ‘The Quaker testimonies offer an alternative approach to industrial action’.

It also comments, usually very wisely, on national and international affairs. As one would expect, the riots and their aftermath have consumed a considerable amount of newsprint in the past week or so.

Last week, under the headline, ‘More is broken than Mr Cameron admits’ a leading article commented on the Prime Minister’s speech on mending ‘the broken society’. Below is the final paragraph of the article.

‘We wrote last week about the triumph of materialism and individualism. Any attempt to tackle the consequences of these on what Mr Cameron calls “the poorest part of our society” must acknowledge that the poor do not have a monopoly on moral drift. In the 289 sentences of his speech, just four, right at the end, touched on examples of moral decline found elsewhere in society “in the banking crisis, in MPs’ expenses, in the phone-hacking scandal”. His conclusion? “We need to think about the example we are setting”. Yet white-collar criminals have none of the excuses of desperation, inadequacy and hopelessness found among the poor. If the Prime Minister wants to reverse the “slow motion moral collapse”, in the nation, he needs to look far wider than he does at present’


My own conviction is that at the very heart of the ills that plague our country today is the enormous and ever widening gap between the incomes of the wealthy and those of the poor and under-privileged. Narrowing that gap could establish a foundation on which we could all together build a mended and truly 'big' Society based on firm moral values. That is surely an aim that all men and women of good will can share.

I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till I have built Jerusalem, in England’s green and pleasant land.

Week 32 2011 16th August 2011

Tendring Topics……on line


A Generation without Faith, Hope or Compassion!


St Paul, in his letter to the members of the newly formed Christian Church in Corinth, memorably wrote that there are three abiding and overriding virtues, Faith, Hope and Compassion* and that the greatest of these is Compassion, without which even our most worthy action or activity is valueless. Watching, on the tv screen, the rampaging mobs of young people, at first in London and later in other English cities, burning, destroying and looting other people’s goods and properties, it struck me how singularly lacking in all three of those virtues the members of those mobs seemed to be.

Faith? It would surprise me if there was a single member of those mobs who would have described himself as a committed follower of any of the world’s religious faiths. Nor I think, were they committed atheists (I reckon that Richard Dawkins is, intellectually, a bit out of their depth!). I don’t think either that they have a fervent political faith, a rage against authority like many that took part in riots in the past. These rioters ignored secular symbols of power such as Town Halls, Public Offices, and Police Stations, to vent their violence on departmental stores, sports outfitters and electrical and electronic goods retailers that were worth plundering. Their motive was greed - the acquisition of useable or saleable items – trainers, jewellery, electronic equipment and so on.

Then, there is Hope. That is something that we all need. It was what kept me alive and sane during the three long years that I was a prisoner of war. Dante knew what he was doing when in his Inferno he posted ‘All hope abandon ye who enter here!’ at the entrance to Hell. I reckon that most of those young rioters had abandoned theirs. Ill educated and undisciplined, they had little chance of obtaining worthwhile employment and a secure future. Government policies and government cuts had made that ‘little chance’ even smaller. They were the straw that broke the camel’s back; the fuse that ignited the powder keg of resentment and hatred. The riots were doubly welcomed by those who considered themselves to be disadvantaged. They provided them with an opportunity to hit out at a society that they felt had dealt with them unfairly, and of obtaining simply by helping themselves, some of the worldly goods they had seen flaunted on their tv screens.

As for compassion; there was little enough compassion in the minds of those who looted and then burned to the ground decades-old family businesses that had survived the air raids of World War II, and more recent enterprises developed perhaps by hard-working immigrants struggling to build up a support their families.

It is one thing to diagnose a problem; yet another to suggest a remedy. Perhaps some of their ‘elders and betters’ could begin by setting the younger generation a better example. It couldn’t have helped the moral development of the rioters to discover that a great many (many more than were actually prosecuted) of our MPs and at least one ‘Noble Lord’ had fiddled their parliamentary expenses, thereby robbing the rest of us, who pay those expenses with our taxes. It couldn’t have helped for them to know that a succession of Prime Ministers and other leading politicians of both main political parties, had courted the favours of an international enterprise that was bribing our police and spying on the private lives of British citizens. Had the culprits not been caught I have little doubt that both lots of wrongdoing would still be with us today. This surely suggests to the young that the one commandment that they need to obey is Thou shalt not be found out!

If we want Great Britain to develop into a land of which we can all feel proud, the government must work towards narrowing the yawning gap between the wealthiest and the poorest people in our country, and between the least and the most privileged. Can you even imagine riots such as those that we have experienced, happening in countries like Sweden and Denmark where the gap between wealthy and poor is much narrower? Have you noticed, by the way, that there has been no comparable rioting in Scotland and Wales despite some of their cities (Glasgow for instance) having a reputation for lawlessness? Could it be because they both have truly democratically elected assemblies that really do represent their whole nation?

Then again, it is no good haranguing parents to spend more time with their children while, at the same time, encouraging both parents to be in fulltime paid employment. It is no good expecting parents, tired from a full day’s work, preparing a meal and doing other jobs about the home, to spend any leisure time that may be left them playing with their children and furthering their education.

Finally – and I think that this is the most important of all – we have got to be prepared to tell young people that some activities, using drugs, indulging prematurely or promiscuously in sexual activity, stealing, gang-fighting, shop lifting, bullying younger kids and so on are not just unwise, dangerous, antisocial and bad for one’s health but wrong (wicked or sinful if you prefer) and that there is a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ that applies to followers of every culture and to adherents of every religious faith and of none.

We might even try to instil into the minds of the young the Golden Rule that you should always ‘Treat other people in the same way that you would like them to treat you’. I am told that that rule, or something very like it, is implanted in every religious tradition. I know it from Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said that it was a summation of all the moral law of the Old Testament. If our forebears had tried to observe that rule rather more often during the past two thousand years, the world today would be a much happier place. Today could be a good time to start!

*The King James Bible says ‘Faith, Hope and Charity’. Most modern translation of the Bible say ‘Faith, Hope and Love’. I think that ‘Charity’ still has a slight taste of Victorian Workhouse ‘gruel’. Human love can be jealous and selfish. I think that ‘compassion’ is closer than either to what St. Paul meant.


That Dreadful Deficit!


If there is one message that the government has been absolutely determined, and largely successful, in impressing upon us all it is that Britain has an enormous fiscal deficit that simply must be reduced or eliminated.

Since it is indisputable that we have a large national debt, it must surely follow that someone has lent us all that money. Have you ever wondered who those manipulative money-lenders, those latter-day Shylocks, could possibly be? Harold Wilson, I remember, used to tell us about the financial machinations of ‘the gnomes of Zurich’. Today, if you were to ask a Daily Mail, or a Daily Express reader you would probably be told that the schemers of Brussels are most likely to be guilty. It was, so they would probably say, all part of a cunning plan to ensure that the malign European Union ruled Britannia!

In fact it seems that those nefarious international loan sharks live much closer to home than either Zurich or Brussels. They are, in fact, we ourselves! A reader’s letter in The Friend, a Quaker independent weekly journal, helps to explain the situation. Below are some extracts from his letter:

The national debt is owed to private individuals and is what constitutes their savings. Eighty percent of public borrowing is owed to UK citizens. The interest payments on that debt are not lost to society but will go to those citizens – and their lucky grandchildren………..


……….The UK government is emphatically not in the same position as a household or business. It is the issuer, not just the user, of its own currency and therefore cannot go bankrupt. The UK is fundamentally different to Greece and Ireland as a result.


In a recession, households and businesses, quite rationally, try to save money. This means that others lose income and possibly their jobs. It makes no sense for the state to add to the problem by reducing its spending at the same time………………..


………As the Quaker and Nobel-prize-winning economist William Vickrey said, ‘There is no real justification for a requirement that a budget of any sort should be balanced, except as a rallying point for those who seek to hamstring government.’ All this was understood decades ago by Keynes and the generations of economists and leaders he influenced. Sadly, such understanding does not lead to policies that give short-term benefit to the very rich, and so will now rarely be found in the press, tv or government.


The letter was written by Paul Doherty of Heswall Quaker Meeting who also comments that those who would like to find alternative views on how our monetary system works, could read about modern monetary theory in Warren Mosler’s The Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy, a fascinating insider’s account.

I can’t get away from that deficit!


No, I can’t get away from that deficit no matter how hard I try. I have just been referred to – and have read on line – an article in the Daily Telegraph by Janet Daley who is reckoned to be an expert in economics. She is occasionally to be heard pontificating on the BBC. She is no fan of President Obama and recently wrote an article claiming that, as an African American he is, quite literally, only half African and only half American!

That should have warned me, but I read on. She says that we simply ’can’t afford’ our welfare state and our free national health service. She believes that the welfare safety net that was established by my generation 66 years ago (long before she was born!) should be dismantled and that we should revert to the everyone-for-himself-and-devil-take-the-hindmost system that prevails in the USA – and from which President Obama has tried, it seems in vain, to drag them. If you want to read it yourself try using Google to find Janet Daley, Daily Telegraph. The contribution in question is dated Saturday 6th August and is entitled ‘If we are to survive the looming catastrophe….’

I believe that that health and welfare safety net that offered everybody in the United Kingdom the Freedom from Fear promised by President Roosevelt (I bet Ms Daley would have had no time for him either!) was one of the proudest achievements of Clem Attlee’s post-war Labour Government that I am glad my vote helped to office. Funny thing – we had just come out of six years of total warfare which had left our country in ruins and many of us seriously injured in mind and/or body, with tens of thousands of homeless and (although I don’t know the figure) a national debt that must have been sky-high. Yet, we could afford it then; possibly because we had the will and determination to do so and because, in those days, we had a Labour Government that didn’t rate the interests of multimillionaires above the clearly expressed will of the people.

I really think that Ms Daley would be happier back in her native USA especially as the Republicans (reinforced by the truly Neanderthaler Tea Party movement!) appear to have defeated an attempt by the Democrats to make the really wealthy pay their share towards the reduction of the USA’s deficit.

We can afford the Social Security and NHS Safety Nets if we really want Britain to be a fairer society and are all prepared to contribute towards that end. What we can’t afford are the super-wealthy who avoid paying their fair share of taxation, and successful British Companies like Boots who – as I pointed out a few weeks ago – ‘locate’ the headquarters of their companies in overseas tax havens, to reduce or eliminate altogether their tax obligation to Britain.

I have long urged an overhaul of the Income Tax system to ensure a more equitable distribution of the nation’s wealth. I am amazed to learn that David Cameron is considering a change to the income tax system – but it is to help the wealthy, by reducing the 50 percent rate of tax on the taxable income of those with the highest incomes, ‘to increase competitiveness’. Words fail me!

Week 31. 2011 9.8.2011

Tendring Topics……..on Line

The Riots and the Looting

The riots in London - and now in other big cities, were still taking place only a few hours ago.   I don't think that there is any useful comment that I can make just yet though I hope to do so next week.  In the meantime perhaps we should think about the value of the recently-much-derided Public Sector.  It is the Public Sector that has to try to stop the rioters and the looters and strive to put out the fires and minimise the damage.  It is the Public Sector that patches up the human victims and it is the Public Sector that has to clear up the mess, clean the streets and try to get civilised life going again,  Mr Cameron's Big Society isn't going to help.  Many of its membrs were busy creating the chaos and destruction.

Is this the time to emasculate the Public Sector?


A Question of Copyright


It was early in my career as a freelance writer that I learned the importance of the copyright laws. When I submitted an article to a newspaper or magazine editor for publication, I was offering the first opportunity to publish that particular article. I retained the copyright. This meant that I could grant permission for the article to be used again elsewhere – but no-one else could copy it, or any substantial part of it. International treaties extend copyright to most other countries.

This has proved very important to me. A series of articles on domestic hot and cold water supply and drainage, published in Britain’s Do-it-yourself magazine, caught the attention of the editor of a similar publication in Australia. He asked my permission to publish them, offering me a rather larger fee than I had been paid me originally by Do-it-yourself. Although my half a dozen or so commercially successful plumbing manuals are long out of print, I still receive small sums every year for Public Lending Right from British public libraries and from the Authors’ Copyright and Lending Rights Society for the loan or photocopying of them in mainland Europe.

Similar rights exist for musical as for literary work but, because of the ease with which broadcast music can be copied, it is much more difficult to enforce them, difficult – but not impossible. However our present government, despite our continuing unemployment and stagnant economy, has abandoned the pursuit of measures that would block this drain on the fruits of successful British enterprise.

It is an abandonment that has infuriated the social conscience of my elder son who has penned the letter below to Ms. Lynne Featherstone, his Lib.Dem. MP, who is also a member of the government. I wish him every success – though I wouldn’t bet on it!

Dear Lynne,

I have just read on the BBC web site:-

“Plans to block websites that host copyright infringing material are to be dumped by the government.

Business secretary Vince Cable announced the change following a review of the policy by telecoms regulator Ofcom.

Website blocking was one of the key provision contained in the Digital Economy Act.
Internet Service Providers had objected to the idea that copyright owners could compel them to cut off some sites.”

I must make it clear that I am not involved in any way in the performing arts industry, although I am in the IT business. I have had two sons, who in their teenage years, believed it was OK to copy music from file sharing web sites, and that no normal person would actually pay for music.

In view of the economic situation, the level of unemployment, the lack of growth, much of which can be blamed on the policies of your government, I find it unbelievable that you should so casually ignore this piracy which is damaging an important part of the UK economy and you should do so by covering it with a smoke screen about “format shifting”, a non-issue which is supposed to be some benefit to the public at large. It is of absolutely no consequence that big lobbyists like BT “object”.

Quite rightly, no consideration was given to airlines about the cost and inconvenience of vetting for illegal immigrants before allowing them to be flown to the UK. Blocking web sites and cutting off customers will be difficult and expensive for Internet Service Providers, but certainly not impossible. That is the price we should pay to protect jobs quite literally being stolen by pirates in the Seychelles and other locations outside UK jurisdiction. Legislation should also be considered to make modem manufacturers force the password protection of wifi networks to get rid of the feeble excuse that someone might be borrowing a neighbour’s wifi connection.

There is also the need to send out a signal from Government that file sharing is theft, as 99% of teenagers, who will be parents themselves within 10 years, do not even realise that there is anything wrong with it and believe that copyright law should just be completely abandoned.

I know that this is not your area of responsibility within Government, but I hope that as a member of the Cabinet and the same party as Vince Cable you will express disgust at this decision born out of laziness and vested interests, and stand up for British industry and ask for a re-think.

Peter Hall

A Reminder of Global Warming

I can’t remember whether Clacton’s MP Mr Douglas Carswell, doesn’t believe that global warming is taking place or whether he accepts that it is a reality but that it is a purely natural phenomenon and hasn’t resulted from human activity In either event he believes that attempting to do anything about it – by developing alternative sources of energy for instance – is a waste of time and money.

He is also a convinced Eurosceptic and believes that we should have another referendum about membership of the EU. All of which left me rather surprised when, a few weeks ago, he had quite a lot to say at a locally held international conference exploring ways in which Europe could help the economic development of English seaside towns, and from which the only positive outcome was the suggestion that taking part in the development of off-shore wind farms offered Tendring District it best possibility of future prosperity.

Recently, when the weather seemed more appropriate to the end of October than the end of July, it was indeed difficult to believe in the reality of global warming. As I write though (on 2nd August) we have had scorching sunshine for two or three days and the solar panel on my roof has been filling my storage cylinder with free hot water! But, of course, sudden and extreme changes from cold to hot and back again, and from wet to dry, are all part of climatic change that we must increasingly expect.

Last week I had an email from a lady whom I had never met but who had been very interested in one of the ‘holiday photos’ displayed in my Flickr site, (www.flickr.com/photos/ernestbythesea) It was taken in 1979 when my wife Heather and I were touring in mainland Europe with our motor-caravan. We had spent some time in the Italian Alps and were making our way to Switzerland and ultimately to Germany’s Black Forest.



The Rhone Gkacier 1979

  Half way up a precipitous mountain pass we saw on the right the Rhone Glacier – the source of France’s River Rhone. I incurred the wrath of half a dozen multi-national lorry drivers behind me, to stop just for two minutes (it really was only two minutes!) to take this picture

My email correspondent had recently negotiated that same Alpine Pass and had seen that same valley – but now there is no glacier; just a barren mountain valley with a stream destined to become the mighty Rhone, tumbling through it.

Another example of the retreat of the Alpine glaciers and the inexorable progress of global warming.

The bad news – and the good!


A few years ago, when I had to go into hospital for minor surgery, my doctor was at some pains to ask me which, of several hospitals, I would prefer to go to for my operation. I have no doubt that that was a choice offered to everyone needing hospital treatment. My doctor knew perfectly well though that I would want to go to the nearest hospital capable of offering the treatment required. I would just have to trust the NHS to ensure that that hospital was not only capable but competent.

That, for me, was Colchester General Hospital. Most Clactonians in the same situation would have made the same choice. I am sure therefore that many of us must have been dismayed to learn that Colchester General Hospital had been publicly criticised by the East of England Strategic Health Authority for ‘missing waiting time targets, having high death rates and performing poorly when it comes to patients’ experience’.


My own experience, both personally and as a visitor to my wife when she was an in-patient both in Colchester General and in Clacton Hospital was that they were both generally very good (my sons, who were also regular visitors, thought that Colchester General compared very favourably with hospitals in Enfield where, at that time, they both lived) but that there were never enough nurses available to meet patients’ needs.

My more recent experience has been as an outpatient. I have to go four times a year to the Outpatients’ Department of the Essex County Hospital in Lexden Road, Colchester, as follow-ups on operations for the excision of cancerous material from the skin and cartilage of both ears.

I have always had to wait at least an hour beyond my appointment time to see the surgical registrar, and on one occasion I had to wait two hours. This, I have put down to an over optimistic estimate of the time needing to be spent with each patient. Five to fifteen minutes is, I imagine, allowed for this, but some patients – I have no doubt for very good reasons – take far longer than that. I don’t. The Registrar looks at my ears, feels my neck and so far has recorded ‘The operation wounds have healed well and the glands of the neck show no signs of swelling’. And that’s that for another three months. There must be lots of patients just like me. Were our journeys to Colchester and our long waits for attention really necessary. Couldn’t our own doctors have examined us just as competently and referred us on only if potential trouble was spotted?

That was the bad news.

And the good news? That was that there had been not a single case of the Hospital killer superbug MRSA recorded in either of Colchester’s Hospitals for ten months. At the peak of the MRSA epidemic in 2004 and 2005 there had been no less than 37 patients infected, 14 of whom had died as a result. The current success has been, so the hospital authorities claim, thanks to careful screening of patients and meticulous attention to hygiene and cleanliness.

Before we get too elated and congratulatory we should remember the ‘bad old early days’ of the NHS. Then Matrons (rather than professional ‘administrators’) ruled hospitals with a rod of iron, and every ward was in the charge of its own nursing Sister with an ambition to become a Matron herself one day. Instead of contract cleaners, the hospital had its own cleaning team, each member of which took a personal pride in the cleanliness of the area for which they were responsible. In those days MRSA was unheard of.

Perhaps, of course, that was just coincidence

Week 30 2011 2.8.2011

Tendring Topics……..on Line


‘Thou shalt not………


A recent issue of the Church Times, an independent Anglican weekly, records that to celebrate the fourth centenary of the King James Bible, York University had organised a competition, asking five to sixteen year olds to compose a new ‘Ten Commandments’ for the 21st Century. Some of the entries contained practical advice ‘Don’t leave the bathroom light on, the world is short of energy’, ‘Don’t build nuclear power stations where there are likely to be earthquakes or tsunamis’. Some were modern paraphrases of the original Ten Commandments: ‘Don’t worship celebrities’, ‘Try to see everyone gets a fair wage for his work’. One, possibly from a reader of the now defunct ‘News of the World’, advised ‘Don’t snog the wrong person and, if you do, don’t try to cover it up with a super-injunction’.

This report prompted me to revisit a 19th century parody of the Ten Commandments by Victorian poet, Arthur Hugh Clough, possibly best known for his inspiring ‘Say not the struggle naught availeth’. The Latest Decalogue lampoons a false piety and a cynicism that was apparently as common in the 19th century as it is in the 21st. Here are a few of the verses:

Thou shalt have one God only, who
Would go to the expense of two?


No graven images may be
Worshipped except the currency.


Honour thy parents; that is - all
From whom advancement may befall.


Thou shalt not kill, but needst not strive
Officiously to keep alive*


Thou shalt not steal, an empty feat,
When it’s so lucrative to cheat**.


Do not adultery commit,
Advantage rarely comes of it.


Thou shalt not covet, but tradition
Approves all forms of competition.


*I have just heard on BBCtv news that some Hospital Managers are delaying operations in the hope that before the operations are due and the NHS has to spend money on them.  patients will decide to ‘go private’ –or will die!   How well the Hospital Managers have heeded that ‘commandment’!


**And how well some of our elected representatives have heeded that one!

Yet another step down that slippery slope!

It started – was it only four months ago? – with the imposition, authorised by the United Nations, of a no-fly zone over Libya to protect the civilian population from air attack by Colonel Gaddafi’s forces. That, so it was confidently expected, would be sufficient to topple the Colonel’s ramshackle autocracy.

It wasn’t, and almost at once first France and then Britain began air attacks on Libyan government tanks and other ground forces ‘to protect innocent civilians’ and also, of course, to support the rebel forces ranged against the government. Quite quickly eastern Libya (Cyrenaica) where Gaddafi had never been popular, fell to the rebels. Surely Tripolitania (western Libya) would soon follow. It didn’t. It became clear that an army of untrained volunteers, however enthusiastic, couldn’t stand up effectively to Gaddfi’s tanks, artillery and disciplined infantry. Some volunteers, who had demonstrated their machismo by firing their rifles into the air (no wonder the rebels are permanently short of ammunition!) discovered that being under fire from a real enemy with heavy weapons wasn’t quite so much fun.

It also became clear that in and around Tripoli Gaddafi enjoyed a great deal of genuine support.

Britain and our allies stepped up our involvement. The scope of the bombing was widened to include arms dumps and command posts, some within Tripoli itself. There were well-publicised deaths of the civilians we were supposed to be protecting.

We began to use helicopters to give closer support to rebel forces on the ground. Still Gaddafi obstinately declined to abdicate his power.

Now another step towards all-out war has been taken by our government. We have declared our recognition of the rebels as the lawful government of Libya. This should make it possible for us to release frozen Libyan assets to allow them to purchase more arms from us. It could also be an excuse for us to put troops on the ground ‘in response to an urgent request from the legitimate government of Libya’.


This evening (26th July) on BBC News I heard John Simpson explain why it was that the rebels hadn’t yet managed to capture Tripoli. It was Libya’s awful climate. During the summer the heat was so great that touching metal objects, a rifle for instance, could burn your hands. After about 10.30 a.m. fighting was impossible.

I wish someone had told us that when we were there. The barrels of our guns, undoubtedly made of metal, must have been a real danger – and not just to the enemy!

Can John Simpson really be unaware that between 1940 and 1943 there were opposing European armies in both Libya and Egypt? Ferocious tank battles and artillery engagements took place each summer. Believe me, the Libyan weather was among the least of our worries. In North Africa, World War II certainly didn’t stop between 10.30 in the morning and the cool of the evening!

Why haven’t the rebels taken Tripoli yet? Probably because they are a disorderly and undisciplined – if enthusiastic – rabble. It now seems that their ‘supreme commander’ has been assassinated because of doubt about which side he was supporting! They are not, I would say, our government’s most reliable allies.

What an ignorant lot we are!

It seems that we Clactonians are the most uneducated community in North Essex and that the folk of Harwich, just a few miles away, are among the best!

A University and College survey among people between the ages of 16 and 64, revealed that 23 percent (nearly a quarter!) of those in that age range in the Clacton Parliamentary Constituency, have no qualifications whatsoever. In the Harwich and North Essex Constituency this applies to only 7.4 percent, in Colchester 8.7 percent, Braintree 10.9 percent, Maldon 13 percent and Witham 10.4 percent. Clacton is well above the national average of 11.1 percent.

This concerns our MP Douglas Carswell, who I am sure wouldn’t wish it to be suggested that he has voter ignorance to thank for his comfortable majority. He points out that a great many people move here after having been educated elsewhere. Quite so, but a high proportion of them will have come here for retirement – and that takes them out of the age range. The County Council says that we Clactonians are trying to rectify the situation. 3,400 of us enrolled on Adult Community Learning Courses last year. But – again I wonder – how many of those 3,400 are over 64?

In the 1930s most working class kids left elementary school aged 14 with no paper qualifications whatsoever. The great majority though could read, write and do simple sums.  They also had a sketchy knowledge of history, geography and very simple science.  At school they were expected to work hard - and were punished if they didn't! 
A more valid reason for Clacton’s low educational standing is the effect of those who move out, rather than those who move in. In the Clacton area there simply aren’t the jobs for academic high flyers – so they move out to London or Ipswich or some other town where their abilities are more likely to be in demand. .

My sons both regard Clacton as their home town and are glad to come back here – but neither of them has ever even thought of living and working here. In 1971, my elder son was one of four Clacton County High School pupils who obtained a place in Cambridge University. Many others in that academic year went to other universities. It would surprise me very much to learn that any one of them is still in Clacton.

I would also like to know on what information the University and College survey was based. I wouldn’t have thought that information about everyone’s qualifications was readily available. I am well outside the age range of the survey but I haven’t always been. How could anyone know, unless I told them, the details of my own modest academic achievements?

The Evil Empire

Day by day we seem to learn a little more of the depths to which the Murdoch press was prepared to sink in pursuit of its mercenary aims. The evil effects of the press campaign for ‘Sarah’s law’ have always been at least as evident as its ultimate dubious benefits. It brought lynch mobs out onto the streets hunting down paedophiles. Obviously totally innocent people suffered. You can’t expect a regular reader of The Sun or The News of the World to appreciate the subtle difference between a paedophile and a paediatrician!
Now, as more and more victims of phone hacking come to light we learn that Sara Payne, mother of the abducted and murdered Sarah, who had fondly imagined that Rebekah Brooks was her friend, had also had her phone hacked!

But all the phone hacking, all the intimidation of politicians, and all the bribing of the Police were simply by-products of the greater, ultimate evil – that one very wealthy man from a foreign country was able to influence and exert his power over the makers of British Government policy both at home and overseas and, through his news media empire, influence public opinion and decide the outcome of British elections!

Two recent programmes on Channel 4 tv confirmed that the Murdoch influence on our politicians was even greater and more malign than I had suspected. Did you know that, since he became Prime Minister, David Cameron has made no less than 26 visits to News International senior executives? When the great Rupert himself was invited to No 10 Downing Street, he was asked to come to the back door – presumably in an attempt to keep the visit from the public’s notice.

Tony Blair was even more sycophantic. Mrs Thatcher and Gordon Brown also regularly consulted and consorted with Mr Murdoch and his minions. An honourable exception was Prime Minister John Major. As a result he was treated to constant derision by the Murdoch press. Radio and TV personality Anne Diamond was singled out for even more savage special treatment by the Murdoch press for having had the temerity to accost and beard Rupert Murdoch at a posh reception to which they both had been invited.

I believe that the influence of Rupert Murdoch and News International on our country has been wholly evil but, even if it had been good, it would still have been quite wrong for one wealthy individual, not a British citizen, to be able to exercise such a profound influence on our nation’s policy makers and public opinion.

I hope most fervently that our legislators will make absolutely sure that similar circumstances can never arise again. I shall never trust politicians who have succumbed to the Murdoch spell.