"Some French guy who lived a few hundred years ago" - or an "epidemic of ignorance"?

Pat and I have just returned from a week or so away in “the low countries” – Belgium and the Netherlands. We had a wonderful time – we enjoyed travelling by Eurostar for the first time, fell in love with the ancient city of Bruges, enjoyed far too much food and loved wandering around the Dutch city of Amsterdam. We brought back hundreds of pictures and many memories of places visited, people met and things enjoyed – Bruges chocolate shops and magnificent ancient buildings, the Australian couple that we met whilst queuing in Amsterdam, the brilliance of the newly re-opened Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (the main reason for our trip), the thousands of young people in Amsterdam’s Vondelpark all enjoying the warm summer weather, the  canal trips we took, the thousands of cyclists whizzing around Amsterdam and on a more solemn note the Anne Frank museum.

By sheer chance I had just finished reading  The Price of Civilization the excellent analysis by American academic and economist  Jeffrey Sachs. The book is primarily about America and has gained international recognition. In his book Sachs, at one point, forcefully discusses what he calls “the epidemic of ignorance”. Briefly, he suggests that in America at least (but, I think, this is equally true of the UK), the growth of untrammelled commercial TV and its “race to the bottom” programming based upon lowest common denominator entertainment rather than instructive public education, the growth in internet use  and, at the same time, the demise of newspapers and reading as an activity has meant, Sachs suggests, that his fellow citizens are increasingly ignorant of basic facts about important issues. He comments “It would be a profound irony if the new information age coincides with the collapse of the public’s basic knowledge regarding key issues that we confront as individuals or citizens.” He goes on “The insulated mindset of individuals who know precious little history and civics and never read a book or visit a museum is fast becoming a common, shame free condition”.

I had finished Sachs’ book the night before we set off for Bruges and as I sat on Eurostar thundering through northern France I was pondering some of the points he had made. As I did so I thought back to my home in Nottingham. Pat and I had just had a new digital recorder which allowed us to view programmes “on demand” – we could stream items into our living room – films, interests, missed programmes and the rest. Great! But it occurred to me that there might be a downside – “on demand” means that in allowing us to be super selective about what we watch it also means that we can also choose to omit what we don’t like or what doesn't interest us. In other words reinforcing what we like and know but not exposing us to what is new and different! The world of the internet – Google, Wikipedia and the rest – allow us to find specific items in whatever we are interested in – but at the same time just maybe be quite ignorant of the bigger picture. In the past people browsed newspapers and books and in doing so picked up on other things that might not have been immediately of importance or interest but quietly became part of their experience  Similarly when we had to watch TV as it was broadcast one could be exposed to other things when the TV was on and maybe we weren't actually watching it. For example, mum and dad watch the news and the children play in the back ground – but all the time just maybe they are “soaking up” bits of information about the world. Similarly, internet enthusiasts (like me!) might be in contact with like minded people on the other side of the world – indeed via this blog I know this to be the case – but again this is a kind of reinforcement of what we know or like rather than a widening of our horizons. We like what we know and we know what we like – what we don’t know or don’t like is potentially excluded. In an age of information we are actively making ourselves ignorant!

Rene Descartes lived here!

But back to Sachs - he further says that, in America, at least, academic scores are declining. It might be argued that if all this be the case then the consequences for individuals and the society will be profound at an economic level – as politicians never cease to tell the young that they must get the best qualifications possible so that you can get a job and earn a living and thus contribute to the GDP. This is a well rehearsed cry from our politicians in the UK and across the Atlantic and undoubtedly has some truth. Sachs, however, raises another fear – namely that ignorance can threaten the very soul of the society. “....when the country must grapple with complex choices about taxes, spending, military involvement and outlays and all the rest, the lack of basic knowledge becomes dangerous. A poorly informed public is much more easily swayed by propaganda and much less able to resist the dark manoeuvrings of special interest groups that pull the strings in Washington.”  

Anne Frank's house

He is unquestionably right and his analysis is not restricted to the USA – it is equally applicable in the UK. In recent months democracy has been under scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic and powerful forces have been at work as western nations have grappled with issues such as the financial collapse, the power of big business, the role of the media and organisations such as News International, the recent revelations by Edward Snowden about the US National Security Agency, the power of lobbyists and a myriad of other issues that are at the heart of the society’s governance. If the electorate is increasingly intellectually unable grasp the issues or unwilling to understand them because the next episode of Strictly Come Dancing, Big Brother or the next Premiership football match is more appealing or because they accept, unquestioning, Fox News or News International warped view of the world then democracy is indeed under threat and Sachs is right. If the world is to be increasingly populated by Homer Simpson clones unable to ask pertinent questions or use their knowledge and minds to consider and make judgements upon what they are presented with by peers, politicians,  and the media; if these Homer Simpsons know what they like and like only what they know and are interested only in lowest common denominator views and entertainment then society is at risk of a scenario where  powerful lobbies and potential extremism and evil will flourish. It is easy to influence the unthinking and,  as Edmund Burke – the Enlightenment philosopher - reminded everyone “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”.

Descartes

Sachs’ viewpoint and my own ramblings were still nibbling away at the back of my mind as last Saturday morning we stood in a very long queue to visit to Anne Frank House and museum in Amsterdam. We stood for over an hour in the sunshine chatting to a delightful Australian couple who were on a world tour. Behind us stood a small group of Americans. As we stood there one of the Americans noticed a plaque on the side of one of the houses. She ran across to read it and on her return proclaimed to her friends “It’s about some French guy that lived there a few hundred years ago”. Intrigued, I peered, squinting my eyes in the sunshine at the plaque across the street – she was correct. It informed that over three centuries ago the French philosopher and mathematician  René Descartes had lived there. Pat and I both looked at each other, eyebrows raised eyes looking to heaven in disbelief at the woman’s comment! “Some French guy” – clearly unknown to this woman and yet  not only one of the world’s great minds and regarded as the father of modern philosophy but someone whose thoughts and writings as an early Enlightenment philosopher were a direct influence upon the Founding Fathers of her nation and upon the drawing up of the  American Constitution. Such was this young woman’s ignorance of her nation’s history that his name and role meant nothing to her.  It is quite inconceivable that America would exist in its present form where it not for the views, opinions and writing of people like Descartes. Alexis de Tocqeville, a writer oft quoted by Americans suggested that the idea of what it might mean to be American and the role of America in the modern world is very much based on the views of Descartes and his Enlightenment peers – but to this young American he was just “Some French guy”. The comment “Ignorance is bliss” might be appropriate if it was not so worrying.

The bookcase and the steps behind it.

As I stood in the queue I remembered an incident over thirty years ago. We had a brief visit from an elderly distant relative of Pat’s. Emily had lived in the USA for much of her life after emigrating there as a girl. She was by then in her 80s. It was probably going to be her final trip to England and she stayed with us for a few days. On a day out we took her to Lincoln Cathedral and there in the Treasury at the Cathedral she stood and looked at the Magna Carta – the Bishop of Lincoln in 1215 was present at the signing by King John at Runnymede and Lincoln Cathedral retains one of the four remaining originals of the great document. As Emily gazed at the document tears ran down her face – “It’s what our American Constitution is based on” she said “wait till I get home to tell my friends”. I’m pretty sure that had Emily stood in the queue with us last week she would not have described Descartes as “some French guy” and would not have been totally unaware of his significance – indeed, she would have been jumping up and down with glee at seeing it. She would have wanted to tell the world – but I wonder if the woman in the queue would have known what the Magna Carta was and its significance to the modern world – or would it have just been “Some old bit of paper with funny writing”.

Climbing the creaking hidden staircase (not us!)

I am tempted to believe that Sachs is right – an epidemic of ignorance.

And, for me, it is not insignificant that the house that Descartes lived in is in the same block as the house that became Anne Frank’s “home” for two years as she and her Jewish family hid from the Nazi’s. Hitler’s Germany was the classic case of a country taken over by dark forces and ruled by propaganda – just a Sachs suggested. It is easy for those who would gain power to attain their goals when people don’t question or understand the issues or don’t care. When ignorance or lack of concern becomes part of the culture then we should all be worried. Descartes, and his fellow Enlightenment thinkers, were very much the touch paper that lit the modern world with its ideas of personal freedom and our modern concept of democracy – so beloved and espoused by America “the land of the free”. That his house should share a block with that of Anne Frank’s  is perhaps a reminder  to us all of how closely reason and right can sit with terror and wrong.

Anne Frank

And at last we entered the House. Written on the wall as we entered the main part of the house was an inscription – a quote by Anne Frank’s father, Otto “To build up a future, you have to know the past” – apposite, I thought, having witnessed the conversation outside!

We had been advised that the visit would be thought provoking and solemn. Indeed it is. Beautifully done – no glamorisation, no unnecessary distractions, no facile technology or dumbing down – just bleak rooms, a selection of beautifully laid out documents, photographs and artefacts,  the occasional video with interviews with Otto Frank and one or two of those brave people that supported the Frank’s during their period in hiding – and perhaps most tellingly just a few remnants of their stay there such as the photographs and newspaper clippings that Anne stuck on the wall of her room – still there for all to see. It gave a powerful feeling of bleakness and frighteningly “touching the past”.

Anne's bedroom - the pictures that she stuck on
the walls still there. I noticed as we walked through here
teenage girls in their trendy clothes and 21st century
 lifestyles put their hands to their mouths - I think in
 awe and some emotion. It brought home a terrible
 reality to these young modern women (and to the rest of us)
that this was a real person just like them and us.

We made our way silently up the creaking stairs (how the Franks must have worried about those creaks!), through the small opening behind the bookcase, through the gloomy kitchen and living area and the tiny room that was Anne’s home - everyone, I felt, quite overcome by the forbidding atmosphere of the place. The blacked out windows making the whole place claustrophobic and it indeed brought a constriction to the throat so heavy was the atmosphere. 
Occasionally a quote from Anne’s diary was inscribed on the wall of a particular room – some were simply a reflection of their conditions: “Our little room looked very bare at first with nothing on the walls; but thanks to Daddy who had brought my film-star collection and picture postcards on beforehand, and with the aid of a paste pot and brush, I have transformed the walls into one gigantic picture. This makes it look much more cheerful…”. Others reflected the horror of the situation:“As of tomorrow, we won’t have  a scrap of fat, butter or margarine. Lunch today consists of mashed potatoes and pickled kale. You wouldn’t believe how much kale can stink when it’s a few years old”  or “Kugler  [one of the brave Dutch people who assisted them] at times finds the enormous responsibility for the eight of us overwhelming, can hardly talk from the pent up tension and strain” “And others reflected the profoundness of Anne’s mind: “One day this terrible war will be over. The time will come when we’ll be people again and not just Jews” .

Otto Frank - Anne's father

As we walked around, feeling intruders in this nightmare world – tourists, free and happy in place which less than a life time ago had been a place of imprisonment and terror – it was especially sobering to watch the reactions of youngsters. I was pleased to see, many teenagers and young people of many nationalities – all with their trendy clothes, casual approach to life, mobile phones and all the other must have’s of the modern world. But, from the minute we entered the house they, too, it seemed were overcome by the place and what it stood for. Their happy chatter was stilled as the atmosphere and history of the house seemed to overcome them. Girls would put their hands over their mouths in horror and sadness as they looked at  a page from the diary or watched a short video or witnessed the conditions that the family lived in. They recognised the feelings that Anne expressed in her comments as a young woman and yet knew how different her world was from the freedoms that they enjoy today and take for granted as a matter of course. They would have related to Anne when, in her Diary she tells how she argued with her mother about the role of women and how she and other girls of her generation were going to have a career and not just stay at home. For the young women tourists walking around the Frank's hideout with us that morning, that aspiration is largely today a right and a reality. To Anne it was a distant dream and an ambition.  And I think, too, that they understood the ironic poignancy of one of the quotes inscribed on the wall which said “I wish to go on living even after my death” - a wish that Anne Frank undeniably was granted but not perhaps in the way that she could have imagined. 

Some of the pages of the Diary in Anne's handwriting

But hopefully the comment by Otto Frank when his daughter’s Diary was published will have a special resonance to the young: “We cannot change what happened any more. The only thing we can do is to learn from the past and to realize what discrimination and persecution of innocent people means. I believe that it’s everyone’s responsibility to fight prejudice.’’  

And so we stepped outside and back into the sunshine, back onto the busy, cyclist rushing streets of Amsterdam. For half an hour or so we had been back in time, in a different world. One could tell that others were affected like us – no happy chattering as people left – just, for a few minutes we were all solemn and sobered by what we had seen, letting it all soak in. 

And we stepped solemnly  back outside into the Amsterdam
sunlight,and the canals and the bicycles

And I thought of Otto Frank’s comment that “To build up a future, you have to know the past” and again sadly reflected on the American woman in the queue whose knowledge of the world’s past and of the basis of her society and nation was so limited that she described one of the world’s greatest thinkers as “Some French guy”. I wondered is the world one great Disney theme park to people such as this? How do they make sense of even the most basic of news and events? And, as we walked off down the street and passed over one of the lovely Amsterdam canals I thought of Robespierre’s famous comment made at the height of the French Revolution: “The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is ignorance”. Robespierre’s  revolution and the birth of the French Republic based on liberty fraternity and equality was closely allied to that getting off the ground in far off America and both were rooted in the philosophies of people like Descartes. But, the grim story of Anne Frank and the house only a few doors from where Descartes spent much of his life bears witness to the fact that good can quickly turn to evil unless people are watchful and alert – and have the knowledge and commitment to protect their freedoms. But then again I suppose Robespierre, like Descartes, was only some French guy who lived a few hundred years ago!

“Play up! Play up! and play the game!” - but remember it's only a game.

Although I was never a great sportsman I have always loved football and cricket. Throughout my childhood and teenage years my beloved Preston North End were an ever present part of my life.  Even now, fifty plus years later,  as 5 o’clock on Saturday evening approaches during the football season I anxiously tune in my radio or TV to find out how my team have performed. I now live over a hundred away miles from Preston and never have any inclination to return to watch PNE but when some years ago my father died and I visited the place of my birth for the last time one of the things that I did on that last day was to sit in my car outside the football ground and remember the many wonderful hours I had spent there watching games, queuing for tickets, waiting for autographs and the like. From the day I began teaching until the day that I retired I taught sport and games on a weekly basis – football, cricket, swimming and occasionally athletics. I have coached swimming, tested children for certificates and medals and organised school and district galas. For the past thirty plus years I have been actively involved, and still am, with running football teams and leagues for young players and semi professional players. Sport has been very much part of my life.

As I grow older, however, I increasingly question its value and effect. Comedian John Cleese, I suppose, puts my views well when he says: “I was always a sports nut but I've lost interest now in whether one bunch of mercenaries in north London is going to beat another bunch of mercenaries from west London”.

Lots of positive character traits here - all developed
with the help of sport.

In one sense this is not entirely new. I can vividly remember many years ago standing at swimming galas and watching parents get animated and overly excited as their child raced down the pool and then anxiously check their stop watches to see by how many hundredths of a second the race had been won or lost by. I couldn't then understand why a measurement so small that it cannot be measured by the human eye should be the decider between victory and defeat – why not call it  a draw I often thought? I still have that same feeling when I read of Olympic records being broken or great horse races decided only after  a photograph shows who got their horse’s head past the post first. But, that I suppose is the root of all sport – in the end it is about winners and losers.  It is what defines it – and this, I believe, is increasingly so. I once listened to the great broadcaster Alistair Cooke in his long running programme “Letter from America” suggest that the reason that cricket has never taken off in America is because  the American psyche does not sit comfortably with sharing honours – there has to be a winner and a loser. Cooke recalled that an American colleague confessed his incredulity that a game of English County cricket lasting three days (or in the case of a Test Match five days) could still end as a draw. He saw that as a complete waste of time! I presume the gentleman concerned would be more comfortable with what we are increasingly seeing today - the growth of a different kind of cricket with the limited over game or the 20/20 game where a win/lose result and instant gratification is the name of the game. But, to coin a phrase – it’s not cricket!

My concern, however, about sport today is not really about any of the points raised so far – but rather the way in which it has become such a dominant force in society. Its influence permeates society in so many ways – and, I believe, not all of them good. It has become a leviathan used to justify the spending of huge amounts of money, doubtful actions and justify human traits and behaviours that are to say the least dubious.  In short we have lost, it seems to me, the Olympian ideal of sport and forgotten that in the end it is simply a game, a recreation, a pastime – no more no less. It has become - to coin George Orwell’s oft quoted judgement of all sport “War without the shooting”.

A young fan developing those wonderful
positive sporting characteristics. We have to
teach sport in schools politicians tell us
 in order to these traits. Clearly this lad is an
 "A" student

These various issues have come to the fore in a variety of ways in recent days and months.

A few weeks ago we were on holiday in Spain. One evening the hotel’s large bar was taken over by German guests who all wanted to watch the European Cup Final between two German teams. As I stood at the bar waiting to order a couple of drinks one of the football fans demanded (and I use the word accurately) that the bar man get “more chairs” for the fans to sit on while they crowded around the TV screen. They had already taken all the tables and chairs to sit on so the bar was totally bereft of facilities for any other guests for the remainder of the evening. The fans were no problem except that they spoiled the evening for everyone else in the hotel who wished to use the bar to sit and enjoy a quiet drink – there were no chairs and the chatter and cheering from the football fans drowned any possibility of a quiet evening! The fact that they were German is irrelevant – it just happened to be two German teams involved – had it been two Italian or English or French or Spanish teams the result would have been the same. What was implicit in the situation was that football  took priority over other aspects of life.

I see this often in my work with the youth football league that I help to administer.  It is a sad fact that it is increasingly the case that people – players and team officials will cheat, lie and break any other rules (football, social or moral!)  in order to play football or “get a result”.  For example, we have to have very strict rules  - and equally strong punishments – to prevent young players simply telling lies about which teams they have played for, which club they are registered with or what their age is. I see grown men – become raging monsters if the referee gives a decision with which they disagree. Increasingly, it seems, to me football has become a drug which, like a hallucinogenic, changes the personality. We see this, of course, in the professional game both on the field of play and in the stadium. Highly paid stars “perform” and part of that performance is not to do with their footballing skills but to do with fooling the referee and gaining an unfair advantage over an opponent. Like very poor actors they play to the crowd with their goal celebrations or by feigning injury. And the crowd love it – baying back their approval or disapproval.  Sport, it seems, increasingly today justifies the bizarre and the dishonest. As I sadly move towards this conclusion I find myself agreeing more and more with Noam Chomsky when he said: “Sports plays a societal role in engendering jingoist and chauvinist attitudes. They're designed to organize a community to be committed to their gladiators”.

The home of a Premiership footballer
all paid for by the fans.

This sort of behaviour is not the preserve of football – we see it in other spheres. As Wimbledon begins we will see it on the courts – the twisted facial expressions, the disagreements with the referee, the “emotion” – and the crowd delight in it. Cricket, that game of sobriety, calmness and good manners has gone the same way.  To use the phrased “it’s not cricket” is now totally redundant – a saying from a bygone age. No longer do batsmen “walk” when they know that they are out – they wait to be dismissed by the umpire and then often challenge the decision.  We hear of the often obscene but always unpleasant and unsporting “sledging” that goes on from the fielders as they crowd around the batsman and try to put him off by their comments. And, the crowd, once silent, thoughtful and graceful is now a noisy rabble  and often fuelled with drink. Sadly my observations go across the spectrum – cyclists who are now a bye word for drug related problems, boxers who bite, rugby players who find themselves in drunken brawls. The list is endless. When I read a comment such as this by boxer Mike Tyson prior to one of his boxing bouts “I want to rip out his heart and feed it to Lennox Lewis. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs out and eat their children”  I am more than a little concerned about the motives and justifications for sports.

For me the root of the problem is that sport has become too big and increasingly based upon the celebrity culture. Because of the potential rewards of victory – and by implication the losses of defeat – anything goes in order to secure the prize. It justifies the huge amounts of money invested in sport at every level. Whether it be Premiership football teams who have budgets and debts enough to equate to a small country or a small village club who, the chances are, will be hopelessly in debt and relying on the goodwill of a few local sponsors the result is the same - the sport drug will justify the debt and the mortgaging of the future. All in the name of sport.  Just as was said about the banks at the height of the financial crisis a year or two ago – sport is at every level is becoming  too big to be allowed to fail.

Brazilians asking why they can afford the
World Cup & the Olympics but not schools & hospitals

We have seen in the past week many thousands of people in Brazil suddenly begin to question the vast spending on the Olympics and the Football World Cup that their country is hosting. They are asking, not unreasonably, how can it be that we are spending all this money when we don’t have satisfactory hospitals and schools? Good question – but the answer is simple.............  “because it is sport”.  At the same time as the Brazil protests there was a smaller protest in London – by fans of Premiership football who were complaining – not unreasonably – about the cost of watching  a top game. Ordinary people, they said, could no longer afford to go along to support their team. Increasingly, the fans argued, seats are being sold and costs driven up because of hospitality packages and business use. The football clubs didn’t deny this. Sport of all kinds has become big business and the drug of the masses. My Guardian newspaper yesterday  had, out of a total of a total of fifty pages, nine that were devoted entirely to sport, plus two full pages devoted entirely to Wimbledon plus a half page photo on the front of the newspaper of the tennis player Rafael Nadal as he tumbled to defeat on the opening day. Overkill? – 20% plus of a newspaper that likes to think of itself as a “serious” paper was devoted to what is in the end a leisure pursuit, a pastime. Having looked at the previous few days - the pattern doesn't change much – indeed it increases at the weekend. Similarly this morning's Daily Telegraph – another allegedly serious newspaper - had a huge photo of of Roger Federer covering the top half of the front page. It was reporting the fact that he had been knocked out of Wimbledon. Maybe it is big news and many might be interested  - but is it quite so big as the important things of life? The media thrusts sport at us and convinces us that it is the most important thing in  the world. It doesn't end there. After last year’s Olympics in the UK we not only celebrated the fact that the UK did well in terms of the athletic performances and of staging the games but the media were soon telling us that things indirectly related to the event were of great "importance". The broadcaster Claire Baldwin who had been one of the main BBC broadcasters was suddenly being described by the media as a “national treasure”. After the Olympics she was awarded an OBE for her work. For me that seems a bit over the top - that someone receives one of the country's highest honours for simply telling us about the Olympics!!!!! And following from this what in many ways is the really sad part of so much sporting worship. In recent years we have seen so many sportsman lauded and praised only to discover a few years later or as a result of investigative journalism that they were not quite the superheroes we imagined – golfer Tiger Woods, jockey  Frankie Dettori, cyclist Lance Armstrong,  world class cricketers convicted of taking bribes, great Italian football stars and teams convicted of match fixing, Premiership footballers who become embroiled in night club fights when they should be at home tucked up in bed........and so the list goes on. As I said before, it’s not cricket and it’s not, to my mind, what sport is supposed to be about. It’s certainly not the Olympian ideal of sport.

Tom Finney as I remember him - training
in the back streets of Preston - a true
sportsman from an era when sport
instilled the right values 

In the end,  sport has become too big in the national and international consciousness. Not only is it commercially too big to fail  - the debts too great – but the media empires built upon it are  too vast.  Where, for example,  would SKY be without sport ? Sport is by far the biggest single reason that people use SKY TV and as a result each week choose to give Rupert Murdoch huge amounts of their hard earned cash! Youngsters see themselves as the next superstar celebrity – they live in the fantasyland of sport – and in far too many cases their parents promote that dream. In days gone by youngsters would see their favourite footballer walk down the street to the ground or catch the bus home after the match. Today the stars live in gated mansions away from their  fans  - and in any case the globalization of sport means that a club like Manchester United or Liverpool or Arsenal is no longer the preserve of its local fans it is global. Little boys in India worship the stars that turn out at Old Trafford – but those little boys will never go there or meet their heroes as I did as a child. When, as a child I saw arguably the greatest player ever to play for England, Tom Finney leave the Preston ground after each Saturday’s  game he walked down Deepdale Road like the rest of us. And we knew that on Monday morning, as well as fitting a  bit of training in he would be working at his plumbing business – he was known as the “Preston Plumber”. The point is that he was attainable – we little boys dreamed that we might be like him – not a superstar or a celebrity but someone who was just good at football and like us. In other words the whole thing was kept in perspective – the exact opposite to today where over the top behaviour, rewards, excess and “glory” is the promise that sport offers to its participants. The personalities, the life style and the perverted value system have become the important thing,  not the game.

Tom up a ladder in his day
job as a plumber - we could
all relate to it

 The globalisation of sport, the vast media bandwagon that promotes it, the indulgent life styles that the stars live, the excess and of course the rewards obtained beg the question is it worth it? Does it provide value for money? Does it make individuals or society a better place? Value for money is probably in the eye of the beholder. Would I pay £50 or £60 to watch a top game – no. But of course many people would.   Often I wonder what goes on in the human mind when a parent of limited means pays his money to go to the game with his son – knowing that the money which he can ill afford is going into the pockets of people who earn more in a week that he earns in two or three years? Russian oligarchs, Indian industrialists and Saudi princes many of whom have gained their vast wealth by dubious means in their home countries or by  the labours and poverty of their fellow countrymen buy Premiership clubs and ensure a champagne life style for the players and officials of clubs in exclusive areas  of London or Manchester. And no –one seems to question this, it is simply what happens – it is sport. Those football fans who were complaining in London last week about the cost of watching their favourite team have a simple solution - don't go to the game. Don't they ever stop to think of the utter stupidity of their situation? - they are being encouraged to spend money that they can't afford (and which they complain about) and this goes to vastly wealthy players and billionaire club owners like Roman Abramovich  which in turn further encourages the rising costs. The sporting drug, like all drugs has them hooked and they can't kick the habit.

Alistair Cooke

But above the economic value of sport there is something more important. 

Traditionally, in the UK at least, there is the notion that sport is somehow character building. Politicians frequently remind schools of the value of sport in the curriculum to encourage a healthy life style and to develop basic human attributes such as the will to win or the ability to accept defeat honourably or to understand that  everyone can’t be a winner. Indeed, much of this philosophy came from the Greek Olympian ideal and in its purest sense maybe has much to recommend it. In writing that I am reminded of the words of one of my favourite poems – “Vitai Lampada” by Henry Newbold.

Vitai Lampada
("They Pass On The Torch of Life")

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night --
Ten to make and the match to win --
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote --
'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

The sand of the desert is sodden red, --
Red with the wreck of a square that broke; --
The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks:
'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

This is the word that year by year,
While in her place the School is set,
Every one of her sons must hear,
And none that hears it dare forget.
This they all with a joyful mind
Bear through life like a torch in flame,
And falling fling to the host behind --
'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

Sir Henry Newbolt (1862-1938)

Newbold’s poem spells out the Olympian ideal well. The boy at Rugby School going into bat. Last man in. The fielders gather around him -  a silent battle (no sledging from the fielders!) between batsman and the fielders as they try to take his wicket.  At all times he and they must “play the game” – play fair. It’s not about personal glory or fame it’s about doing a job that has to be done for his team and his school or club. It’s about following his captain’s orders, being disciplined and honourable, not losing his wicket, hanging in there for an hour so that the win might be gained or defeat avoided. And then the poem reminds us that these lessons learned on the sports field are transferable to life. The boy is now a young man in a battle. Everything is going wrong, the Colonel dead, the gun jammed but the young man has to again do his duty honourably, disciplined, hanging in to ensure victory and the safety of his comrades – “Play up! Play up! and play the game!”

Not at all like the cricket of
yesteryear 

Go to The Oval cricket ground in London - one of the great grounds of the world - and you will see the memorial to past Surrey players who fell in the Great War (1914-18). It has the inscription "They played the game". But, today, that seems, like Newbold’s poem, a bit twee and “cheesy”.  Today’s world is a long way from Newbold's - it's a place where media pundits are heralded as “national treasures", sportsman too often cheat, money rules the game, glory is dispensed like confetti upon the heads of sportsmen, teenage footballers happily tell lies about which clubs they are registered to in order to get onto the pitch and  kick a ball, where sporting organisations like the Olympic Committee and FIFA will demand from countries who wish to host these great events that monies raised for the organisation are tax free, or where the media devote huge amounts of time and money to promoting the dubious antics of stars and sport. It is a game that has lost its integrity and, too often, represents all that is wrong and shallow in the world.

I don’t disagree that sport can and does indeed develop a number of worthwhile attributes – the sorts of thing hinted at in Vitai Lampada . Billy Jean King famously commented that “Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose-it teaches you about life”.  But I think it’s also true that as well as building character it also reveals it. And, if sport does indeed develop certain worthwhile traits, then might it not also develop and encourage others that are less worthwhile?  Sadly, that conclusion  is increasingly my experience – cheating, aggression, intimidation, a sense of failure for those who cannot match the best players.  The oft mentioned observation of many teachers – and one that I have experienced more times than I care to remember - is sadly true. Yes, sport in school is great for the winners – it reinforces their belief in themselves and maybe does all the things that Billy Jean King praises. Sadly, however,  most children are not sporting winners and they often increasingly learn that they are failures – the ones that never get picked for a team or who the better players don’t want in their team. That is not a reason for not doing sport  but it is a reason for keeping in perspective – it is a game no more no less and to start attributing all sorts of other qualities to it is both a nonsense and dangerous.

The All Blacks' Haka may be a bit of pre-match
fun but its purpose is to intimidate - a
wonderful personal characteristic

When Sir Alex Ferguson recently retired as Manchester United manager  he recalled that early in his career at Manchester United he had been concerned by his team’s less than satisfactory performances. By chance he had recently attended a concert and so he took the team to a concert. He pointed out to the players that everyone in the orchestra was vital – whatever their part, large or small, and that one missed or wrong note could ruin the whole performance. Everyone has to play their part, the whole is the result of the efforts of each individual and that each instrument  although different from its neighbour was vital in the whole piece. He was of course quite right – it was a good analogy. But it goes further and highlights the fact that sport is not the only way that people can learn important character building lessons. Learning an instrument or being part of an orchestra is an obvious example – it requires hard work, determination, diligence, awareness of the role of others, the overcoming of difficulties ....... in fact just the same qualities that Billy Jean King was hinting at! It is my belief that there are few pastimes or interests, if entered into with the enthusiasm and effort needed to succeed at sport, will not help in developing positive personal attributes. Becoming a ballet dancer, collecting stamps, becoming a mountaineer, becoming a gardener, becoming a good cook or a skilled carpenter, these and many others will require and develop worthwhile characteristics that are traditionally seen as the preserve of sport. Sport does not have a monopoly on positive personal development – in fact, it is increasingly my belief, that it encourages more negative attributes than many other occupations. I'm with American neurosurgeon and author Ben Carson when he famously said to University students: “Don't let anyone turn you into a slave. You're a slave if you let the media tell you that sports and entertainment are more important than developing your brain”.

Ben Carson

As I become older I too often reflect what, perhaps, has been lost. And I wonder if in today’s world sport really does pass on the sort of values and behaviours that we want for our children. My own feeling is that the answer to that is no and that overall we would be better without it. I find it very difficult to accept that sport today is the force for good in society that we popularly imagine. What I am absolutely certain about is that in the 21^st century it has become too big and too important in the national and individual psyche. As my daughter says “Football [and all other sports] is just 22 blokes running around a field chasing a bag of wind – and thinking that it is important”. There’s nothing wrong with the blokes chasing the bag of wind – in the end all sports and indeed most leisure pursuits are very individual choices.  To coin a phrase, “whatever turns you on!” But my daughter’s final comment “thinking that it is important” is not only true it is worrying.  So many people - including those who should know better - seem to think that sport is the only thing and so important that huge amounts of money, emotion, posturing, celebrity worship and the win at any cost mentality  must be invested in it in order that it should  dominate our lives and the lives of others - the opium of the masses. Just as it did at the hotel in Spain where most of the guests were denied their relaxation in the bar because of the demands of football fans! Sport and its promotion in the media has become a justification for unacceptable behaviour and the assumption that it is the most important thing in the world. It isn't – it’s a game, no more and no less – and to add to it all sorts of alleged attributes and worthwhile characteristics is a nonsense. It is equally as likely (especially in the modern money driven sporting world) to reinforce and generate aggression, dishonesty, cheating, willingness to go into debt, a sense of failure and other negative characteristics as it is the promote other more worthwhile traits. Benjamin Carson was right when he wrote: “If we would spend on education half the amount of money that we currently lavish on sports we could provide complete and free education for every student in this country.”  Carson was speaking as an American  but his comment rings equally true of the UK, and I suspect to the people of Brazil. There are things of importance and value upon which to spend money and to devote media coverage - sadly, the sportsmen, sporting event and the culture of modern sport are n ot amongst these.

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on...” (The Tempest: William Shakespeare)

I can still vividly remember when I was about 13, about fifty five years ago, sitting, at school, reading a book. I was totally engrossed in the story – so much so that I think I got told off by the teacher for not putting the book down when told to. As I sat there I little knew  that the book would become an integral part of my life and my career. All this came flooding back to me a few days ago.

The book that started it!

Let me explain. The school that I went to was a humble affair – today it would be unquestionably described as a “sink” school – a pretty tough secondary modern school in Preston where I grew up. The occasional “knifing” on the school playground or field was not uncommon and even then, as young teenagers, we were well aware of the kids who were already going off the rails and becoming involved with the police. It was not unusual for police cars to arrive at school. Secondary modern schools – although the title sounds grand – were for those, like me, who had failed to jump the 11+plus test hurdle. The overwhelming majority of the pupils at schools like mine would go to work in the factories of the industrial north of England. The school had no great aspirations other than to turn out "factory fodder". There was nothing wrong in that, it was what society demanded of the secondary modern. The school and the teachers were as much victims of circumstance as were the pupils. But, then, when I was about 13 we had a new head teacher – Dr McEwan - perhaps anticipating the coming of Bob Dylan in the early 60s "the educational times they were a changing"! In a few years (1963) the Newsom Report Half our Future)  would be published which recognised that the future wealth and social fabric of the country would increasingly depend upon the better education of over half the population – the average and below average - and that included me. The country, said the report, was actively wasting the talents of most of its young by casting them aside at 11 and it laid the foundation stone for a comprehensive system of education. Today, our current Education Secretary, Michael Gove, is doing his best to turn the clock back.

But back to me and my book! Dr McEwan (“Batman” we called him because he always wore his academic gown as he walked around school!) was clearly an early convert to the new doctrines and on his arrival in the late 50s he immediately set about changing the school and one of the first things he did was to convert one of the prefabricated classrooms into a small library. There were a few shelves with books, a few tables and chairs and that was it. We didn’t have a librarian  and were only allowed in there with a teacher – but it was a start. Each week, once the room was up and running, we had one of our weekly English lessons in the library. We would be shown how to use it and understand the Dewey numbering system, given tasks to find information and set other book related work.........and, best of all, for half the lesson be allowed to choose a book to quietly read. Books could not be taken out of the library so one had to read quickly!

The Globe

On one of my first visits I selected a book which looked mildly interesting – a historical adventure story – Cue for Treason  by Geoffrey Trease. It is a children’s story of adventure, dastardly deeds, spying, good guy overcomes bad guy and the rest – and it all takes place in Elizabethan England. It had been written by Trease in 1940 and became one of his most famous publications. Great literature it was not, but like all good stories – especially for children - it had that knack of always wanting you to read on.  Each chapter ended at an exciting point – you just had to read the next chapter! And that was why I got told off – I began reading the book and was hooked and over the next few visits to the library I hurriedly sought out my book so that I could carry on with the tale.

When I left school, I suppose that I forgot about it until ten or more years later I when began teaching. I was working  by then at a school (Lady Bay Junior School in Nottingham) with a long corridor and along the entire length of the corridor were bookshelves filled with books. One day, as I leafed through these, I came across Cue for Treason  – and suddenly the story from my own school days  flooded back. I re-read the tale and was again transported back to Elizabethan England – to Queen Elizabeth, William Shakespeare, the Spanish Armada and plots to kill the Queen. This was no angst filled novel of the sort pushed at teenagers today to reflect their lives and support them in their teenage years – it was unashamed exciting adventure and swashbuckling fun taking the young readers to another age and another life. And, as I had enjoyed it so much, I read it to the class I was teaching. They loved it and each afternoon as the end of the school day approached and I got to the end of a chapter they always wanted to hear then next one – just as I had done all those years before. For the rest of my teaching career I read the book regularly and never once did it let me or the children down. I can still quote great chunks of it so many times I have spoken its words! Not only was it a good story but a great way to teach history and the great names of England’s past – Shakespeare, Raleigh, Drake and the rest – all in a fictional setting but hopefully it aroused an interest, awareness and a love of the nation’s past.

Yes - we bought cushions

I thought about that book on Thursday as I walked out of Southwark Underground Station in London.  Pat and I had booked tickets to see Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream at the wonderful Globe Theatre in Southwark. As we left the station a sign gave directions to the Globe. The Globe, constructed some years ago to replicate the theatre that Shakespeare knew is a wonderful place. Open air, as it would have been in Shakespeare’s day, audience standing in front of the stage and the “better off” sitting in the galleries looking down on the stage. It is built close to where the original Globe stood – and of course as well as putting on Shakespeare’s plays is simply a place of pilgrimage and homage to the great writer.

As we walked out of the station and followed (as the signpost instructed us) the orange lampposts I thought about Cue for Treason. In the story, the two heroes Peter & Kit (Kate) become actors in a group of travelling players, they eventually arrive at the Globe and perform there. They become friends with the young Shakespeare and the great Richard Burbage, one of the great Elizabethan actors of the day, and as the story develops they become embroiled in spying, high treason, the coming of the Spanish Armada and plots to kill the Queen. As we walked along the London streets to reach the theatre I remembered in the book reading that in Shakespeare’s day all the theatres were on the south side of the Thames – actors and theatre goers were classed as a rather unsavoury lot and had to perform outside the city walls – hence the Globe being on the far side of the river Thames from the city of London! And when we got to the Globe and eventually took our seats in the balcony, looking down on the stage and the “poor people” standing at the foot of the stage I could just picture what it might have been like in Shakespeare’s day. In Cue for Treason one part describes how Peter paid a penny to sit on a stool near the stage and paid another penny to have a cushion. We, too, had cushions to sit on – but paid £3.00 each! In another part of the tale when Peter and Kit (playing the part of girls and women, for in Shakespeare’s day women were not allowed to act) are acting on the stage they have to put up with the smoke from the pipes of the gentlemen sitting close to them -  all smoking the new weed brought back from the New World by Raleigh and Drake! And in my mind’s eye as I sat on my cushion looking at the empty stage and the rapidly filling space before it I could picture it all – it was my much loved and many times read book leaping into life before my very eyes.

Our view of the stage - with the "poor people" standing!

At the interval we ate our ice cream – standing in the courtyard looking across the river at the dome of St Pauls. I don’t suppose ice cream was around in Elizabethan times but we could have bought a burger – and that, too, reminded me of the book. In the story, at one point, we are told that members of the audience bought hot meat to eat. We gazed across the Thames at St Paul's and I recalled the words of instruction allegedly attributed to Charles II after the Great Fire of London when he told Christopher Wren, the architect, to "fill the sky of London with the new cathedral". Wren certainly succeeded – even today his great dome still stands out for all to see. I have to say however, that as I looked along the Thames towards the financial centre of the City – “the square mile” - and saw the towering office blocks soaring upwards I did (in grumpy mode!) reflect that maybe that says much about our 21^st century society. The financial skyscrapers now tower above St Paul's and in doing so maybe reflect our worship of Mammon. In Elizabethan and Stuart times church spires and domes soared to heaven to be nearer to God and to remind all of the pathway for eternal life. Today, it is the Shard and the Gherkin and the other London skyscrapers that seek to dominate the skyline and remind us mortals that salvation is rather more materialistic and is gained via banks, insurance companies and pension funds rather than devout faith and belief!

Titania & Bottom

But back to the magical play – A Midsummer Night’s Dream  - my favourite Shakespeare play – silly, magical and with wonderful language. A feel good factor and happy ending. I sat (as I think did every other person in the audience) entranced. And to think that half a millennia ago Londoners might too have stood or sat on the rough benches as we did, swigging their ale and gnawing at their hot meat -  laughing at Bottom and his friends as they performed their “play”, watching mesmerised at the antics of the fairies Oberon and Titania and Puck or got caught  up in the tale of the four lovers as they roamed the woodland and fell asleep beneath the trees. It must have been magical and mysterious for those Elizabethan Londoners – it was still so for us, even today in our very clever modern, technology filled world. So often that afternoon I found myself sitting with my mouth open as I watched. So often I heard myself quietly speaking some of the great words as the actors spoke:

“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:

There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,

Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight...... “

(Can there be any more lovely words in the English language than these?)

or

“Lord, what fools these mortals be”

or

“The course of true love never did run smooth!

or

Now until the break of day,

Through this house each fairy stray.

To the best bride bed will we,

Which by us shall blessèd be.

And the issue there create

Ever shall be fortunate.”

or

“If we shadows have offended,
Know but this and all is mended.
That you have but slumbered here,
While these visions did appear,
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding, but a dream.”

And as we gazed down on the standing audience below us, or looked along the rows of seats in the galleries where we perched on our benches we noticed the many groups of school children all enjoying the play, all, hopefully, learning to love Shakespeare. We looked, too, at the many tourists – Americans, Japanese all too enjoying this essential bit of England. When we struggled through the crowds exiting the theatre down the narrow staircase at the end of the performance I got caught up in a group of American teenagers – all  laughing and talking excitedly of what they had just seen. Shakespeare still has a message for today - for all nations and all ages.

We were reminded of this “message” when we went into the gift shop at the interval. I managed to resist the temptation to buy - although I could have spent many pounds! One item took my eye – I wish now I had bought it for my office. A large poster of the words by Bernard Levin the English journalist and broadcaster. Levin wrote a piece to remind us all of the many words and phrases from Shakespeare that have become part and parcel of our vocabulary.

“If you cannot understand my argument, and declare ``It's Greek to me'', you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is farther to the thought; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradise -why, be that as it may, the more fool you , for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then - to give the devil his due - if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts! - it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.”

Need one say more!

A final enchore

And as we sat on the train returning home I thought about the book that I had first read over 50 years ago and how my own experience of seeing Shakespeare came later in life – I was almost 20 before I saw a Shakespeare play so to speak "in the flesh". By that time I was at Blackpool Technical College and hoping to become a teacher. The College’s dramatic society performed Othello in the round in Blackpool Tower Circus ring. When I went to the performance I had no idea what I would see or indeed what it was all about.  I had never read any Shakespeare or been exposed to it at school.  All I knew, as I sat there, was that I was watching something a bit special. It was the start of my love of Shakespeare. Little did I think that winter's night in Blackpool in 1964 that I would one day sit in the Globe or go, as I have many times, to the Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford on Avon. And I thought, too, of that little library at my school and the doors that it opened up for me. I thought of that book that I read there, not then knowing then that I would later use it to give pleasure and maybe a little understanding to many hundreds of children and that it would became part of my own education and indeed part of me. Cue for Treason had been my very first experience of Shakespeare - I read about him in the story, I read the little extracts from his plays that were part of the story, I pictured in my minds eye how he might have sat in some tavern writing the words. I didn't "know" any Shakespeare, but in reading the tale a tiny seed had been sown. I thought, too, how lucky those youngsters on their school trips had been to have experienced what I had just seen. Certainly more useful than an afternoon spent in a classroom and, just maybe, being the spark to a lifelong love of language, the theatre and above all Shakespeare. Not through studying a text or answering questions in an exam, not through analysing or learning great tracts of verse, but by simply enjoying and responding with a laugh or a tear or an awareness of beautifully spoken words and a clever plot. For that, I thought, is what education is about – “lighting a fire in the mind and not filling a bucket with watery facts”.  I wonder how many exam points will be awarded by Mr Gove for laughing out loud when Bottom turned into an ass. Will his examiners nod approvingly when all the children giggle in embarrassment at the occasional “rude bits” in the play and then after the play talk excitedly about these "naughty bits"? Will the exam have a way of measuring what goes on in each child's mind when they hear strange and unfamiliar words made real and understandable from the mouth of a great actor and within the context of the play? Will Mr Gove be able to recognise and assess when a child suddenly thinks - "this is for me" Will they get a merit in Mr Gove’s world when after the play ends they rush to the theatre gift shop to buy a copy of the play or a “Midsummer Night’s Dream” T shirt. Will they get a distinction when they return home a little bit more aware and excitedly tell mum and dad of what they have seen and what it might have been like to go to the theatre at the time of Shakespeare. No they won’t – because exams cannot and do not measure these things. The exam orientated treadmills that Michael Gove extols are underpinned by his notion of the 3Rs based upon a curriculum that is based upon the philosophy – “read, remember [or recite], regurgitate” rather than “read, reflect, respond”.  For me that afternoon spent at the Globe was infinitely more useful to young people than studying a text or doing an exam. Virginia Woolf famously said, in a lecture she gave at Girton College, Cambridge: “I do not believe that gifts, whether of mind or character, can be weighted like sugar or butter.”  She was right. 

I should have bought the T shirt
but would Mr Gove have approved?

In the end education is about making dreams and ambitions a reality. Yes, it is about the tools and the skills,  but it is  much more importantly about providing the opportunities, the experiences, and the understandings to raise our awareness; to make things happen and to fulfil our dreams and our aspirations and our potential. It’s not just about taking exams it's about awakening interests, developing life long loves, giving us things to cling onto in the hurly burly of life and reminding us of what it is to be human. In short as Shakespeare reminded us in The Tempest:

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on...,”

And I’m not sure how you measure or test dreams!