A time to feel comforted and reflect

After a two-year Covid enforced hiatus Ruddington & District Choral Society once more took to the concert platform in St Peter’s Church Ruddington last night (Dec 11th, 2021) – and what a return it was! Under the leadership of choir director Paul Hayward, the choir, the superb Ruddington Chamber Ensemble and the splendid young soloists from Nottingham University gave us a wonderful evening of glorious Baroque Christmas Music.

The Choir returned after an eighteen month break to socially distanced rehearsals in September to prepare for this concert and a few minutes before last night’s performance was due to begin Paul led the choir out of the Church and into the cold night air. Covid restrictions meant that they could not carry out their usual “warming up” exercises in the confined space of the Church vestry so it had to be done outside! I sat in the Church foyer handing out programmes to latecomers and listened as the al fresco practice drifted into the Church and out across the streets of Ruddington. So, the big question before last night’s performance was, would it all come off; the difficulties of rehearsing and putting on this performance under ever changing Covid rules were taxing for everyone, it was a step in the dark; but come off it did – magnificently!

Paul Hayward’s planned programme was a joy and a triumph, the chosen works and their performance absolutely right, not only for the Christmas season but equally importantly, perhaps, for the zeitgeist of our Covid times when for two years mankind has been chastened by the events of the pandemic and forced to ask questions about ourselves and our world. Any trepidation that Paul Hayward or his singers and musicians might have felt were dismissed within minutes of the first notes being struck! Paul’s chosen programme was not a brash, triumphalist celebration of the Christmas story but, rather, spoke of a gentler Christmas message and of the humility and reverence of the Christmas stable. And, this choice was portrayed beautifully by the Choir and orchestra: warm, sincere, a thing of beauty and conveying the haunting mystery of the Christmas tale.

A lovely and accomplished rendering by the Ensemble of Charpentier’s Prelude to Te Deum H146 opened the concert and set the scene for what was to follow and then we were taken back almost four centuries to the world of 17th century Paris, to the age of Louis XIV, the Sun King. The haunting voice of the soprano soloist opening Charpentier’s Mess De Minuit pour Noel a “mixture” of ancient French folk carols interwoven into the words of the Mass – the soloists providing the carols while the Choir sang the Mass. This, work has hidden complexities – both musically and logistically, given the current Covid restrictions - but Choir, soloists and Ensemble were flawless giving an interpretation which like the work itself was full of both joy and compassion and creating in the Church an atmosphere of gentle serenity.

As I listened I pondered what it must have been like three hundred plus years ago when those French people of old, or perhaps even the Sun King himself first heard this work – for that is what music allows us to do, it allows us to hear what others, hundreds of years ago, heard and through that to perhaps feel what they felt. And that, for me, is humbling; it asks questions of our very humanity – and last night this work, and the concert as a whole, allowed us to experience and be enriched by that. At the interval, a friend who was attending a Ruddington concert for the first time commented how much she was enjoying the performance – “it’s so professional”, she said. She was absolutely right but it was more than just professional, the works and the performance had an integrity, they were from the heart, they were not simply “entertainment” but spoke to us as human beings.

The second half of the concert opened with Dietrich Buxtehude’s Magnificat, a short but sumptuous work by the great Baroque organ maestro – the piece was beautifully performed, the soloists exquisite and the Choir and Ensemble a delight. It was no surprise at all to hear the applause from the audience after this offering. A thing of great beauty and comfort it was as warm and luxurious as Christmas Pudding and Custard and as I listened, I recalled the famous story of Johann Sebastian Bach and Buxtehude and reflected how our world has changed - yet the wonderful music of Charpentier, Buxtehude, Bach, Vivaldi and other great musicians remains, across the years to inspire and enrich us. Bach, aged 20 and “learning his trade” as a organist/musician in Arnstadt requested permission from his employers for leave to visit Buxtehude who was considered the greatest organist in Europe, perhaps the world. Unwillingly the permission was granted and the young Bach then walked over 300 miles through the German Autumn to Lubeck. He stayed with Buxtehude (it is said that the great man offered Bach his daughter’s hand in marriage!) and then in the early Spring Bach walked the 300 miles back to Arnstadt – where he was severely chastised by his employers for being away so long!

The rest, as they say, is history, Bach became the great gift that he is to all music and last night we had the privilege of listening to a work by Buxtehude, one of his teachers – how marvellous is that? But this is not an idle, lighthearted point. Paul Hayward’s programme took us back not only to the Baroque era but it also took us, like Bach on his walk to and from Lubeck, on a Baroque musical journey across Europe: From Charpentier’s Paris, to Buxtehude’s northern Germany, to Handel and Dublin, and finally to the glories of Vivaldi’s Venice – La Serenissima, the serene Republic. A Christmas feast indeed!

After Buxtehude the Ensemble rewarded us with a splendid playing of the Pastoral Symphony from Handel’s Messiah first heard in Dublin 280 years ago this year. This well known part of the mighty Messiah forms a gentle and peaceful interlude in that great oratorio and the Ensemble’s interpretation captured the tranquillity and reverence of that moment in the Messiah exactly. And following the Symphony we were rewarded with three unaccompanied and beautifully executed traditional Christmas works from the Choir: the “great and mighty” harmonies by Baroque 17th century German composer Michael Praetorius of the carol A Great and Mighty Wonder, the arrangement by JS Bach of the German carol O Little Sweet One and to end with the arrangement by George Ratcliffe Woodward of the 16th century Piae Cantiones the carol Up, Good Christian Folk – an ancient mediaeval work with its roots in Scandinavia – this latter short work one of the many high spots of the evening, its light, joyous harmonies raising spirits and smiles throughout St Peters!

And so to the final offering: Antonio Vivaldi’s magnificent Magnificat! Vivaldi, a composer whose vast output and brilliance are often marginalised by the overplaying of his Four Seasons Concertos, contrasted beautifully with the gentler, more reflective, reverential and mysterious Charpentier and Buxtehude. Vivaldi’s soaring opening to the work, dazzling and jubilant, showed the Ensemble’s strings to perfection and the soloists and Choir wove a wonderful musical tapestry which took us, as Vivaldi so often does and in celebration mode to 17th century Venice and to its misty and mysterious canals, to its fashionable palazzi filled with bewigged Venetian gentlemen and and masked and gowned ladies, to the world of Casanova, and to the gold leafed magnificence of the Doge’s Palace and St Mark’s. This was Vivaldi and Baroque music at their most sumptuous with the Choir, the soloists and the Ensemble weaving a sublime, warm but crisp, mellow but multi-layered sparkling, celebratory sound. A magnificent Magnificat indeed!

It was absolutely no surprise that as Paul Hayward’s baton fell for the last time the socially distanced audience, as one, showed their appreciation for not only what had gone before and which they had so much enjoyed but as a mark of appreciation to all concerned for providing, against all the difficulties, such a rewarding and joyous occasion in these strange and worrying times.

Under Paul Hayward’s splendid stewardship and the excellent supportive musical brilliance of Michael Overbury the Choir continues to develop – despite everything that Covid has thrown at them. Great leaders in any walk of life may have different qualities which enable them to inspire their followers: technical skills, knowledge, charisma, presence, enthusiasm, rigour, discipline….the list is endless. In Paul Hayward and Michael Overbury there is no shortage of technical skills, musical knowledge or profound musicality – and certainly, enthusiasm, sparkle, industry and a host of other praiseworthy qualities are in ready supply. But, there is something else that Paul and Michael bring to the Choir and which  was shown to full effect in last night’s concert and which we have seen so often before. It is something to which the choir members (and audience) can relate - namely, a simple but powerful empathy. Let’s call it humanity, a deep understanding of the works being sung and equally importantly of the people singing and playing them. 

To watch and listen to the great Herbert von Karajan was to see a man at the peak of technical brilliance and musicology leading unarguably the greatest musicians in the world – the Berlin Phil. But Paul Hayward and Michael Overbury perhaps offer a different musical reality and leadership – they are in tune not only with the music but with the people and the occasion and last night’s performance displayed those qualities to perfection. At a time when humanity might feel crushed by and in fear of the plague which continues to beset us, at a time when our newspapers and social media are so often filled with bitterness and dismay, and at a time when the world and our day to day life seems threatened on so many fronts – global warming, austerity, inequality, violence on our streets and all the rest – it was not, last night, technical brilliance that we sought (although we got it in bucketfuls!). Nor was it soaring sweeping, explosive musical grandness or the life changing musical experiences of mighty works or great musical celebration. It was - for me, and I suspect for many others in last night’s audience – a beautifully chosen programme which allowed us the time to reflect, to feel comforted, to enjoy the quiet mystery and contemplative beauty of the music and the gentle awe and wonder of the Christmas story that we sought. And the Choir, the Ensemble and the soloists gave us all that in abundance. 

The choice of programme, the manner of its performance and the sincerity of the whole occasion ensured that everyone, it seemed to me, smiled, restored a little perhaps as, at 9.30, they passed by me in the Church doorway and quietly stepped outside into the cold Ruddington air. A time to reflect, to feel comforted, and to enjoy the quiet mystery and wonder of the Christmas story, a time to wrap ourselves in the gentle sublime beauty of the music and a time to hear and ponder what other humans over the centuries have heard and pondered at this time of year are perhaps  qualities that might not figure high in the music purist’s list but they are, and for last night’s Covid dictated concert, were vital – for they reminded us of our humanity and our small place in the great scheme of things and they recharged everyone’s batteries both musically and emotionally. These were the gifts that Paul Hayward and Michael Overbury and all the performers brought and were in such plentiful supply in St Peter’s Church on Saturday night. And there were many on Saturday night, like me, who thanked all those concerned for it.

  

When Oafs and Barbarians Decide "Strategic Priorities"

 

So, our illustrious Education Minister Gavin Williamson says that arts subjects in universities will have their budgets slashed and suggests that they are "not strategic priorities". Presumably what is laughingly termed the "core" subjects - maths, the "hard" sciences, technology etc. are priorities and will not be similarly treated. Mmmmm?

No-one disputes the absolutely critical importance and value of the sciences, they deserve whatever funding is required for they are the backbone and provide the facts upon which our modern world, interconnected, global world operates; they underpin our medicine, our science, our technology our businesses and the rest. Without them every aspect of our modern lifestyle would soon crumble.

But, and it's a big but, whilst maths, science and technology etc. might tell us how much it costs to fly or how the engines on the jumbo jet work and keep the plane high in the sky all the way to Australia, they will tell us little about what Australia is like, or why English is the language of Australians, nor will they help me to understand the spiritual beliefs and sacred nature of Uluru  to the Aborigine peoples. They might produce wonderful technology that streams music instantly around the world but they won't tell us about the beauty of a Bach concerto or a great love song. They might help to build great concert halls or provide sound systems for a great theatre but they won't help us to appreciate a stunning performance of Swan Lake or to empathise and weep when we hear an actor declaim some great lines from Shakespeare or to understand the characters and their world in a musical like Les Mis. They will give me the technology to view my bank account at the click of a mouse button but they won't give me any guidance or understanding to ensure that I spend my money wisely for the good of not only myself but my family and for the world. They might give me a complex mathematical equation or algorithm to calculate what my chances of catching Covid are or whether my granddaughters will get their required grades in their exams but they won't be any help at all in helping me to understand and to have the emotional maturity to sympathise when an old friend dies of Covid or when teenagers struggle with mental health issues, as they did last year, because the algorithm went up the spout and the exam system became a fiasco. They might give me a knowledge of numbers so that I can understand and make meaningful sense of a date like 375BC but won't explain to me that in that year Plato published his great tract The Republic in which are rooted many or most of our modern day views of justice or morality nor, when I read the number 1819 and understand the numerical place values in that number - thousands, hundreds, tens and units - will mathematics or science help me to understand that the Peterloo Massacre occurred in that year and that it had a profound effect upon upon the political life of the nation and upon the very great political and social rights and freedoms that I enjoy today

I could go on. Yes, science, maths and technology are vitally important but they are not greater priorities than the arts - history, dance, archeology, music, literature, foreign languages, philosophy and the rest. Science and maths give us the knowledge, to create the world that we want but the arts enable us to make sense of our world, to understand our fellow man and woman and recognise what makes them tick, to learn to be empathetic, to see the other guy's point of view, to appreciate beauty in whatever form it takes, to think complex thoughts, to be able to appreciate the beauty of a small flower in the hedgerow or a bee buzzing over a garden plant but at the same time be overcome and overawed at the mighty spectacle of the Grand Canyon or the serene majesty of the Taj Mahal, to be moved and inspired by a profound piece of poetry or, because of one's knowledge of the nation's proud history, to be stirred and proud when our country wins the World Cup or we stand in silence on Remembrance Day, to know what is worthwhile and understand what is decent, just, right or fair or to be able to recognise, feel, or perhaps understand our own and wider mankind's spiritual aspects and needs. Equations and theories, wonderful and often magical though they are do not pass on these deeper aspects of our existence.

In short, and to put it another way Gavin Williamson's "strategic priorities" - maths, science, technology etc.- give us knowledge and teach us facts but those areas that he tells us are somehow less valuable and "not strategic priorities" give us so much more, they give us that most precious commodity - it's called wisdom - and they teach us how to be, and what it is to be, human. The man is an oaf - in keeping with the rest of the political rabble that is the modern day Tory party and their outriders. In days gone by the ancient Greeks or the Roman's would have recognised this and he and they would have been condemned as "barbarians" - uncivilized, without wisdom, lacking in any sort of culture

The Colonel: Memories of a Wonderful Teacher

 In our frenetic, 24 hour news, hyperbola filled world the quest for the next big story to fill our newspapers, TV screens, social media platforms and, thus, our hearts and minds, is only nanoseconds away. In bygone days there was truth in the saying that today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip paper but today mobile phones, social media, online browsing and the instant gratification of the internet mean that we can satisfy our urge for continual titillation, stimulation and trepidation each and every waking minute. Whether it be packs of pit bull terriers, rampant rapists, parades of paedophiles, invasions of immigrants, mobs of Muslim  terrorists, streets full of stressed student snowflakes or  a pandemic threatening the population of the planet the reason and result is the same;  humanity constantly seeks the four horsemen of the apocalypse to sate its drug like desire for a fresh vertiginous high and to occupy its anxious and angst addled attention. For the past year plus it has been the ghoul like Pestilence, in the guise of the Covid pandemic, who has ridden rough shod through our manic media and our worst nightmares and wildest imaginings.

The synagogue where we sat taking in all that
Mr Parkin, the Colonel, had to offer. Our "classoom" was
at the rear of the synagogue on the extreme left of the
picture - we looked out through the two upstairs windows.

But as the media maelstrom rages and the destruction of society as we know it looms I find my mind wandering to another age, a life time ago when I first heard the word “pandemic”. Whenever I hear or read it even today, I do not initially imagine some dreadful plague spreading and laying waste to my family and friends but instead think of "the history man", or “the Colonel” as we callow teenagers secretly called him; a man who opened up a world for me and without any doubt changed my life.

He sat opposite me first one early summer evening in 1963 in a room above the United Hebrew Synagogue in Leamington Road Blackpool. When I left school I became a trainee draughtsman at a Preston engineering company but having obtained my ONC – the baseline qualification for my work – the small company for which I worked closed its Preston office and I was offered the opportunity of moving, with the company, to its head office in the midlands but at that time I was unsure about leaving my home town. I also knew that if I was to progress in that line of work I would need to get further qualifications – an HNC and then an AMIMech.E - and I wasn’t sure that this was where my future lay. The result was that, after much thought, I decided to follow another path – one that I had often considered – namely to go into teaching. So, I made enquiries and eventually found myself invited for an interview with a view to studying for A levels, in order to gain entrance to a teacher training college. That was why I sat above a synagogue in Blackpool that night – being interviewed for a place on the A level course at Blackpool Technical College and School of Art.

Blackpool “Tech” in the 1960s was a huge and highly respected establishment catering for a vast range of students and qualifications from technical/industrial to commercial, to fine art, to GCE and A level subjects and especially catering and hotel management – for which it was internationally acclaimed. Its many departments were spread throughout Blackpool and the A level “arts” subjects were based in what had once been the old Blackpool Grammar School on Raikes Parade. More or less adjacent was the Jewish synagogue on Leamington Road. The College rented two or three rooms above the Synagogue as private study rooms for the A level students and for administrative use by A level staff, and it was there where I sat that summer evening.

The “Colonel” was Alan Parkin who, as well as teaching A level history was in charge of A level studies. He was a quietly spoken, pleasant, middle aged man who I immediately took a liking to and at the end of the interview he offered me a place to study history, geography and economics. I had passed a geography O level at school and enjoyed all things historical but had not studied either history or economics before and so as I left to catch the bus back to Preston, Mr Parkin gave me reading lists for all three subjects with the advice that I should prepare as much as possible before starting in September.  It was the first of many good bits of advice that he gave – and I will be forever thankful for it. Many of the students, he explained, would be straight from school and would have studied these subjects before so I needed to put in a bit of work  if I was to keep up with them. When September came I discovered that he was right – several in the group had already passed A levels at their schools but were doing the course and exam again at Blackpool Tech. to get better grades in order to get into top universities.  I was very much the plodder but as I walked out of the synagogue that night clutching my reading lists it wasn’t anxiety I felt but a real buzz – it was something new to look forward to, a new start, perhaps a new life, and I couldn’t wait to get started.

That summer was one of the happiest of my life. I bought most of the books on the list and spent day after day at home, in the local park or most often in the town library reading and making notes, following Mr Parkin’s guidelines to the letter. Local authorities in those days awarded grants (remember them!) to students and I got a grant for books plus something towards my basic living costs and the payment of college fees. I also had some savings from my work as a draughtsman which helped but mostly I lived off the pockets and good will of my parents, a thing for which I will be forever grateful as they were not well off and my studying must have been at some considerable cost to their own lives and ambitions.

And so September came. An early morning bus to Blackpool each day meant that I was always sitting above the synagogue before eight working at my latest essay, or reading up on some piece of history or economics or geography; it wouldn’t be untrue to say I was in heaven! The work was hard but every evening as I sat on the Preston bound bus I felt that an exciting door had been opened for me.

 For the next two years, as our history teacher and the man in charge of A levels, Alan Parkin was our guide, mentor and assessor. I can still see him today standing in front of our motley group of would be teenage historians in his tweed jacket and grey trousers with knife edge creases – his demeanour unapologetically professional and very correct. His blue striped regimental tie, shining brown leather shoes, quiet voice and precise spoken English gave him an old fashioned authority and marked him out as someone to respect. Each lunchtime, as we brash teenagers sipped our coffee in sea front coffee bars, the juke box blasting out the Beatles, the Stones, Roy Orbison or Cilla Black it wasn’t long before the colonel featured in our conversations. It was Les Levett who had first coined the nickname “the Colonel” and it stuck; it made complete sense. Mr Parkin’s clipped speech, upright stance, short cropped hair,  dead straight parting and grey pencil moustache gave him a military bearing and encouraged us all in the belief that he was an ex-officer - a conclusion that proved correct when he told us of his war time experiences in Germany when we studied the rise of Hitler.

 Alan Parkin – both visually and in the way he taught had “presence”. He did not praise often or easily but praised well when it was merited. We quietly mocked his clipped speech and his outward formality but we all respected him hugely both for what he gave us and how he gave it. He didn’t set out to impress but even to us rebellious sixties teenagers he did. He had high expectations of himself and the way he presented to the world and made it clear that he had high expectations of us – referring to us always as “ladies and gentlemen”, as Mr Beale, Miss Hudson, Mr Levett or Miss Williams. Above all he gave time and was ever aware of individual students – asking, as he passed us in a corridor how things were going, how had we found a particular essay or piece of reading, could he help with any applications for college or university – and like all good teachers he made you feel good and the best, even when you knew that you weren’t. Ask a question in lesson and he could make it sound as if you had asked the most important question in the world when really you were just showing your own dismal ignorance. And it is here where I come back to “pandemic”!

 As, one day, we studied the origins of the First World War, the Colonel, upright, soldier like, chalk in his hand was briskly explaining to us the many interwoven causes of that terrible conflict. We sat scribbling notes in our files – me hoping that I would be able to make sense of them later on the homeward bound bus that night! As I scribbled, Mr Parkin began to talk of the 19^th century pan-Slavic and pan-Germanic movements and my pen  stopped in mid-scribble. Hesitantly I put up my hand to ask what he meant – feeling that I must be the only one in the room that didn’t understand (I wasn’t!). The colonel stopped and without speaking wrote on the blackboard:”pan-Slavic, pan-Germanic, pandemonium, pantheon, pandemic, panarchy, panacea, pancratic, panistocracy......” and so the list went on and on. “Mr Beale”, he asked “what do you notice about all the words” – the answer being obvious. He then asked if anyone knew what any of the words meant. There was a  sound of pocket dictionaries being hurriedly dug out of bags and flicked through. Eventually a couple of hands went up and without actually telling us,  pied piper like, he brought us to the point where we came to understand that the prefix “pan” meant “all”. Slowly, but surely, the Colonel prodded our wits, put two and two together, so that we gradually came to understand these linked words: a utopian government where all rule equally; all the German speaking peoples; a cure for all; a temple for all the gods; a row of all the demons let loose; the rule of all..............and of course, pandemic: a disease across all the world.

When the time came, in 1964, for me to apply for teacher training college he supplied me with prospectuses and suggested that I apply to Nottingham as my first choice. The history man was not wrong and the rest, as they say, is history – my history.  Without his support and guidance I would not have left the Hebrew Synagogue two years later clutching my three scraped through A levels. Without them and the Colonel I would not be sitting here in Nottinghamshire today. In my own classroom career I often found myself thinking of the Colonel: his mannerisms his military bearing, the respect he gave his students, the way he presented himself each and every day. I never forgot the green ink that he used in his fountain pen (he would have no truck with ball points!) to mark our work, explaining that green ink was much less intimidating and more respectful to a hard working student than “aggressive” red ink. Years later this became government advice to teachers and I shook my head as I read this “new idea” from the DfEE. The Colonel had been ahead of his time! Alan Parkin was what we would call today a role model. He was one of those people that one remembers for what they were and that is why now, almost 60 year later, when I read each day of the pandemic threatening to sweep the world I think back to that lesson so long ago when the Colonel opened another door for me.  And that seems a much more important and worthy than the latest hyperbolic, apocalyptic media soundbite.     

Football's Hearts & Minds: Bringing Colour to Humdrum Lives

The plans by twelve of the big European football clubs to form a breakaway “super league” have, it seems, gone down the proverbial pan – for now! In my opinion, however, and despite the criticism from fans, players, clubs and politicians, it is only a matter of time until something of that format becomes a reality. Whatever the rights and wrongs (and there were few rights and many wrongs!) of the proposal that Manchester United, Real Madrid and 10 other top clubs were trying to get away with this week at the expense of lesser footballing mortals in the shape of smaller clubs and millions of fans, the fact is that it is now just as easy for a club like Manchester City or Juventus to fly across Europe for a fixture as it is to play in their own country.

Times have changed. Manchester United will be aware of that probably more than any other English club. Sixty three years ago I remember as a child watching in distress as the tragedy of the Munich air disaster unfolded on our little black and white TV screen and my childhood heroes in the Busby Babes – Edwards, Charlton, Colman, Taylor and the rest lay on the snow covered tarmac of Munich airport. United were one of the first English clubs to take tentative steps into European football (against the wishes of the English FA and Football League) in the 50s but today, of course, big clubs fly off on a regular basis to far flung places. It’s all part of the day to day life of the modern club and player but in those far off times it was a rare and special event – and for United a tragic one.

I was thinking of this as I followed the many reports this week about the ill fated and ill thought through European Super League. Today, players live in mansions and behind security walls set apart from the world of paying fans and living a life that players of the Busby Babes era could never have imagined. I often wonder what the “value” and the life style of the late Duncan Edwards would be today had he survived Munich – in my view and the view of many of my generation, Edwards was, and by a long way, the finest English player ever and possibly the finest player ever. Today he would live in a huge mansion and live a life so far removed from that of the fans that it truly would be difficult for us lesser mortals to comprehend.

And as I wonder about all this I remember the story often told by Sir Bobby Charlton which is perhaps worthy of retelling this week when these giant financial enterprises that are the modern football club are accused of greed and forgetting the interests, needs and dreams of their fans.

Sir Matt Busby

Charlton tells the tale of when he joined Manchester United as a young player soon after his seventeenth birthday and arrived at Old Trafford, young, raw, excited and anxious that he could “make it”. Young players like Charlton would be taken onto the car park outside the ground by United Manager Sir Matt Busby and there given a homily on “the duties” of a professional footballer and his expectations for players at Manchester United. Busby would point to the surrounding area of Trafford Park - in those days one of England and indeed Europe’s great industrial landscapes filled with tall factory chimneys belching smoke, heavy engineering factories, cotton mills and warehouses, and a thousand other industrial concerns, and rows of grimy terraced houses where United's fans lived in walking distance from the stadium. Busby would kindly but sternly tell the young player how lucky he was to be starting a career playing football where day in day out he would be doing what he had always dreamed of, and doing what the fans who came to watch on Saturday afternoon would give their right arm to be able to do – to pull on a United shirt and play on the turf of Old Trafford. But, Busby would add, that opportunity that Charlton and his peers were being given came with responsibilities. Players and Manchester United Football Club must, Busby stressed to the young Charlton,  always give something back – that was the price of playing for United. They must provide what he called “the spark”, bring what he called “colour” into the lives of the thousands of men and women who came at the end of each working week to Old Trafford and spent their hard earned wages at the Saturday afternoon turnstiles. It was the players’ and the club’s duty to lighten their humdrum, hard working lives. “People”, Busby would say, “want something to carry them through the next drab and backbreaking week of daily grind and get them away from the dark days of winter”. They wanted, said Busby, “excitement and thrills that would send them home smiling and full of hope and expectation” and it was, the manager went on, “every Manchester United footballer’s duty to always produce as much of that as he could”. Busby knew that a football club is nothing if it does not serve and remember its fans. In short, it’s just a bunch of blokes in their underwear kicking a bag of wind around a field for 90 minutes no more, no less.

The world has come a long way since then – and perhaps not always for the better. It seems in this modern world rather twee and old fashioned to talk as Busby did of things like “duty” – especially with regard to the multi-billion pound world of professional football. The world of “duty” and “responsibility” and of Matt Busby and the young Bobby Charlton  (and me!)  is a long way from today’s billion dollar SKY contracts or the hospitality boxes of our big stadiums. It’s a long way from the mansions of Cheshire wherein reside the star players of the big north western clubs. And it’s a very, very long way from the ill considered and devious plan for a “super league”, seemingly cobbled together on the back of a fag packet by financial whiz kids and absent owners with little or no interest in football – men who live in places far removed from the communities that surround our great stadiums and who see a club like United or City or Chelsea or Spurs or Arsenal, or Liverpool as just an investment that must be maximised and milked. I cannot help adding that in my view, and given their long and proud (and with the Munich tragic) history, Manchester United above all clubs should have understood this. It is to their shame they did not; Busby would have appalled.

I do not believe that any of these far flung owners and merchant bankers, venture capitalists, hedge fund managers and the like could begin to comprehend the sentiments that Sir Matt Busby passed on to all his young charges those many years ago. Maybe we have lost something along the way – I certainly think so.

Now, well into my eighth decade I can look back and thrill, as I did all those years ago at the heroics and great deeds of players and clubs – Charlton’s thunderbolt goals, Edwards’ powerful drives into to the opposition penalty box, Jimmy Greaves and the great Spurs teams of the 1960s, the glories of Arsenal’s illustrious footballing past and the magnificence of the marbled halls of Highbury, Shankley’s great Liverpool sides or, most of all, week after week being privileged to watch the supreme footballer and sportsman the great Tom Finney play at Deepdale for my beloved Preston North End and after the game standing outside the players’ entrance for him and his team mates to come out and sign my autograph book and then as he did so often pat me on the head and ask if I’d enjoyed the game. Those are the things that make football what it is – the “contract” between the club, the players and the fans; Busby understood that well when he gave his little homily to young players, but it seems that today’s club hierarchy at United, City, Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool did not – it was pound notes that filled their dead, glazed eyes. That was their only criterion for action.

But I wonder, is all lost? Maybe not. I’m sure that my football mad Grandson, Sam, will when he is my age, remember the great footballers of his generation - Kane, Messi, Salah, Rashford, de Bruyne....... – and the great teams of today: Guardiola’s Manchester City, Klopp’s Liverpool, Solskaer’s United and the rest. That is how it should be. And I’m sure that he will remember, as I do now and when he is, like me, a grumpy old man he will recall the “buzz” he felt as he went through the turnstile at his club Reading. He will remember what it felt like and the dreams that one has before each game – and of course the dejection when the result is not what he hoped for. He will remember all this for that is the very essence of the club/fan relationship that Busby spoke of to the young Charlton. And what I also know with absolute certainty is that while names like Kane, Rashford, Klopp, Messi, Guardiola and the rest will stay with my grandson he will, too, fondly look back upon to remember their great footballing deeds.

But there is something else which I am equally sure of.  When my grandson looks back on his lifetime love of football he will not remember the authors of the plan for the “European Super League”. Manchester United’s Ed Woodward and the American owners the Glazer family, Liverpool’s owner American billionaire  John Henry, Spur’s absentee owner Joe Lewis sitting on his Caribbean island, Arsenal’s mysterious and dubious owner the American Stan Kroenke, Real Madrid’s President Florentino Perez Rodriguez, Juventus’ Andrea Agnelli and the rest will all be yesterday’s men – forgotten both in the mind of the football fan and indeed by the world as a whole for they have no claim to our affections; their only claim is to their own wealth not our hearts. And that of course, was at the root of the gross folly that was the European Super League and is something that Matt Busby when he spoke to the young Charlton, Edwards, Best and the rest all those years ago would have  understood very well.

"Nothing Is Forever: This Too Shall Pass.

My copy of The Aenied

The ancient Persian Sufi poet Attar of Nishapur told the tale of a powerful king who asks his assembled wise men to create a ring that would make him happy when he was sad. After deliberation the sages handed him a simple ring with the Persian words "This too shall pass" etched on it, which had the desired effect to make him happy when he was sad. It also, however, became a curse for whenever he was happy he knew that that too would pass.

We would do well to heed this tale in these momentous and troubling times. In our 21^st century  Covid world, where locked down nations, faltering economies, young people missing their education, global warming threatening the planet, inequality, great social movements such as Black Lives Matter, Occupy, Extinction  & Me Too vent their anger, increasing divisiveness permeates our politics, poverty and malnutrition stalk many lands, civil war and strife is present in countries across the world and increasing sabre rattling by the world’s superpowers are witness to the disturbing times in which we live. But we should, too, remember something else: that in the great span of history and of mankind they are but tiny events which will, in the fullness of time, be replaced by other great concerns – but also great joys; as the tale tells us “these too shall pass”.  

I was reminded of this last night as I lay reading in bed. I am currently working my way through the magnificent translation by Princeton Professor Robert Fagles of Roman poet Virgil’s epic work The Aeneid written in about 30 BC and telling the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas and his passionate but ultimately tragic love affair with Dido the beautiful and powerful Queen of Carthage, and his travels and battles to fulfil his destiny, ordained by the Gods, to found the city of Rome and the Roman civilization. The Aeneid was written by Virgil in order that the Romans could celebrate their city’s origins and the creation of their great and mighty Empire in the same way that the Greeks celebrated their civilization through Homer’s poems The Illiad and The Odyssey. It is not overstating the importance of The  Aeneid to say that the great poem has shaped the political and cultural landscape of Europe and the western world as much as the Bible has shaped Europe and the west’s spiritual landscape – and still today it explains much of our current world.

As I read the glorious words of Book 9 of the poem (only three more books to go!) I came across these few lines describing the Rutulian and Etruscan Latium armies flooding out onto the plain where a great battle is to be fought against Aeneas and his invading Trojans:

“.......And next his entire army

Moving out across the plain,

Rich in cavalry, rich in braided cloaks, purple plumed gleaming helmets, bright gold.

A force like the Ganges rising spreading, fed by seven quiet but mighty streams

Or the life giving Nile ebbing back from the plains

To settle down at last in its own bank and bed.........”

 Could it be, I wondered as I read of the great battle that the Virgil and his fellow Romans knew of the existence of the mighty Ganges River in India? Did they ever go to India in those far off days over two millennia ago? I could accept that they knew of the Nile, after all, that mighty river flows into the Mediterranean Sea and the Romans were a Mediterranean people – but India and the Ganges was another thing, a far off world. Did the Roman knowledge and influence spread that far?

But immediately I wondered this I also knew the answer for I was taken back to another wonderful book I read recently, Colin Thubron’s magical and powerful  travel book The Lost Heart of Asia in which he vividly describes the peoples and cultures of that remote region. The city of Merv (once known as Antiochia and one of the largest cities in the world  in ancient times, with a population of over half a million) sits on the Silk Road in Turkmenistan, central Asia. The Silk Road in ancient times brought silk and spices, paper, gunpowder and other exotic items from the East – India & China – and was the route taking gold and silver, wool, animals, pottery and other wares from the west to far away China and India in the east. But, the Silk Road, carried other things; even as early as 300 BC  it took ideas, religion, philosophy and culture from east to west and west to east – and more worryingly it spread diseases across the two continents, most notably the Black Death. Although it is unlikely (but not impossible) that Romans actually ever visited China (and vice versa) those two mighty civilizations  certainly knew of each other’s existence and power; they were ancient trading partners via the myriad of merchants who travelled the Silk Road carrying and trading their wares as they went. The results of those trades eventually ending their journey in the markets of Rome and China’s ancient capital Xi’an

Roman coin found at Merv

In Thubron’s book he records how, on visiting the area around present day Merv, he was struck by the people of the area, many of whom had a very definite olive skinned Mediterranean appearance. He was struck, too, by the number of Latin sounding words in the local vocabulary and even street names frequently had a Latin “feel” about them. He discovered, too, that it was not uncommon for ancient Roman coins to be dug up in the fields and for homes to have shrines dedicated to Gods with clear connections to the Gods of ancient Rome. How could this be, that in place far from Rome, in the heart of what was once the mighty Persian Empire that there is this oasis of Latinate people, artefacts, language and culture amongst the endless deserts, mountains and peoples that dominate central Asia - the lands of those other mighty and feared warrior rulers, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane.

The answer was both simple and thought provoking. In 53 BC, at about the time that Virgil was writing his Aeneid the Roman army under Marcus Licinicus fought the great Battle of Carrhae against the armies of the mighty Parthian (later the Persian and then the Iranian) Empire under the command of General Surena. The Romans were routed, even humiliated, and Marcus Licinicus fell in the battle. Thousand of Romans were slain and at the conclusion of the battle over 10,000 of them were taken prisoner and sent as slaves to the city of Merv. It is recorded that to humiliate the Romans even further General Surena ordered that a Roman prisoner be found who looked like the dead Marcus Licinicus and when such a prisoner was found the young Roman soldier was dressed up as a woman and paraded tied to a horse and facing backwards through the streets of Merv as the crowds mocked him. But, those terrible scenes were not quite the end of the story, the world moved on.

The years passed and with each passing year the Roman “slaves” slowly became part of the Merv society: as they diligently fulfilled their slave duties and their knowledge and skills were appreciated and understood by their owners they slowly  but surely were given more freedom from their slavery and they prospered, they married local women, had children, settled down and became part of the life, culture and economy of that great city. Others, on gaining their freedom, moved on travelling further east to China where many settled and prospered in the City of Liqian and yet others took up arms again, but this time in the armies of the Chinese Xiongnu tribes and fought against the Han Dynasty at the Battle of Zhizhi. The result of all this is that still today, those echoes of those far off times  impact on the streets and lives of Merv and its surrounding areas – the past empires, the battles and the killing are long forgotten, “These too have passed”, and are replaced by everyday life of marriage, birth, everyday life and prosperity and death. In short the world moved on. 

In the final few minutes of Shakespeare’s great play The Tempest mighty Prospero reflects the transient and ephemeral nature of mankind and his world by speaking some of the most famous words from all Shakespeare, indeed from all literature, and in doing so he confirms Attar of Nishapur’s tale of the ring upon which was etched “This too shall pass”:

“Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep”.

Quite, and today, as I think of the many and worrying present discontents that scream from our 24 hour TV News and are splashed in large print across our newspapers– Covid, divisive politics, global warming and the rest – it is very easy to be worried, angry, upset and fearful of the world in which we live. But we would all be well advised to also be hopeful because for each and every one of us, “These sadnesses, worries and anxieties too shall pass”. Of course, once these have “passed” there will without doubt be others to concern us but as my little brief excursion into ancient history via Virgil’s The Aenied  and Thubron’s wonderful book reminded me we are all just tiny specks in the great sweeping and moving sands of time; the mighty Roman and Persian armies of three millennia ago are long gone, the majestic and once all powerful Empires and Emperors of Rome, Persia, and the rest are swept away, all dust, and the ancient Trojan, Greek and Roman heroes so magnificently described by Virgil are no more. That is the nature of all humanity it is never still, "all things will pass".

Sara Teasdale

A century ago in 1918 during the final months of the 1^st World War Europe lay in ruins, there were millions dead and the whole world was reeling from four years of intense trench warfare the like of which the world had never before. It was all witnessed by the young American poet Sara Teasdale who reflected upon her ruined world but also upon its rebirth and the inconsequence of we, mere mortals, in that rebirth. The result was her famous poem of hope There Will Come Soft Rains, a work that perfectly encapsulates the ephemeral world that mankind inhabits. It is, perhaps, apposite for these Spring days of rebirth as we struggle to move forward, remake our post Covid lives, and hope our many present discontents “will pass”. Like the tale told by the Sufi poet, or the rise and fall of great empires such as those recorded by Virgil and Homer, or the story of the once great city of Merv the poem is a fitting reminder in these momentous and worrying times of our transitory world and the transitory lives that we all lead.

There Will Come Soft Rains

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

 

"The Tyranny of Self"

The email in my Inbox this morning was clear. From a national holiday tour company which I have used before it informed me in bold headlines “We all deserve a little luxury”. It went on to explain that following the events of the past 12 months a little luxury is something that we all – and here it named me specifically – both need and deserve. Mmmmmm? But, I cannot help wondering, upon what basis is this assertion made? Do I – or does anyone else for that matter - deserve a little luxury? A “little luxury” would be nice, it’s true, but upon what premise or reasoning do I deserve it I ask myself? Is there some great universal truth that says that “a little luxury” is my rightful entitlement – for that is the implication of my "deserving" a little luxury - or is it, as I suspect, simply a vacuous assertion which not only has little worth or meaning but which has become part of our modern contemporary popular culture to be repeated and accepted as a great truth and a potential justification for dubious action? These are not flippant questions nor is this an isolated message; it is a message that we are exposed to incessantly in some form or another in the adverts on our TV screens, in our newspapers and in glossy magazines. It is also something that we have increasingly told our children in the past half century – that we, and they, are fully entitled to and deserving of whatever “luxuries” or dreams or desires they might have. In the words of the cosmetic advert “Go on – you know you’re worth it”; it is the cult of self that tells us that we have some kind of God given right to pleasure, luxury and self interest. It is also a very worrying trend.

It is, in terms of humanity, a relatively new phenomenon. Whilst parents throughout the ages have probably hoped and wished that their children would have better, easier, more fulfilling, more economically safe lives than themselves it is only in the last couple of centuries that these wishes have been widely met. In the past 50 years or so, however, things have almost certainly changed. We live today in an age when parents don’t just hope that their offspring’s life will be better than their own but where people are actively encouraged to maximise self interest and self advancement, when the young are advised from their earliest years that their personal happiness is paramount and that they can and should seek to fulfil their every dream; it is their birthright to be happy. It is the age of the self entitled and, sadly, the self righteous; an age where personal desires dominate, where little or nothing should stand in the way of our desires and happiness, where only our opinion is right, where only we are the holders of the truth; and if you disagree and seek to thwart or limit my desires, my self advancement, my entitlement and my self interest then you should be silenced, usually, by the power of social media.

But, in the face of a world where self advancement, self entitlement and self righteousness increasingly prevail the grounds for altruism or even good behaviour become obscured. If we enthusiastically support the propensity of people - especially the young - to look exclusively to their own needs and desires and where they are the sole guardians of “the truth” – their truth - we should not be surprised when their self advancement, self entitlement, self righteousness and their “truth” leads to the toppling statues, "no platforming" in our Universities, "trigger warnings" to preface academic lectures and tutorials or breaking the law by having public demonstrations which are in these Covid times forbidden. They might be quick to denounce perceived racism, sexism, homophobia, inequality and all the other real or perceived ills that affect our world but in reality their quickness to take offence is the only quick thing about them.

We are entering an age – termed by many as the Woke age - where a new breed of extremists who champion what they see as compassion and understanding yet are feral to those who disagree. It is an age which might also be described as the “tyranny of self” where, if you are not with these champions of self advancement, self interest and self entitlement you are against them for they have been brought up to believe nothing is their fault and that their cause comes before all else, including, sometimes, the law. It is a zero sum game in which the baying mob seek to remove all nuance and shades of opinion – always the first objective of any would be dictator or tyrannical regime.

But all this has consequences. We should not be too surprised today in this age to find a falling away in terms of civic engagement, public decision making and indeed distrust and lack of engagement with public and political institutions and affairs. We should not be surprised when this leads to a wider rejection of those elected to be in charge of our affairs or indeed those, like the police, mandated to uphold the law. We should not be surprised that the very health and nature of our democracy is at stake.

But at the same time, nor should we be at all surprised when this personal and civic disappointment and disengagement becomes an issue of personal well being and mental health. In short, we have made our young a promise that in most cases cannot be delivered; they have been promised the earth and that nothing is out of reach but the University of Life so often disappoints: harsh reality kicks in and disappointment, disengagement, anger or personal anxiety too often become features of life both individual and societal. They have been led to believe and expect that the world is theirs, that their truth is the only truth; that their happiness, success and beliefs are the only things that matter and to which they are entitled – and that is a thin gruel indeed upon which to build a life and offers no protection when their “truths” are found wanting, and their needs, desires and expectations are disappointed.

Much of our present impasse can be traced back to the 1960s but although its roots are there the cult of the individual, of self interest, self entitlement and self righteousness is more linked to the late 1970s and 80s. One of the moderating constraints of the ’60s was the widespread impulse to enter public service or the liberal professions: education, medicine, journalism, government, the arts or public sector law. Few—very few—graduates before the mid -’70s sought out a ‘business’ education; and the numbers applying to law school were far lower than they are today. Instrumental self-advancement conflicted with the acquired habit of working with and for one’s fellow citizens. In a survey of English schools in 1949 it was discovered that the more intelligent the child the more likely he or she was to choose and interesting career with a reasonable wage, job security and personal satisfaction over a job that simply paid well.

Recent surveys – and especially those dating from the 1990’s – however, are conclusive, and tell us that today’s young increasingly can imagine little else but the search for a lucrative career. They, and we, are fast losing the ability to even imagine a society or a career based upon anything other than personal gain and self satisfaction and self entitlement. Both at an individual level and a societal level we are losing a sense of purpose – other than our own short term advantage. Political scientist the late Albert Hirschman spoke of “the need for all societies to develop and ensure their ability to satisfy and promote a higher purpose and meaning in the lives of its men and women”; that is an ideal that is in the 21st century under severe strain. In the face of rampant globalisation, the consumer society, social media, a culture of self interest, self advancement, self entitlement and celebrity obsession we are in danger of losing completely.

And when it is gone, what is left? Margaret Thatcher’s comment that “There is no such thing as society” takes on a powerful and worrying resonance. In such a culture where the old ties, hopes, fears, realities and aspirations that once bound us together have been replaced with self interest, self advancement, self entitlement and self righteousness, where the young are advised from their earliest years that their personal happiness is paramount, and where the consumer society, the media and social media scream out to all “Go on – you’re worth it, you can have it all”, we inevitably will have increased difficulty in comprehending what we have in common with others, for our self is all that matters. We lose touch with the affinities, the hopes, dreams, hopes and fears of our neighbours; we are in danger of losing empathy and understanding with those around us and in the wider world; we have become an “I” society replacing what was until the last 40 years or so a “We” society. And as that happens the very fabric of our moral as well as our democratic landscape is in danger of falling apart in the face of the "tyranny of self"

"Don't worry about it, nobody died" - But they did!

With the brashness and confidence of youth my son, many years ago, would often say if either my wife or I came home from work with some problem or other that was causing us anxiety "Don't worry about it, nobody died". We always had a laugh about his flippant comment but accepted that he probably had a point and in a way, I suppose, it all helped to keep things in some kind of perspective.

A grim faced Boris Johnson -
regret but no responsibility

I've thought much about his "words of wisdom" in the past day or two as I have kept up with the news. Firstly, earlier this week a suitably grim looking Boris Johnson told us that the 100,000 UK Covid deaths landmark was a great source of sorrow to him and "difficult to compute" but, he added, that his government "truly did everything they could". And then yesterday we residents of Nottingham read the Coroner's Report following the suicide of a young Nottingham mother Philippa Day. She had committed suicide following grave and accepted errors by the DWP in the payment of her various benefits resulting in her getting seriously in debt and this leading to her suicide. I listened horrified as the TV news played her last pleading and harrowing phone call asking for help.

Both of these bits of news have one thing in common - people died; it doesn't get much graver and more serious than that - as I'm sure that my son would agree!

Both Boris Johnson and a "spokesman" for the DWP expressed their respective sorrow and condolences at these events but whilst they expressed sorrow and regret, neither took responsibility. And so, our world moves on. Apologies like Johnson's and that of the DWP are given to paper over the cracks and provide a modicum of "decency"; honour (if there be such a thing in our modern world) is satisfied. But two days later these easily spoken and cheap words of sympathy, accompanied with grave faces and sombre words, are forgotten - like yesterday's news they become today's fish and chip paper and the day after that they are forgotten as they fill our paper recycling wheelie bins - gone, blown away, unheeded in the maelstrom of our frenetic world.

So, I ask myself - following my son's youthful pearls of wisdom that the death of someone (or in Boris Johnson's case 100,000 Covid "someones") is of some grave significance and therefore a legitimate cause for concern and anxiety - shouldn't something serious happen to ensure that these grave matters are treated with due seriousness, that justice is served and that full and appropriate action is taken in respect of the deaths these almost certainly "innocent" people? Or will it, as I fear, be allowed to just pass like water under the bridge - a bit of unfortunate rather sad and messy collateral damage arising out of the world in which we live? Something that is regrettable but not a matter to get "out of perspective" or (to use a modern phrase) that we should "beat ourselves up with". Maybe we should just follow the advice in another clichéd bit of contemporary vapid and vacuous popular street culture posing as profound wisdom and "move on, get over it". I think not.

From what we read and know, both of these tragedies in their different ways could have been avoided or at least minimised with a different set of priorities and decisions. The crocodile tears of our PM and the weasel words of the DWP are, in my view, not acceptable. For years now successive Tory governments have promoted the policy of "naming and shaming" when people in other walks of life doctors, teachers, social workers, police officers and the like fail in their perceived responsibilities - so why not governments and their ministers and government departments? But no-one is named and shamed, no-one resigns, no-one falls on their sword as a matter of personal and professional "honour". The reason for this is simple, namely that naming and shaming would not work for governments and ministers because that policy only works if those who are being vilified have any personal or professional "shame" - in other words they care about how well they do their job and so do feel shamed if they fall short or are accused by their superiors of falling short. In contrast, our current government and its ministers - and most of all our PM, have no shame or indeed honour - if they had then they would have gone long since.

Philippa Day in happier times; her
 tragic and unnecessary death was  proof
 of the truth of Camus' comment.

The whole episode reminds me of a famous point made by French author/philosopher Albert Camus who said "Every wrong idea ends in bloodshed, but it is always the bloodshed of innocent others". Quite; the wrong ideas of successive Tory government austerity policies meant that we were woefully and criminally unprepared for the effects of this pandemic, the wrong ideas of Boris Johnson and his cronies in managing our national response to the pandemic then made that situation immeasurably worse. And in the case of poor Philippa Day (and almost certainly many others) the wrong ideas of successive Tory governments and ministers (most notably Iain Duncan Smith) in respect of protecting and supporting the most vulnerable in our fragile society have been both directly and indirectly at the bottom of these many and tragic events.

We should be very, very worried at the failure of those in power and those charged with making potentially life and death decisions to recognise the profound moral requirements associated with their role and equally worryingly their reluctance to accept the ultimate responsibility for their actions and decisions.

When False Belief Bumps Into Reality

Washington 2021

 The pandemic under which we are all currently living has brought the nation to its knees and caused suffering and distress quite unimaginable just a few months ago. It is unlikely to get significantly better any time soon. Having said that I am increasingly of a mind to suggest that there is another aspect of our national life that in the long run might have even more disastrous and distressing consequences.

In the past five years in this country we have seen a rapid and insidious growth in lying by those in power. We have a Prime Minister who casually and unashamedly lies to both Parliament and the electorate. He is ably assisted in this by other senior

Priti Patel Brexiteer and government minister
promising what cannot be delivered to the NHS

Tory politicians. The Brexit campaign was based upon and ultimately won on a strategy of lying - most obviously in the lie emblazoned across the Brexit bus promising £350 million pounds each week for the NHS once we left Europe. The lying continues, like Pinocchio's nose it grows and grows - so that now every other aspect of our political life is tainted by the the knowledge that we are almost certainly not being told the truth by those in power. "Fake news" - a euphemism for lying - has become the buzz phrase of our times and the most worrying and appalling aspect of the whole charade is that no-one seems to care; Joe Public now casually accepts that this is reality and we should just accept the fact. It's just what politicians do. And Joe Public now takes it further - rather than being appalled too often he jumps on the bandwagon and repeats lie, spreads the fake news even when it is manifestly an untruth. In short we have lost our moral compass.

Trump - a man who spreads lies
quite unlike anyone else on Earth

We are not, of course, alone. Across the Atlantic the once great USA is politically on its knees following the 4 year presidency of Trump and his henchmen. We should watch America and learn. When governments become tainted and corrupt because they lack integrity and when the electorate refuse to acknowledge the obvious - that truth and integrity matter - then things can get nasty very quickly. It is the starting point for unrest and insurrection - a condition that ultimately, and unlike Covid, there is no quick fix vaccine for. It is very easy for nations to slip into civil unrest and civil war - one only needs to look at other nations around the world throughout history and in our own times to see the truth of this.

Seventy years ago - at a time when integrity actually meant something in the political and social life of the nation writer George Orwell eloquently reminded us of this in his essay "In Front of Your Nose". He didn't use the phrase "fake news" and his main point was that people are often in denial about what constitutes truth and how we react to it. This is what he said:

"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue. And then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite period of time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”

The arch villain Dominic Cummings
a man who gleefully spreads deceit and
misrepresentation to further his own ambitions 

Orwell, as usual, was not wrong - the truth of his statement is to be seen on the "battlefield" streets of Washington and other US cities where "false belief" has indeed bumped up against "solid reality". It is a scene that can very easily (and I suspect will) come to this nation sooner or later unless we bring back to our political and social life some semblance of integrity and truth.

Boris Johnson - a serial liar -  a man who has
 built his whole career on lies and is probably
 unaware of when he is lying so deeply is it
ingrained into his psyche

The solution is not easy nor is it quick. To do this every single member of the electorate must win the first battle - the battle of the ballot box - by voting for those with integrity and commitment to the common good rather than the quick fix, glib solutions of snake oil salesmen like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. They must then win the second battle - by being well informed, taking a pride in their civic responsibilities, and holding to account those that they have voted for. It is only in this way that the political pandemic of deceit, fake news and lack of moral compass which is sweeping the world and is at its most prevalent in the USA and the UK can be overcome.