"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.

A Christmas Carol or "To Give and Not to Count the Cost........."

 

At the beginning of 1858 Charles Dickens became President of the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital Appeal and on February 9th of that year he read his great book “A Christmas Carol” to an assembled audience of social reformers and potential donors. Before the reading he gave what is often regarded as one of his greatest and most powerful speeches about the social conditions of his time. The whole, very long, speech is recorded The Nursing Record of that time. In it he told of an experience he had had whilst on one of his many – almost nightly - walks around London’s poorest areas. Dickens frequently walked the streets of London at night – on his walks he got ideas for many of his plots, his characters (in books such as Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby and, of course, A Christmas Carol) and to fuel his vivid descriptions of the great city of Victorian London. Dickens described in that speech to his audience of a powerful and telling scene that he had witnessed on one of his walks:

“There  lay, in an  old egg-box, which the  mother had  begged  from a shop, a little feeble, wasted,  wan,  sick  child.  With  his  little  wasted face,  and  his  little  hot  worn  hands folded over  his breast,  and  his little  bright  attentive  eyes,  I  can see him  now looking  steadily  at  us.  There  he  lay in  his  little frail box,  which was not at all a bad  emblem of the little body,  from  which  he  was  slowly  parting, - there  he lay  quite  quiet,  quite  patient,  saying  never a word.  He  seldom cried,  the  mother  said;  he seldom  complained;  he  lay  there  seeming  to  wonder what it  was about.  “God  knows” I thought, as I stood  looking  at  him,  he  had  his  reasons  for wondering - how  it  could possibly come  to  be  that  he  lay there,  left  alone, feeble  and full of pain. There  he  lay  looking  at us, saying  in  his   silence,  more  pathetically  than  I have ever  heard  anything  said by  any  orator in alI my  life,  “Will  you please  to  tell  me  what  this means,  strange  man?  and  if  you  can  give me any good  reason  why  I should  be  so  soon  so   far advanced  upon  my  way  to  Him  who  said that children  were  to  come  into  His presence,  and were not to  be  forbidden,  but  who  scarcely  meant,  I think,  that  they should  come  by  this  hard  road by which I am  travelling..........”

Great Ormond Street Hospital  was established in 1852 after a long campaign by Dr Charles West, a personal friend of Dickens, with just 10 beds and on that night when Dickens spoke to the little group of potential donors he read to his audience “A Christmas Carol”. This was not an idle or little thought about choice – Dickens was no fool and on this matter he was both angry and determined to make people think so he chose his great Christmas tale to point a finger at the excesses of the City and at the gradgrind world of the  accountant and selfish  Scrooge-like  figures that haunted it. But, he also knew that people mattered when it came to care and compassion and so in telling the story of the baby in the egg box he was unapologetically pricking consciences and appealing to ordinary people to pay up, to be responsible for the health and welfare of their fellow men. Together, the two stories were intended to plant a moral question into the minds of his audience and to ask them to shoulder the responsibility – not hand it on to some management accountant or venture capitalist or private equity company. In short – and as Dickens posed the question first set out in the Book of Genesis - to his audience: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

At the end of his reading of "A Christmas Carol" Dickens appealed directly to his audience and put the ball squarely in their court:   " Now, ladies  and  gentlemen,  such  things [the sick child in the egg box] need not be,  and will  not be,  if  this  company,  which  is  a  drop of the life-blood of the  great compassionate public  heart,  will  only accept the means of rescue and  prevention  which it is mine to offer and make a donation to this worthy cause and if every grateful mother who brings a child  to the hospital  will  drop a  penny  into a box placed on the wall of the hospital,  the  Hospital  funds  may  possibly  be increased  in  a year by so large a  sum  as  forty pounds. I will  not believe that  in  a Christian  community  of  fathers  and  mothers,  and brothers  and sisters, the hospital can fail to  be  well and  richly  endowed".   

As Dickens concluded the records tell us, that there were great cheers from the audience.  It worked - the appeal was very successful. Dickens acknowledged , it was a small drop on the ocean – he was originally looking for only thirty beds (an increase on the 10 beds that the hospital had started its life) but by 1865 there were 75 beds available.  It was very small stuff with which to tackle the giant health and social problems of the time; the hospital had to depend upon the goodwill of well wishers and patrons - but work it did. People put their hands in their pockets, not necessarily for themselves but for their fellow man and woman – Great Ormond Street Hospital was born. Today, of course, Great Ormond Street is one of the great hospitals of the world, one of the "jewels in the crown" of our nation, but it was born of a small acts of giving from well intentioned but ordinary people.

I wonder, today, as 2020 nears its end and when Dickens’ great Christmas tale is in many minds, what the author would say of a country that almost 200 years after he wrote his great works and despite being one of the richest nations the planet has ever seen still needs food banks, campaigns from high profile people like Marcus Rashford, and hand outs from international agencies such as UNICEF to feed its poorest. I wonder, too, what Dickens would write of the wealth and excess that typifies the City of London and many of those (like Jacob Reece-Mogg) who benefit from its wealth and excess or work in its gilded towers when contrasted with the lot of people who live in places like Southwark – within walking distance of that great financial centre – and other similar deprived areas throughout the land? Almost two centuries have passed since Dickens took his midnight walks through the gas lit streets of Victorian London where beggars, poverty stricken children and ill health amongst the poor was common place. Sadly, however, as the report by Sir Michael Marmot “Fair Society, Healthy Lives” published last week showed with frightening clarity, little has really changed for many in those two centuries. I think that our current discontents would have depressed and angered the great writer – as would the facile and offensive comments by Reece-Mogg, who is himself one of the great beneficiaries of the wealth, excess and accountancy world of the City of London. It would also have offended Dickens to hear that a well respected world institution like UNICEF in trying to help the most needy in society, was condemned by a receiver of great wealth, as just “playing politics.”

And there is another point which in many ways is the most telling – both of Dickens’ efforts to raise money for the fledgling  hospital and the reaction of Reece-Mogg to the UNICEF act of giving in 2020. It is this; The Nursing Record of February 1858 in recording the events of that night when Dickens appealed for donations ended its report with these words: “.....the ladies and gentlemen of the audience afforded Mr Dickens great and rousing cheers as donations and endowments were pledged....”. Clearly they were applauding the man and his great story and his appeal but were they not also applauding something else – namely the very act of giving? When these wealthy Victorians had pledged and donated did they not simply feel good about it and a little more human – so they cheered and applauded. That is true of most of us – when we give it makes us feel better about ourselves, we feel that we are making a contribution to someone’s happiness – be it a birthday or Christmas gift to a friend or relation or a donation to a favourite charity - the result is the same. The act of giving to someone else gives us some kind of personal dignity and a feeling that we have contributed to the community, to the greater good, to the common good. We might be cynical and say that if Bill Gates donates millions to some cause he is merely easing his tax burden  - and it might be argued that he is – but that does not alter the fact he can still feel good about his actions, he has made a difference to the life of someone else. From my perspective if that is, to use Mogg's words "playing politics" then I say bring it on"! It is a basic aspect of the human condition that most of us wish to feel good about ourselves, to have a high level of personal esteem, to feel that others look up to us – and when those feelings are not there it can impact upon our mental health – it is the consequence of being a social animal. So it is no surprise that those long gone Victorians cheered and applauded when they had done their good deed – had we been in that room we would have probably done the same – and given ourselves a pat on the back and thought how virtuous we were. It’s called being human.

Sadly, however, Jacob Reece-Mogg, the MP for North East Somerset and bizarrely the man appointed by our present PM as the Leader of the House of Commons has no such humanitarian feelings. Presumably had he been in that room that night in 1858 he would have left before the end muttering about Dickens being some kind of “leftie anarchist playing politics”. He would have kept his hand firmly on his wallet, unmoved by the pictures that Dickens painted of life for the poor in what, at that time, was the greatest and wealthiest city on the planet. It is a damning and moral indictment on Mogg who is a devout Roman Catholic,  that this Scrooge like millionaire is so scathing on those who seek to help the poor – UNICEF, Marcus Rashford and others – when one of the great prayers of the Church – and especially the Roman Catholic Church - is that of St Ignatius of Loyola; a prayer which reminds us all of our personal and Christian responsibilities, and the moral imperatives which ought to guide our actions as human beings – especially in the act of giving:

"Teach me good Lord to serve thee as thou deservest
To give and not to count the cost,
To fight and not to heed the wounds,
To toil and not to seek for rest,
To labour and not to ask for reward
Save that of knowing I do Thy Will"

A CHRISTMAS CAROL 2020

 Over the past decade while the Tories have been in power we have seen an exponential growth in poverty – however it is defined; that is not opinion, it is fact. We have seen a rise in what is known as the gig economy where workers are often paid no more than survival pay with a lack of any other benefits from their employment such as sick pay. We have seen increasing numbers of people sleeping rough, sofa surfing or in hostels. We have seen an exponential growth in the numbers resorting to food banks. Schools and other institutions report increasing numbers of people having to choose between putting a meal on the table for children or heating the home. We have seen an exponential growth in the number of people needing to apply for various kinds of benefit – and at the same time we have witnessed successive Tory administrations tightening the purse strings.

Only a few days ago Sir Michael Marmot published his long awaited report “Fair Society, Healthy Lives” which is scathing about the growing inequalities in this country and their impact upon the most vulnerable. Earlier this year a professional footballer, Marcus Rashford, himself born into poverty, named and shamed the government and had to drag them kicking and screaming to acknowledge the growing problem made worse by the economic effect of Covid 19 and pay for meals for school children. A week ago I watched an item on the BBC news about two Burnley vicars: Father Alec Frost and Pastor Mick Fleming who vividly and distressingly described the lives and problems – especially in relation to putting a meal on the table - facing many in that town. So, powerful was the message of the broadcast that over a quarter of a million pounds has been raised by donations to help these men in their endeavours in supporting those in the front line of poverty in England 2020. And finally, earlier this week it was UNICEF that recognised what our own government could not or were unwilling to recognise; namely, we do indeed have a problem of poverty in the UK. The organisation launched its first domestic emergency response in the UK by setting up various funding projects aimed at helping children and their families in need of help.

That was the final straw for Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg – a man so far removed from any kind of reality, so lacking in understanding, empathy and compassion it is difficult to comprehend or attach to him any of the usual descriptors of the human condition. (Remember, Reece-Mogg is the same gentleman who after the Grenfell Tower fire disaster said those who perished only died because they did not show his - Mogg's - common sense!).When questioned about the UNICEF project in the Commons he was scathing in his response saying that UNICEF should be “ashamed of itself” for “playing politics” by (for example) offering to provide breakfasts for some of the poorest in society in Southwark, London. Presumably Reece-Mogg also believes that the two Burnley vicars should cease “playing politics”, as should Marcus Rashford – and clearly, the Marmot Report will not be on the Reece–Mogg reading list this Christmas.

As I watched Reece-Mogg protesting about UNICEF’s actions I did not see the gaunt, almost Dickensian like second rate politician who has somehow managed to become one of the many unacceptable faces of not only the Tory party but of England 2020. Instead of Mogg I saw another Dickensian character, a man who Mogg can be very easily mistaken for both in looks and opinions. As I watched, it was Mogg's lips that moved but it was Ebenezer Scrooge's voice that I heard in one of the great extracts from Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”.

On Christmas Eve two gentlemen enter Scrooge’s counting house, their mission to raise donations to help the poor in the area at Christmas time. The conversation that follows tells us all we need to know about Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens' great tale, but it also reflects with frightening accuracy Jacob Reece-Mogg and Tory Britain. If you substitute the name Scrooge and insert Reece-Mogg in its place Dickens’ main thrust still holds perfectly true!:

“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge (Reece Mogg),” said one of the gentlemen, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”

“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge (Reece-Mogg).

“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge (Reece-Mogg).

“Are they still in operation?”

“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”

“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.

“Both very busy, sir.”

“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”

“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”

“Nothing!” Scrooge replied.

“You wish to be anonymous?”

“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.”

“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”

“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge (Reece-Mogg), “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. It's not my business, it's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!".

Welcome to Tory Britain 2020 - as foretold by Charles Dickens in 1843. It is perhaps worth noting that the Tories were in power in 1843 (Prime Minister Robert Peel) when Dickens published his great tale - little it seems has changed in Tory ideology or compassion in the intervening 177 years. St Paul preached that: “Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity” - clearly none of those virtues applied in the world of Ebenezer Scrooge but today, nearly two centuries, later they are receiving short shrift still in the Tory party, in the world of Jacob Reece-Mogg and in the hearts and minds of the Tory faithful. Now, in my eighth decade on the planet, I often today wonder if society has moved on at all in the intervening years? Sadly, I fear that society and we haven't.

UNDER THE JOLLY TODGER: A YEAR CRUISING WITH CAPTAIN BORIS

I read today that our stumbling, bumbling Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has been given a new nickname by many of his Tory MP “supporters.” With delightful timing, bearing in mind today’s date, he is increasingly referred to, I understand, as “Advent Calendar” because his days are, apparently, numbered! Ah! December 1st, Advent – from the Latin “Coming”. Children throughout the world will be opening the numbered doors and windows on their Advent Calendars and dreaming of the coming Christmas Day and all that it promises. In my street several houses are already decorated with bright fairy lights and Christmas trees. Yesterday we began to write our Christmas cards and wished our family and friends happiness during the coming Christmas and New Year.

But what a long way we have come since we expressed those same sentiments during Advent 2019. Then, only 366 days ago, the good ship HMS United Kingdom was steaming ahead across an almost serene sea with its newly appointed captain Jolly Boris assisted by his first mate Dubious Dominic and his crafty cabinet crew of scurvy sea dogs. We passengers on HMS United Kingdom were all looking forward to the usual excesses of the Christmas season – office parties, City bonuses, our credit card debt mounting, city centre pubs and clubs awash ensuring that emergency services were kept busy and a thousand other fantasies, dreams and desires which were stoked up by Jolly Boris for, as he often announced over the loud hailer, our magnificent ship would soon reach the shores of the magical kingdom of Brexitland where our every need would be met and every dream fulfilled. There would be jobs, money and joy for all; the years of austerity, misery and pain would be over so spend, spend, spend. And in the casinos, the shops and the pubs and restaurants of HMS United Kingdom we spent what we liked and what we did not have - for we were, Captain Boris told us, on the greatest ship ever created, full of riches, luxurious and quite unsinkable and on course to a magical land of plenty.

 No one, however, thought too hard about the passengers in Economy Class decks deep down in the bowels of the ship. For them office parties, restaurants, maxed out credit cards, huge bonuses or even Christmas joy were a far off dream. They lived off the crumbs from the overflowing tables above and Captain Boris told us that this was good and called it "trickle down economics" so we should keep partying so that our crumbs would trickle down to the poorest passengers below decks. These Economy Class passengers passed the journey in the oil and the dark near the the engine rooms of HMS United Kingdom whilst above them the rest of us in Tourist Class, 2nd Class and 1st Class, cheered on by Captain Boris, enjoyed the sun light, the bright lights and the excesses of the Advent Sea and the Brexit Ocean beyond. But as we made merry no-one, especially captain Jolly Boris, took any notice of the lookout high above in the crow’s nest who daily shouted “Danger, Brexit iceberg ahead prepare for a crash”. The good captain laughed his jolly laugh and said “Full steam ahead my hearties, nothing can stand in our way, we are unsinkable, I'll get you to Brexitland easily”. And in the coming weeks Captain Boris and his crafty crew took no notice either when the lookouts called from their lofty perches “Covid Mists ahead prepare for a plague”. Captain Boris and his First Mate Dubious Dominic said “Don’t worry it’s a storm in a tea cup, you’ll hardly feel the ripples in our mighty ship – we’ll send the Covid Mist packing”. So, no preparations were made as the HMS United Kingdom steamed on through Advent and the New Year towards the Brexit Iceberg and the Covid Mists. And – just like on the unsinkable Titanic a century before – on the upper decks the band continued to play while the passengers, Captain Boris, and his scurvy crew, like the jolly Jack Tars of old, danced the hornpipe under Captain Boris’ own flag – the Jolly Todger – a personal standard emblazoned with the names of the many offspring that he had fathered each time he had dropped his anchor in fair old London town. But as Captain Boris danced and made merry, below decks in the darkness the Third Class passengers, the Economy Class passengers, the Gig Economy Class passengers and lowest of all, in the very bilges of the ship, the passengers with no cabin or bed to lie on - the Homeless passengers - struggled on, getting food where they might and sleeping on the cold iron floor when they must. And, uncaring, the good ship HMS United Kingdom with its wealthy passengers and crafty crew cruised on towards Brexitland when, Captain Boris told us passengers, our great journey would soon be done.

And the days and weeks passed. Another year, and here we are. Advent 2020. The good ship HMS United Kingdom is still afloat – just - limping along, lost and alone on a vast sea. Its sails are in tatters, its sick bays full. Its glossy shops are all closed and its restaurants and bars empty. Passengers who once enjoyed the sun and the excess of the upper decks now peer out from their cabins their faces haunted and fearful – thoughts of casinos, bars and revelry all gone. Great dents and gashes mark the hull of the ship following the many crashes with the Brexit Iceberg, and icy waters leak in to the great hull and making the ship list dangerously. Below decks the Economy Class passengers are fewer now – many have died as the Covid Mists drifted through the dark spaces in the bowels of the ship and along corridors and slipped under cabin doors. The Covid Mist overtook the ship, crept into every corner and in the bowels and bilges the Economy Class passengers, already suffering from poor health following years of harsh labour and poverty fell ill in great numbers; their poor diet and cramped conditions making life difficult to sustain. And once the virus mist crept amongst them it spread like wildfire. Captain Boris however stayed jolly – and many loved him for it – he could not bear to see the terrible truths that people were dying because the look out in the crow's nest had not been heeded and no preparations had been made. And, because of the quest for Brexitland the ship had lost its bearings zig-zagging and going in circles over the endless Brexit Ocean. But still Captain Boris did little; he didn’t like work or worry. Life was for living not worrying or planning and preparing, he and his crafty crew of sea dogs were too busy for boring stuff like planning a good course or paying attention to advice and detail instead they spent their time dancing and singing under the Jolly Todger. And some of the passengers began to mutter and complain but Captain Boris took no notice.

 Now, however, no one today, in this 2020 Advent, aboard the once unstoppable and unsinkable HMS United Kingdom dreams of Christmas excess, huge bonuses or office parties – most of us passengers would be happy with a quiet and safe Christmas spent in our cabins with our loved ones. Captain Boris no longer cheers people on with his loud hailer promising them riches beyond belief – he appears only rarely, his face haunted and haggard. His trusty First Mate Dubious Dominic walked the plank and many other of the scurvy crew are now food for the fishes. But Captain Jolly Boris, not now so jolly, lives on like some 21st century Captain Ahab emerging only from his cabin only when it is safe. Ahab scanned the oceans for his nemesis Moby Dick, the great white whale, and Captain Boris scans the ocean for his own twin nemeses Brexitland and Covidvaccineland. He still hopes that the magical Brexitland will bring him salvation and that Covidvaccineland will, by some scientific miracle be avoided if scientists come up with a cure. If not, Captain Boris knows that like the Advent Calendar his days are numbered. Like Captain Ahab, he will be swallowed up by his nemeses – it will be political oblivion.

But as he scans the ocean through his telescope looking for some salvation Captain Boris sees only a sea of floating bodies wrapped in their Union Flags – the dead victims of the Covid Mist that swallowed up our unprepared ship and are now buried at sea. And below Captain Boris’ feet in Economy Class the surviving poor scramble for what little food, water or warmth there is, fighting for daily handouts. And as they sleep, cold in the bowels of the hulk they dream that one day they might find themselves on dry land where they can feel the sun, till the soil or build a rough cabin to call a home of their own – anything, to survive and escape from the floating nightmare that is the HMS United Kingdom under the captaincy of Jolly Boris and his scurvy crew. As the sun sets HMS United Kingdom lists a little more and parts of it begin to break off and the passengers on the Scottish Deck talk of taking to the lifeboats and seeking safety elsewhere, perhaps on the good ship EU. But on HMS United Kingdom the old hull creaks and groans as Captain Boris, his eyes blinded by the constant searching for the sunny uplands of Brexitland, scans the horizon whilst behind him the band plays on; playing again, as it plays every day when another burial at sea takes place, the same hymn that it did on the Titanic when that mighty unsinkable ship sank a century before: “Nearer my God to thee”.

Ah, Advent. How times have changed in just one year, 366 days. We dreamed last Advent of the excitement, promise and joy of Christmas and New Year excess and wrote “a happy New Year” on our Christmas cards. Who could have guessed? Who could have forecast? In all truth, no one – but we ignored all the signs, we allowed Captain Jolly Boris and his scurvy crew to grab control and to continue powering full steam ahead when all sense and wisdom said slow down, take notice, make preparations, check the life boats. We thought we were invincible and believed Captain Boris when he laughingly told us that the HMS United Kingdom was great and unsinkable – but we were not invincible and HMS United Kingdom was not unsinkable. From Advent 2019 when we thought we sailed supreme in a glossy impregnable marvel on a serene sea of pleasure and plenty we have discovered in twelve short months that we are actually a rather miserable lot, not exceptional or great or invincible as Captain Boris so often told us. We are just a very ordinary set of passengers - foolish, pathetic even - and kept afloat, our heads just above water only by luck on an increasingly frightening sea in a rusting, leaking hulk where survival, and not Christmas excess and a happy New Year, has become the realty of the game of life.

Serendipity!

I love the word “serendipity”. I don’t think I’ve ever actually used it in my life but just love the sound of it and its meaning. According to the OED serendipity means “finding interesting or valuable things by chance” and this week I did, I think, experience “serendipity” and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience! Let me explain.

Mr Bolton as I remember him

When I was 11 I, like most of the boys in my junior school class, failed my 11+ exam and so was destined for Fishwick Secondary Modern in Preston Lancashire. It had a reputation of being a tough place but in those far off days – and especially for kids like me from a working class background - you just accepted your lot. In the end places like Fishwick had largely one purpose – producing “factory fodder” for the cotton mills and heavy industry of northern England. It was what they did and did very successfully.

I was there between 1956 and 1961 and it was undeniably a school of its time subject to the legal requirements and the social/historical context in which it had to operate. It is true that there were many short comings which we can recognise with the benefit of hindsight from 2020 but despite this my time there was a happy and productive 5 years . The hard working staff and excellent leadership of Dr McEwan provided us rough and ready kids with opportunities that in those days many secondary moderns did not offer. Dr McEwan (we called him Batman because he wore his doctoral gown as he moved around school!) was a quiet and gentle man who arrived shortly after I began my life at Fishwick and reversed many of the "discipline policies" that had ruled under the previous head, the tyrannical Dr Pickard, who ruled with, if not a rod of iron, certainly a fearsome cane. Under Dr McEwan the school began to change rapidly for the better. For me the most important change was that he introduced the opportunity for kids like me to sit O levels – something quite new in most secondary moderns. In the end I came out with my "O" levels and a positive view of education that gave me not only a good start in my career but a desire to "learn for life".

But there was another thing that Dr McEwan did. He appointed a new English teacher and deputy head – a man named Gavin Bolton (see photographs). I was lucky enough to be taught by Mr Bolton and for that I will be forever thankful; he lit a flame which has given me a life-long love of the spoken and written word which now, in my eighth decade, burns even brighter. He exposed us to great literature and wonderful writing opportunities; I can remember sitting enthralled as we read long extracts from Great Expectations by Dickens - the fearsome Magwich and the mysterious Miss Havisham and the rest of the great Dickensian characters of that novel leaping off the page at me. I was thrilled, inspired and the seeds of social awareness and justice were planted within me when Mr Bolton indulged us with Hardy's Jude the Obscure - still today, in my view, the greatest English language novel. Brilliant images and high excitement flashed through my young mind as we ploughed through Buchan's Prester John and John Meade Falkner's tale of smuggling and derring do Moonfleet; later when I had my own class I often relived those classroom hours with Gavin Bolton by using Falkner's great work in my own classroom. A year or two ago I reread, for the first time since leaving Fishwick, Herman Melville's Moby Dick – regarded by many as the greatest novel ever written – and as I turned its 600 pages I could still hear Mr Bolton’s voice from that long ago Fishwick classroom; my pulse again raced - as it had all those years ago - as I pictured the mighty struggles with the great white whale, the maniacal Captain Ahab, the drama of the chase across the high seas and the strange friendship between the story's narrator Ishmael and his friend the tattooed cannibal harpooner Queequeg. I already knew from my own career as a teacher that Mr Bolton's real love was the teaching of drama in schools and I also knew that he became internationally known for his work in drama education; he wrote the biography of probably the most famous drama teacher of all, the late Dorothy Heathcote a lady who I came across on a number of occasions in my own teaching career. And as a young teacher, Mr Bolton's and my own path crossed again in later years. As I climbed the career ladder I attended summer holiday residential courses run by Her Majesty's Inspectorate where eminent inspectors and educationalists lectured and on two of those a guest speaker was Gavin Bolton. The times that I spent during those courses sipping a cup of coffee or a pre-dinner glass of sherry chatting to this charismatic and brilliant man about our time at Fishwick are still treasured memories; he did not know it but not only did he influence my teaching through his lectures during these in-service courses but the visions that he planted, the doors and interests that he opened for me as scruffy 15 year old at a tough secondary school in a northern industrial town have stayed with me and made me what I am to this very day.

All this, of course was just “stuff” in the far reaches of my mind until earlier this week when a bit of serendipity leapt into my life. I was surfing the net carrying out some completely unrelated research when I suddenly came across Mr Bolton's name - and to my delight and surprise – or rather shock - saw the word "Fishwick" leap off my lap top screen! A few more clicks of the mouse and I was reading a Ph.D thesis completed in 1995 by a Canadian student named Laurie Jardine at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. By 1995, I discovered from the thesis, Mr Bolton was a senior lecturer and visiting Professor at that university - and a world renowned figure in the teaching of drama and Ms Jardine was undertaking research on Gavin Bolton, his life and his teaching. Fishwick Secondary Modern was never one of the great schools of the world so to see it mentioned in Ph.D thesis written on the other side of the world was to me quite wonderful. It brought back so many memories, events and names.

Fishwick Prefects 1961: Mr Bolton sits 4th from the left on the front row, Dr McEwan the HT sits at the side of him and next is Miss Bisbrowne the lady DHT. I'm on the third row, third from the right

This is what Ms Jardine wrote:

"An offer came and Gavin became Deputy Headmaster of Fishwick Secondary School, Preston, Lancashire. The move to the Northwest had its problems. The school itself was tough, with a student population quite accustomed to being in the hands of the police - not exactly a fertile ground for the kind of teaching with which Gavin had become comfortable. Pre-war notions of education which called for rigid discipline and non-interactive teaching styles would not ease for some time; for young Bolton, bursting in with respect for students and for learning, the progress seemed very slow. The customary discipline for misbehaviour was caning. The staff had adopted a stiff disciplinarian policy, viewing their role defensively. When Gavin arrived as Deputy Head, he was told, "the only way to deal with these kids is to clip them over the ear", which presented difficult administrative choices for Gavin. Many of the staff were sceptical and outwardly unsympathetic to the idea of introducing drama into the school. Of course, Gavin was convinced that the only way to attack the problems would be through drama and plenty of it. So, in addition to his administrative responsibilities, which included the school timetabling, Gavin made sure that every class in the school had drama, which he taught. Gradually, everyone was won over, and the school developed a positive bias toward drama. Teachers, administration and students began to value the place of drama in their community. The same unmanageable tough kids became drama festival winners, showing up at Drama Club even if they’d been truants for the rest of the day."

Mr Bolton in 1995 at the
University of British Columbia in
Canada - a long way from Preston!

I'm not sure if I agree totally with all Ms Jardine says (I know Fishwick was not Eton but I don't remember it being quite so "tough" as implied here, although we did have some tough kids and at least one stabbing incident that I remember well!) and I would add that Mr Bolton arrived at a time of change for the school in general following Dr McEwan’s appointment as head teacher a couple of years previously. But overall Ms Jardine is correct; it was a tough place and Gavin Bolton made a huge impact.

The seeds that he and Dr McEwan planted in my young mind stayed with me giving me not only a love of the spoken and written word but of learning in general prompting me to first gain my Master’s Degree (M.Ed) in my mid-thirties and then an M.Phil a year or two afterwards and to continue studying throughout my career and still now in my mid 70s. There is rarely a day goes by without me thinking fondly of the Fishwick teachers who taught and inspired me: Gavin Bolton, Harry Helm (maths), Mr Seed (Art), Mr Calderbank (Technical Drawing), Mr Davies (English), Mr Edmundson (Geography), Mr Bamber (PE), Mr Addison (Science), Mr Wolstenholme (Geography) and many many more. These wonderful teachers and my time at Fishwick and the arrival of Dr McEwan and Gavin Bolton not only opened up career doors that a few years before would have been unthinkable for a kid from the narrow terraced streets of Preston who had failed his 11+ but also opened up life doors and gave me a love of learning which I have absolutely no doubts fuelled my desire to become a teacher myself.

My little brush with serendipity has kept me busy all week trying to track down Ms Jardine (no luck so far) to perhaps see if she has any more bits of information about Mr Bolton but beyond that it has done so much more. It has brought many happy memories of another time and another life and the opportunity to reflect upon the people, places and events that have made me what I am. It has also confirmed my long held belief that it is only by looking back at where you have come from that one can understand who and what you are and what you believe in - and from that what your ultimate goal in life should be.