A few nights ago we were offered a choice: to watch the World Cup or attend a lecture on Dunkirk? I asked Jane and driver Markus for their views.
Jane plumped for the World Cup: Markus said, “With two uncles killed at Stalingrad plus the fact I am German, the UK blithering on about Dunkirk is not really my scene!”

Markus managed to watch our football defeat to Croatia with scarcely a tear in his eye!

Another blisteringly warm and humid day. We walk through Swindon and, to be as polite as possible, we are pleased to have finished this section and to be marching through the fields and woods once more. Ever more locked and shuttered gates and towering nettles blocking our way.

Tough Wife

I’m profoundly fortunate in having had Jane as my wife for the past 50 years.

When we were first married we lived in a small house in Edinburgh. One day Jane fell down the stairs and managed to remove the right-hand banisters with her chin. Ever since then I realised that I married a particularly tough and resolute woman.

This can be proved on the walk where I call her General Montgomery. She has grown into a commanding lady who only the feckless and stupid would dare to gainsay. Jane is in command of the maps and good luck to her with that misery.

Going for Gold

I heard about a couple that suddenly decided to get divorced after being married for 70 years. When they were asked why they had waited so long before splitting, the old lady replied, “We were waiting for our children to die first!”

Meanwhile, author and staunch Catholic Lady Longford (Elizabeth) was once asked by a journalist whether she had ever considered divorcing her husband, the late Lord Longford – who, to put it politely, was not an easy man.

“Divorce never,” she cried, “murder often!”

Love Bolt

Jane and I met at a wedding, and I was struck by what the Italians call Un colpo di fulmine – best translated as a love bolt from the blue, no half measures. Cupid’s arrow was spot on, and from that moment I laid siege for her hand. It took Jane rather longer to accept I was worth it, but I won in the end.

I spoke at a small party to celebrate our golden anniversary. The lunch was a happy occasion, full of laughter and easy conversation with old friends. But our buddies’ memories are slipping just a little and some of their replies to our invitation were all over the place. One wrote a long letter saying how pleased he was to be asked but failed to say if he and his Missus could come. Another couple said they could attend, then two weeks before the lunch, they wrote to say they couldn’t after all; so we were somewhat surprised to see them in the front row and wondered whose lunch party had two empty places!

Amnesia

The best way to ensure a long marriage is through the gift of amnesia. I know that Jane did something profoundly foolish last week… but then, so did I! The point is that a week later, neither of us can quite recall exactly what these things were. So we have no endless recriminations.

The children have a part to play too. They can reduce me to goo when I get pompous. I recall saying when I passed 60 that I had ceased to be a “sex object” – sadly people simply looked through me.

“Wait a minute,” commanded my eldest daughter, Clare. “Just please tell us when you were ever a sex object? The decade will do!”

Uncharted Waters

In our day, there was no living together before marriage to “try each other out”, or setting up house as “partners”. I have to confess that I don’t think this modern way of casually hooking up is good for anyone, especially for women whose happiness depends on a degree of permanence in a relationship. This has been the accepted wisdom for thousands of years, and I simply don’t believe that just because the young claim to be able to junk it, all will be well.

That apart, if Jane and I could start out afresh, we would definitely have wanted to participate in a “marriage preparation” course. The fact is that neither of us at the innocent ages of 21 (Jane) and 24 (me) had a clue what we were doing. But nothing like that was available in our day! Our marriage was rather like being presented with a boat when neither of us had ever sailed before. Waving hands of good luck after the wedding simply wasn’t good enough. Some lessons about sails and the provision of a reliable compass would have come in handy. Then what about a few tips about tides, and the fickleness of the weather and winds? And to have been given some idea of where the disguised jagged reefs and dangerous rocks were lurking?

In other words, we would have benefitted hugely if we could have tapped into the experience of those wise people who have navigated – and somehow survived – long years of marriage with its inevitable storms and heartbreaks. Looking back, the fact we survived at all is nothing short of miraculous. It would have been really helpful to have been given a few tips about what to do if, for example, one of us met a very sexually attractive someone else a few years into marriage – as usually happens at the exact moment when the excitement and the passion has damped down a bit, the money is tight and the new baby never stops being sick or crying. And we could have used some advice on handling money difficulties, serious illness, a nervous breakdown, job loss, the failure of dreams and the death of close family – for all these things are part of life’s rich pageant.

Jane and I have been obliged to tease out the answers to some of these pitfalls ourselves. Fortunately, we have always had the vital ability to grow with each other – and of course, that is still happening today. Added to that, we have always liked each other. I am told that you can always tell when a marriage faces total death: that is when one side cannot talk of their opposite number without shrugging and “eye rolling”. Thank goodness we have never eye rolled, and pray God, we’re not about to start now.

Reading the Signs

The wife of the late US evangelist Billy Graham, Ruth, was once driving in California when she saw a sign, “Roadworks Ahead”. After waiting for 40 minutes, the jam cleared. At the end was a sign reading “End of Construction – thank you for your patience.” These are the words inscribed on Ruth’s gravestone.

When we sweep aside the gossamer threads of money and possessions, the really important thing is to be able to say at the end, “I have loved, and I have been loved.” Jane and our family are the enduring melody of my life.  In fact, I am able to say I have always been surrounded by this melody and that’s a rare claim.

Let me end this piece with a (slightly adapted) quote from General MacArthur that sums up our attitude to growing old together:

Youth is not a period of time. It is a state of the mind, a result of the will, a quality of the imagination, a victory of courage over timidity, of the taste for adventure over the love of comfort. A man doesn’t grow old because he has lived for a number of years. We grow old when we desert our ideals. The years may wrinkle our skin but deserting our ideals wrinkles our souls. Preoccupations, fears, doubts and despair are the enemies that slowly bow us to the earth and turn us into dust before death. If one day, we turn bitter, pessimistic and gnawed by despair, may God have mercy on our old souls.

Joint Success

My two new hips and right knee have had a tough work-out and are doing well.

On our heroic trek from Edinburgh to London in 2010, to the astonishment of passers by, I was obliged to pray like a Muslim every three hours or so and stretch my hips to obtain some relief. That is history now. All I have to contend with is flagging energy levels. I am not thirty-five any more so get used to it, Tom: “You are fortunate to be alive!”

Joy in the Face of Obstacles

Five walkers with us – a real joy, for they are family and close friends. As Belloc wrote: ”There’s naught worth the wear of living than laughter and the love of friends,” and how true that is. And the older we get the more we appreciate family, close mates and laughter.

As the farmers have tried to turn their fields into Fort Knox with wire, collapsed fences and resolutely growing crops over paths, progress has been, at best, a struggle.
If the Wiltshire local authority actually do have someone whose job us to look after footpaths, then I suggest they might usefully seek an alternative career, say shelf stacking at Lidl, for they are useless!

We always try and smile at the occasional walker and occasionally we get one back. I often wonder why the three in ten glower at the ground and ignore our cheer. Maybe they are having a very hard time and resent our good humour.

Raising Our Game

I used to think that sharpness and cleverness were foremost virtues. Now I believe kindness trumps them hands down.

We can so easily become irritated by people. Some bring out the worst in us: people we find plain unlikeable and we quickly attribute to them the lowest motives for everything they do. These individuals have a rare talent for pressing our anger buttons and making us scowl. Spend just a little time with them and our worst instincts come bursting to the fore: sometimes its personal, and sometimes we’re infuriated by someone who commands just a fleeting moment of authority over our lives. When was the last time you were angered by a call-centre operator instructing you to “hold”? When did you last have a happy session with a traffic warden poised to give you a ticket?

Be Kind

Very few people actually set out to be gratuitously rude, unpleasant, unhelpful or stupid. At least their irritating behaviour makes sense to them: it’s usually a cocktail of their genes and upbringing all mixed up with the role they have to play. We must try and ensure that we don’t express irritation in return, for that escalates into anger. That’s the way of the world; we have to raise our game.

One method President Lincoln used to defuse his anger was to write a “hot letter”. He would pour out all his anger and vituperation, and then after he had cooled down, he would file the letter “unsent”.

In the 1981 film On Golden Pond, the character played by Henry Fonda angers his daughter (played by Jane Fonda, his real-life daughter). Katharine Hepburn (Jane’s mother) tries to bring harmony:

“Sometime you have to look hard at a person [Jane] and realise that he’s doing the best he can. He’s just trying to find his way, that’s all. Just like you!”

I am sure that if you asked everyone you know if they are engaged in some sort of battle, they would say “yes.”

I read somewhere of an inscription on the tombstone of Dr Jenny Cohen in Highgate Cemetery: “Be kind: for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” Good on you, Jenny!

We know all about our own battles. Perhaps an acknowledgment that everyone has their own personal battles might lead us to an onset of tolerance and kindness.

Eleven miles through Cotswold countryside, walking through endless fields, many of them more or less rendered impenetrable by selfish farmers who appear to have no consideration for walkers. Theresa May claims the worst thing she has ever done wasto run through a cornfield! Well I have charged through several recently and in my view blazing such a trail is manifestly in the public interest.

It started like this…

We were heralded right-royally last night and I was asked to talk about the work of ZANE and how it began fourteen or so years ago. It all began by accident, really, as so much does that happens in life. We think we are in tight control but that is an arrogance.

It began in response to a cry for help. I met a woman whose husband was murdered in 2002 by Mugabe’s henchmen at the beginning of the troubles. She fled to the UK in fear of her life with two children. As she was a polio victim I thought she deserved help and so I gave her some money and off we went.

Then other sad cases appeared, and then more, and so the work of ZANE began in earnest.

I have  learned  the hard way that, if you can come to someone’s help when they are in need, then do so.

Fighting Fear

The shortcomings of St Peter and John Wayne are easy to criticise. Their human weaknesses remind us that there is nothing very original about mankind. It’s all too easy for us to condemn others for sins that don’t hold any temptation for us, but it requires courage to take a long, hard look at ourselves and confront our own failings with a clear eye.

Turning a Blind Eye

I have a memory that even after 60 years still haunts me. I was about 12 at the time, at an Edinburgh prep school. In my class, there was a solitary Nigerian boy – let’s call him Martin. He was a sad child, tall, weedy and withdrawn. He had a high, rather effeminate voice, and a perpetually runny nose. Of course, being black, he was a rarity in post-war Edinburgh.

The net effect of all this was that his life was a torment, a grisly episode from Lord of the Flies. Children can be devilish to other children who are different and Martin was an obvious target. He was beaten and mocked, his food was spat on, and he was subjected to vicious racial abuse. I have no recollection of where the teachers, an inadequate bunch of war-scarred has-beens, were during these incidents – but I can still see Martin’s contorted, weeping face turning from side to side as he desperately sought the support of anyone who might come to his aid.

Now I didn’t take part in the bullying or the name-calling, and the fact that it was happening upset me. But I’m sorry to say I never tried to help Martin: I was afraid, of course, that the bullies might turn on spotty, stammering Benyon instead.

Even at my tender age, I learned a harsh lesson. I was frightened of the bullies and behaved like a coward. But I discovered that that being ashamed of myself was worse than any fear. Everything boiled down to one simple proposition: whatever the consequences, we all must act so we can live with ourselves.

This is how it works in so many bad situations in our cruel world. We know that what is happening is wrong, but we keep our counsel and busy ourselves with tidying our desks in the hope that the problem will just go away. We sidle along waiting for someone else to do the martyr bit and expose the bullies.

I have now learned that occasionally we have to face down what is unjust – and to hell with the consequences. As former concentration camp survivor Elie Weisel said in his 1986 Nobel Prize acceptance speech: “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

Perhaps we think that those who speak out have to be virtuous superheroes –like Martin Luther King – but that is not true. The ones who act are often unsure of themselves. Moses was a murderer and stammered; Jeremiah was a depressed melancholic; Jonah was a coward and ran away; and Isaiah thought he was wholly unworthy. So, if we are fearful and doubt ourselves, we are in good company. But there are ways to defeat fear. Anna, in Richard Rodgers’ The King and I, sings:

 Whenever I feel afraid,
I hold my head erect,
And whistle a happy tune,
So no one will suspect,
I’m afraid…

The Blessing of Anger

The truth is, you can become as brave as you pretend you are. That’s one way to come to terms with our terrors. Fear has always been with us: fear of being bullied, fear for our reputation, fear of pain, fear of upsetting someone, or the fear of losing friends. To avoid being crushed by our fears, we have to coax them out into the open and then crush them. Only if we do this, can we speak up for the voiceless, the weak and the poor.

We all have a will, and if we don’t stand for something, we will fall for anything. When this happens, we are not just asleep: we grow spiritually dead. There is a wonderful Franciscan prayer:

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships… May God bless you with anger at injustice and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace… May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done…

Poor Martin. I hope that if ever he reads this, he could bring himself to forgive me.

We walk through Bradford on Avon which surely has to be in of the loveliest small towns in the UK: all compact and clearly with an ancient and rich history from the wool trade. And from what we saw not as plagued by tourists as other Cotswold towns. We bought an ice cream from a shop that mainly sells bicycles!! – and why not? And then after lunch the views began to change from flat wide fields and big skies to smaller fields. These were bracketed by woods and then the paths grew crazy as if rammed together by giant hands. Then we faced switchback paths whirling us up and down – exhausting walking in the heat. Moses had a great time plunging for sticks in the occasional pools in the river along the way.

Behind the Masks

I wonder if Donald Trump is really the tough guy that he seems? I wonder if he is happy with his Midas riches? What would his mother’s island family have thought of their grandson? Does he have any self awareness?

We aren’t always what we seem to be are we?

Mugabe’s Zimbabwe was a fraud: he pretended it was a democracy and that he governed under the rule of law but the reality as very different: it was like the rule of the Mafia but without the charm of Al Pacino.

Hart Felt Words

Lorenz Hart was one of the greatest lyricists if the last century until he died as a drunk in his early forties. Until then it was “Rogers and Hart” and after he died it became “Rogers and Hammerstein”.

Hart’s lyrics get under my skin. He was brilliant on the subject of deception: “Skimmed milk masquerades as cream”, is one l recall, and how about, “When love congeals, you can smell the aroma of performing seals, hear the clicking of high heels, I wish I was in love again”.

So, are we as we seem? What’s going here? Do we live in fear that our backstages may collapse onto the front stage?

Penitent Peter

Google the painting St Peter Penitent by Guercino, painted in 1639. Today it hangs in Edinburgh’s National Gallery. It shows Saint Peter, face stricken with remorse after he three times denied knowing Jesus.

It’s a truly great picture, demonstrating a great deal about human nature. Peter was an impulsive boaster and when it became clear that Jesus was to be arrested on charges of sedition and blasphemy, his protests of loyalty grew even louder: “Everyone may desert you master, but I never will. I would rather die than forsake you so I say to any one coming for you, you’ll have to go through me first.”

Lead Me Not into Temptation…

Peter meant what he said. He really thought he was steadfast and loyal, and that was the kind of man he wanted to be.

Of course, when officials came for Jesus in the middle of the night, his death sentence was already a certainty. Peter followed the group in the shadows, watching what was happening.

And then in the following hours, three times Peter was challenged as to whether he was a friend of Jesus, and three times he denied it, each denial louder than the last.

Luke tells us that after Peter’s third denial, Jesus turned to look at him and Peter wept bitterly. Anyone who has let down a friend, a family member or a colleague – and which of us has not done so at some time or other? – knows that feeling. Just thank God that our underhand behaviour will not be a talking point to millions 2,000 years from now!

Guercino’s painting makes me want to weep just looking at it. Peter did not know he was going to betray his friend until he was faced with a choice. But when the test came, he did exactly the opposite of what he had wanted to do. He wasn’t brave and loyal: he was fearful and weak. Past Lord Chancellor Quintin Hogg said that the only joke Jesus ever told was when he described Peter as his “rock!”

Peter probably saw – and hated – his own faults in others. But to be fair to him, the story relates how many years later he died bravely for his saviour.

Jesus knows how easy it is to go through life untested and therefore ignorant of our own true natures. He warns us not to condemn others for failing tests we have not yet faced ourselves. That’s what “lead me not into temptation” in the Lord’s Prayer is all about.

El Dorado

Fast-forward 2,000 years. Celebrities are carefully manicured productions, designed to weave dreams amongst fans living tedious lives. Sadly the reality of the stars’ lives is very different from what is projected on screen. Dreadful loneliness, fear of ageing and broken relationships can affect us all, including the rich and famous. The pictures we so admire are usually “cosmetically enhanced” so that lines, pimples and unwanted whiskers are airbrushed out. And if you think that stars are always happy, just take a look at the life of Liberace in Behind the Candelabra. The truth shocks.

Another example? When I was a youngster, I hugely admired the great screen hero John Wayne who played the archetypal western hero of my fantasies. He rode through my childhood telling us that “a man has to do what a man has to do”, and there was clear blue water between the good and the bad guys. Courage and decency always won. I only had to watch Wayne’s slouch and hear his gravelly voice telling the girl, “Honey, you’re safe with me!” to be entranced and comforted – for even then I knew that the real world was full of confusion, fear and doubts. Wayne always sorted it out. He made his own rules and lived free amongst the grey smoke of campfires. It was all so real, that we, huddled wide- eyed in the stalls, could almost smell the coffee. It was a world where Wayne was always the brave and decent winner.

But it was skimmed milk masquerading as cream. The realty is that John Wayne was born Marion Morrison. In mid-life, his films were best shot before noon because after that he was drunk, and often mean and nasty with it. By then he was bald and paunchy. He must have hated being bald because he wore a toupee. In his films, he always played the undaunted hero pitted against the bandit gangs and the cattle thieves; but in reality he managed to wriggle his way out of being drafted to fight in the Second World War. John Wayne walked and talked tall, just like a hero, but his heroics were an act. He may have known the reality: perhaps that’s why he drank.

Well, it’s fine to put the boot in on Saint Peter and John Wayne, but how perfect are we? What’s behind our masks? Are we phoneys too?

I think it’s best to remember that when somebody seems too good to be true, that’s probably the case. And recall Emerson’s line about boasting: “The more he talked of his honour, the faster we counted the spoons.”

A magnificent walk through England’s finest countryside, all drowsing in the heat; sometimes the scent of the wild flowers was so powerful it stung my nose. As we passed, arcades of trees were nodding at us in the gentlest wisp of a breeze; Cows lay in corners of their fields drowsing silently with their paws crossed; We made good time, our map reading helped by a kind local ZANE supporter. Half-way through the morning in the middle distance we could see a vast white horse eternally cantering across across a chalk hill; this apparently marks the site of an ancient, gory battle fought between the Danes and King Alfred in the ninth century. Churchill was right enough when he claimed that the history of man is the history of war for man causes trouble as certainly as sparks fly upwards.

I wearily read yet another press report, this time involving “Save the Children”, another series of allegations of child abuse. Tragic for the children, tragic for that fine charity and a costly nuisance for all us smaller charities who, irrespective of past unblemished records, now have to prove a negative to the regulators: that we do not abuse. Not a problem for the big charities whom, I suppose, can afford rooms full of box-tickers. And I also suppose that, with tens of thousands of staff, whatever they do they are bound to have some bad apples amongst their throng of employees. I also have to speculate that, however many boxes charities are forced to tick, the real abusers are clever and cunning and will always find a way though the rules.

Note to ZANE donors and management: “Thank God we are small and that the bulk of our staff have been with us over ten years.”

For trust takes years to build and vanishes in a flash.

Lefty Charities

ZANE has never criticised the work of other charities. Of course, the work that many of them do is just as valuable as ZANE’s and we wish them well. However we cannot help but notice that the bigger some charities become, the more towards the “left” of the political spectrum they appear to drift – much like the Church of England.

Let’s start with a look at the CoE. I know something about it, for it’s more or less my family business. Four members of my immediate family have attended theology colleges. I can vouch that the ones who hold centre-right political opinions keep their views to themselves. No one says this outright, but it’s implicit that the consensus is that the teaching of 2 Thessalonians 3:10 – “…that if any would not work, neither should he eat” – is ignored.

Lefty Campaigning

Why do the biggest charities feel justified in spending donor money on vastly expensive “lefty” political campaigning?  Examples? Why do OXFAM trustees allow the executive to waste donor money on a Global Wealth Survey, designed to bite hard the very hand of government that feeds it?  This report, backed by a Corbynistic commentary on the “erosion of worker’s rights”, claims that the richest 1 per cent have bagged 82 per cent of wealth created. It’s a piece of slanted nonsense because poverty is actually falling faster than ever before. It also claims that UK companies are indulging in “a relentless corporate drive to minimise costs in order to maximise returns to shareholders”. Last year, OXFAM released a video that depicted tax dodgers as masked thieves who break into a hospital and steal medical equipment from a screaming baby.

A year ago, the Red Cross announced that the NHS was in a “humanitarian crisis”. Then Save the Children ran a multi-million campaign stating, “It shouldn’t happen here”. Focusing on child poverty in the UK, it was a thinly disguised assault on HMG’s attempts to live within the nation’s means and limit the vast national debts our grandchildren will have to pay for in the future.

Religious Fervour

These lefty charities treat politics like a sort of religion; they judge without fear of being judged, and demand from their followers that they do as they say and not as they do. This leftish faith is maddening to those who don’t agree. It’s not because their arguments are palpably simplistic and plain absurd – “the rich should be ashamed” or “public expenditure is always good” – but because they are insulated from criticism as Holy Writ. Their arguments are launched from the virtue signalling moral high ground with the clear implication that if you don’t agree, you are morally defective.

The irony is that these charities are substantial beneficiaries of the taxes generated by the very businesses and people they are criticising. I reckon that the more these charities campaign against government, the more likely it is that the aid that is funnelled through them will be reduced.

Note that the National Opera is funded by the Hamlyn Trust, wealth created from a private publishing fortune. Then Andrew Carnegie gave his vast fortune to promoting public libraries. Recently, Bill Gates, one of the richest businessmen of all time, linked up with money bags Warren Buffett to give the majority of their vast fortunes to humanitarian causes.   Carnegie/Hamlyn/ Gates/Buffett never attract public criticism for waste and dottiness. Perhaps that’s because it’s their money they are spending and they are beady-eyed businessmen.

In 2016, Cecil Rhodes was criticised – amazingly by a Rhodes scholar – for being a greedy exploiter (you couldn’t make this up). The fact that he died more than a century ago in a different world was forgotten: his statue had to fall.

Of course he wasn’t a “lefty”. What is not mentioned is that he and his business partner, Alfred Beit, gifted the totality of their wealth for the good of humanity. Through the Rhodes Scholarships scheme and the Beit Trust, their well- managed wealth continues to provide opportunities for and to bless the poorest of the poor today.

PC World

These days, you can’t be too careful with the jokes and banter!

Last week, I had a medical and the nurse – whom I know well – had to attach a number of electrodes to my chest for a heart scan. I’m fine, thanks for asking!

Stripping them off when it was over was slightly painful so I yelped, “You monster!” She roared with laughter…

Afterwards, I wondered what she would have made of my banter had she been ill-disposed towards me. Headlines in paper: “Old man with OBE roars verbal abuse at nurse”.

It was joke, was it really! Call that a joke! Fine sense of humour you have, and so on.

Last week, I was coming out of church alongside a lady I know who’s in a wheelchair. There’s a hill close by, and so I couldn’t resist saying to her and her husband, “Why don’t we take you to the top of the hill and let you run down to the bottom? I’ll catch you, promise!”

They both laughed. But afterwards I reflected, if they had been a sour old couple, she could have reported me for incitement to murder!

I can hear the cop in my minds’ eye. “You said what, Sir? A joke, you say? The lady is 95 – have you any idea of the shock you have given her!” And on it would go…

Best to play it safe in future. No more risks. Thus “jokes” or banter are off my agenda for good. I’ll be deadly serious from now on, Officer!

A long walk passing through the outskirts of Salisbury plain on a track that led through a number of hilly woods; then we passed by two enormous Bronze Age earthworks on Sratchbury Hill with ancient crosshatching like a vast birthday cake. Then down we stumbled through the town of Warminster where, an age ago, I somehow passed the Regular Commission Board despite walking over the lunch of an irascible Marine Major who was as trying to assess my more or less non-existent capacity to work a radio and read a map. I can still see his outraged face and bulging eyes even now in my dreams. How I passed is still a mystery to me. I often wonder about my poor guardsmen, who must have been as astonished as I was that I was in charge and only followed me out of curiosity rather than any real belief that we would end up where we were supposed to be.

Toddler Tyrant

Picture the scene, a bustling departure lounge at Tel Aviv airport. The air was suddenly rent by the piercing screams of a three-year-old child lying rigid on the floor, her mouth forming a perfect “O”.

As she hollered, I saw her eyes flickering round the watching bystanders to assess the disruption she was causing. It was clear she was practised and had “form”.

Her mother tried to stem the shouting without success. In fact the noise grew to a crescendo – and then became even worse. A well-meaning stranger tried her best to distract the child, and failed. The youngster then squirmed through the legs of the crowd to the information stall and, like a childish version of Gypsy Rose Lee, started to remove her clothes, item by item, and throw them into the shocked crowd.

The child’s father, a tall bespectacled man, was clearly anxious that the family would miss their flight. Losing patience, he elbowed his way to the front, grabbed the child and attempted to stalk towards the departure gate.  The youngster began to Mike Tyson his face with her fists. Then she had a brainwave. Squinting with concentration, she grabbed her dad’s spectacles, twisted them like barley sugar, and hurled them to the ground where they shattered.

The family was in despair. I hunkered down, gathered the fragments and handed them over. I tried to be reassuring:

“I have been where you are today when our eldest daughter behaved exactly like this. But don’t worry, it does gets better… she’s now ordained and the chaplain of Christ Church, Oxford!”

Gentlemen

So Lord Carrington has died – one of the last of the “old school” gentlemen who fought in the last war. He was so honourable he failed even to mention in his autobiography that he won an MC in the last war for bravery. How the forest oaks are falling!

A True Gentleman

I was asked recently whether I knew what it takes to be a “gentleman”. If truth be told, I had never given any thought to the topic – perhaps automatically presuming that I am one! But I was told that after responding to some simple statements, the matter could be proven beyond doubt.

They are as follows…

A gentleman:

1: Can negotiate an airport with ease.

Well, I can just about manage. The trouble I have is that even when I arrive with plenty of time to spare, I can become so engrossed in a book that I end up nearly missing my flight!

2: Never lets a door slam in someone’s face.

I’m all right with this one. In addition, when I was a child, I was taught always to walk on the outside of a pavement so that a lady would be protected from splashes from a passing car. It was also important to always hold a door open for a lady.

3: Never gives offence by accident.

Agreed.

4: Never talks about Brexit to strangers.

Definitely!

5: Never has more than eight people to dinner.

Other than our sprawling family, I agree.

6: Never asks a woman to take off her shoes when she enters your house, however plush the carpet.

Granted.

7: Never boasts about the size of his income.

Absolutely!

8: Is aware that facial hair is temporary but a tattoo is for life.

As you have probably come to realise, tattoos are one of my pet hates…

9: Possesses a well-made dark suit, a tweed suit and a dinner jacket.

And I can get into all of them, even after 50 years!

10: Turns his mobile off at dinner and does not produce it at mealtimes.

Always!

11: Carries his houseguest’s luggage to their room.

Only when the butler is having a day off…

12: Is unafraid to tell the truth.

Yes… although unvarnished truth can end friendships, so we have to be careful with this one. For example, when a lady asks, “Do I look okay in this?”, diplomacy is advised!

13: Arrives five minutes before an agreed time.

Essential! But the trouble is that London is so difficult to navigate that I am either half an hour early or running late.    

14: Talks to the lady on both sides at dinner and asks interested questions about their lives.

I always do this, but Jane tell me that it is about as common as hen’s teeth. Men usually bang on about themselves.

15: Never gives “goodie bags!”

What do you take me for?

16: Is polite to waiters.

Always.

17: Can undo a bra with one hand.

You might ask the question; I couldn’t possibly comment.

18: Is not a vegetarian.

Rest assured, I am a carnivore and not a herbivore.

19: Can ride a horse.

Jane and I hunted for 30 years.  

20: Never kisses and tells.

Difficult to remember, but I hope I never did!

21: Would never own a Chihuahua.

An absurd idea. Imagine a canine rat on one of our walks!

22: Has read all the classics.

Yes, pretty much, but I prefer Daphne du Maurier, Robert Harris and history.

23: Can tie his own bow tie.

What a question. Goes without saying!

24: Never wears sandals.

A ridiculous idea.

25: Wears a rose, not a carnation.

Every time.

26: Never utters the phrases “take care” (when he is leaving) or “no worries”, and never replies “good” when asked how he is!

Agreed. I understand this rubbish comes from Australia; if that is so, then it can’t travel back quickly enough for me.

26: Never blow-dries his hair.

What hair? 

***
Well, I think I made the grade. I apologise to the ladies, but I’m sure all male ZANE donors qualify too!

“Perhaps we should hurry as fast as we can?

We had to go to a funeral of a friend today – for our generation is being called up. Our social lives are punctuated with memorial services and funerals. Around seven years ago there was a cull of roughly six of our friends: then the grim reaper appeared to holiday with his scythe: he vanished… but just for a while. Then, as we began once again to career idiotically along, convinced we’d fooled the bastard for good, without warning he swept back and culled Frances, Tim and Clare, Faith, Juliet and Graham, all lovely people and I miss them. Then he slid back into his smokey lair like the cruel assassin he is.

When will the tap be on our shoulder? Of course, it’s bound to happen. So is there anything we can do in response to that reality? It’s hard to resist the temptation to hurry: cram our hoped-for plans into a shortened span… for we are old and have so little time to waste… but I have learned that “hurry“ isn’t such a wise course of action.

Soul Fatigue

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” So said LP Hartley in his novel The Go-Between.

Modern life for the young seems to revolve around a desperate hurry to get the next attention-grabbing iPad or smart phone fix. When I was young, there were long periods of relative boredom when I would just skulk around the garden with nothing in particular to do. We were less hurried then. We had no computer games to divert us, and no Google or Facebook to draw us away from the real world right in front of us.

Speed Junkies

We were taught slowly. We had to learn our times tables and lots more by rote with serious punishment threatened if we simply opted out. We were taught how to write letters, and how to add up, multiply and do fractions without the aid of a calculator. We learnt how to read maps and memorised long chunks of poetry. All of this took time. We had one phone line for the entire family and we had to queue. We looked things up in an encyclopaedia, and if we missed a programme on our black-and-white TV, then it stayed missed. Collecting stamps might have been my childish obsession but it was a gentle pursuit: nothing compared with the crack cocaine of the current digital world. Today’s young are speed junkies, hammering away at green screens playing Monster Legends (whatever that is!) Our grandchildren are being hurried into an unpredictable future ruled by robot overlords.

This hurry comes at a cost. In my last blog, I told of one of the journeys of African pioneer Sir Richard Burton (not the actor). He had marched at a furious pace for three days: then on the fourth, his porters refused to budge. Despite his pleas and exhortations, they simply sat, staring vacantly into space. When asked for an explanation, the headman replied, “We have marched so fast, we are waiting for our souls to catch up with our bodies.”

More Haste, Less Speed

There is a vast difference between being busy and being in a hurry! Being in a hurry often leaves us detached from our souls. Being busy is when we have a reasonable number of things to do.

Being hurried is a stressful condition. It means being so preoccupied with ourselves that we have no time for God or for other people. Business morphs into hurry when we have squeezed God (or people) from our lives.

When we hurry, we get soul fatigue. That’s when we stay up too late and get up too early. It’s when we stop eating proper food regularly, and fuel up on gin and Mars bars. We clog our brains and our arteries with junk food eaten out of a box… in a hurry.

The hurry warning signs are easy to spot. We may be in a shop or airline queue and immediately start calculating which queue is moving faster than ours. It’s when we worry that our parking space isn’t the closest to the shopping centre, or when we rudely switch traffic lanes just to satisfy the demon “hurry”.

We hurry when we are being bombarded by too much information at work or when too many screens are competing for our attention. We worry that we are missing out on something. We compile endless lists but never complete them. We are in such a hurry and are so weary that we cannot see the pile of unpaid bills and bank statements, or the unanswered emails – and we even forget the wife’s birthday!

Do yourself a favour. Remember festina lente: make haste slowly.

Broads and Dames

When Humphrey Bogart lay dying, a call came through to his wife, Lauren Bacall, asking her out to a Hollywood dinner.

“She says she doesn’t want to come,” croaked Bogart, “she wants to stay with me. It’s love that separates the dames from the broads in this town, and Lauren is a dame.”

A few years back, a very senior member of the armed forces – let’s call him Henry – was “stung” by the late and disgraceful Max Clifford. (Incidentally, when Clifford died, I imagine he faced a hard time from the Recording Angel for the destructive nature of his earthly antics but I digress.) Henry went to a grand dinner and had the misfortune to sit next to a woman with the glorious name of Lady Bienvenida Buck. She placed her cool hand on his knee and told him she fancied him. The poor, credulous clot believed her.

A month later, coming out of the Savoy at four in the afternoon, the couple were greeted by a blaze of flashlights. Lady Buck had sold him down the river to the tabloids for an undisclosed sum.

Later that evening, Henry had to confess the awful results of his philandering to Mary, his wife. He was humiliated: the publicity would be awful (it was), his career would surely be over (it was), and he faced divorce.

Mary listened to his stammering confession and apology, and wept. Then slowly she took off her wedding ring and laid it gently on the table.

Just as Henry was about to leave for good, Mary picked up the ring and replaced it on her finger.

“Let’s start our marriage again,” she said.

They are still together, a chastened man and a heroic wife. It’s love that separates the dames from the broads.

Moral to all men over 60: If a “lady” places her hand on your knee and says she finds you physically attractive, run for the hills: she’s lying!

(I repeat that this is a true story. I have disguised the man’s name to avoid distress.)

Salisbury plain proper this time, one vast hot frying pan with no escape from the sun beating down from a vast sky. Last time I was yomping across this plain was in the coldest winter on record, 1962/3, when I was a Sandhurst cadet trying to excavate trenches from the frozen flint and, as I recall, without much success.

Love is like a butterfly…

Cabbage White butterflies and Red Admirals dance ahead as we thump along.

As my kind readers will recall I try and include in my vaporings, to my mind anyway, the most important five subjects worth talking about: money, sex, politics, religion and death. So far I have only dealt with death and a few bits on politics.

Jane suddenly volunteers that Cabbage Whites copulate in the air – such frisky things – and no, I didn’t know that either! Remember you read this fascinating fact here first! But the carnal antics of butterflies neatly bring me onto…

Sex and All That

It is true that 50 years ago there was an atmosphere of sexual repression; women could be ruined by premarital sex and natural sexual feelings were often characterised as something shameful. But I reckon that today the pendulum has swung too far towards what is crass, crude and cheap: the divide between things that should be public and private has simply been lost.

Naked Attraction

Recently, a newly married couple on the Greek island of Rhodes decided to celebrate the occasion by posting a picture on Facebook of the bride committing a sex act on the groom (this is a family blog, so you’ll have to just imagine it!) The image was tastefully framed by a backdrop of a temple and a gorgeous sunset. Family and pals chorused how wonderful it was, but the Greek Orthodox Church took a very different view and have now banned future foreign weddings on the island.

There is a growing feeling that sex is no longer something joyous and precious but a biological function of no more significance than eating a pizza. It seems that girls now think that having sex with anyone at any time offers them some sort of “empowerment” so that casual sex with strangers can be linked with female “liberation”. Of course, promiscuity has always been with us, but there is today a vulgarity in our society that is beyond sad. It is particularly bad for children who are growing up in communities saturated by sexual exploitation.

There are songs for teens where the girls proclaim to have had so much sex, they are unable to walk straight; this is deemed to be an occasion for gaiety and celebration. In a vastly popular TV show called Love Island, participants celebrate their attraction to each other by having intercourse on camera. Vile and beyond tasteless, its stars are teenagers who are treated like hookers for the entertainment of the public who are addicted to the rash of casual sex that has marinated the world with sexually transmitted diseases and hastens the breakdown of family life. How any reasonable parents can allow their children to debase themselves in such a way is beyond me. Presumably the participants think that this sort of publicity enhances their dismal careers. Meanwhile, in another show called Naked Attraction, people choose a partner based entirely on the look of their genitals…

Or what about the so-called “game” I heard about called “pigging”? Men have sex with the ugliest girls they can find, then text them to say they are pigs. Okay, I agree that this is tedious, infantile and tasteless, but sadly it’s a sign of the times.

There are endless stories of couples who have only just met having intercourse on flights, or brief sexual encounters in bars – and an app called Tinder encourages just that (Grindr is the homosexual equivalent). You can sift through members’ profiles and check the whereabouts of your fancy, and then send a swift text to see whether they are “up for it”? If the answer is positive, off you zoom to complete the capital act. No gentle conversation or chat up lines, no flowers or hand-holding, not even an initial tentative kiss. Just “Bim Bam! Thank you Mam.” Efficiency, 10 out of 10; romance, rather less than zero.

Lost Childhood

Today, society is awash with pornography. When I was young, watching porn was a scandalous thing to do: something that old men in dirty macs went to seedy cinemas to experience. Book or magazine porn was wrapped in the disgrace of brown paper. Today, porn magazines are openly paraded alongside the popcorn and cornflakes in most stores. At the same time, young girls are netted by gangs on Snapchat and treated as commodities.

Recently, a teacher said that our sexting, porn-obsessed children – some as young as five – are “infected and no longer see the gravitas of the sexual act.” Older young, brought up to view porn sites as a commonplace, find they are more or less impotent because they “can’t do it as well as they do ‘it’ on the websites.”

I am not asking for a clampdown on sex and a return to Victorian standards or morality. I am just sad that our society is rapidly striding with open flies towards a coarsened and ugly future. Most importantly, the tender innocence of childhood is under attack. This will have a significant long-term effect on our society, for once you have charged through the door marked “anything goes”, it will be hard to get back to the land of yourself.

We slotted half an hour to watch the England match yesterday and the pub room was crowded. As England won, it was a happy occasion. Okay, I know I am a sour old thing but I couldn’t help noticing that everyone watching was noticeably overweight, including the children. As a follow-on to yesterday’s blog, are we as a nation now afflicted with “watcheritis”? Clearly there are exceptions to this virus but with obesity on the rise to the degree we are facing an epidemic, this is an issue for our time.

Hot Kisser

How can I repeat how hot it is without boring readers who have to know this already?

A hour into today’s walk I attempted to give Jane a kiss. She said:

“I have no wish to kiss your disgustingly sweaty face so push off,” or words to that effect. So it was that hot!

Trump, Trump, Trump

So President Trump is to visit Churchill’s grave where we live in Bladon. I understand that there will be some “virtue signalling” protests and shame on you!

I deplore Trump’s lack of manners and his gross unpresidential style and all that. But he is not the first US president to be gross. Kennedy was a serial adulterer with anyone with a pulse and he had confirmed links to organised crime. However it was his “Camelot” charm that allowed him to get away with it. We know about Lyndon Johnson, who in the early part of his career was corrupt and unspeakably vulgar, entertaining visitors on the lavatory. We will draw a discreet veil over Clinton for this is a family blog. And what about Nixon?

So the Donald grossness is not a rarity. However, I think, on the plus side, that something may, just may, come from his N. Korean initiative. I also think he was right to conclude that the Iranian nuclear deal was not working. And he is surely right to berate EU NATO members for not paying their way.
And he has one other rare quality: you may not like what he says but none of us has any problem in understanding him. This is more than you can say for most politicians (and clergymen too!).

Trump was elected as President by our greatest ally, and we need to do a trade deal with the USA sooner rather than later.  I think Sadiq Khan the Mayor of London is plain daft and rude in allowing an insulting balloon to greet Trump when he arrives in London.

Knee-jerk Reaction

I was fitted with a new knee recently in a hospital near Banbury where the Lithuanian surgeon had a fine reputation. I am an old hand at this game now – no pun intended (although with two new hips and a knee, my hands are some of the few bits I have left that remain more or less as God intended). So, operations hold no fear for me… that is, until I found myself on the operating table.

I opted for an “epidural”, numb from the waist down yet remaining fully conscious. Why? Well, I dislike the feeling of the little death that comes with an anaesthetic… will I ever wake up again? With a local, you can talk more or less sense to anyone handy as the operation proceeds.

Dr Shipman, I Presume

So there was I, a touch woozy but conscious enough, when who should hunker down next to me but the anaesthetist (who had just calculated how much drug was needed to keep me pain free). Young and tattooed, with little piggy eyes, he had, I thought, a rather thin, cruel smile. Suddenly an image of Dr Harold Shipman floated before my eyes – you know, the spectre who killed an industrial number of patients apparently just for the hell of it (he was playing some sort of power game, as I recall). I have no idea why I pictured Shipman so clearly, but I really did: his face just floated into my mind and lodged there, immovable and terrifying.

“Hello,” the anaesthetist said quietly, “my name’s David. I hear you used to be a politician?”

Suddenly I caught sight of the heart monitor: the tiny electrical impulses bumped up and down, merrily indicating that, so far anyway, I was more or less alive. At the same time, I saw David had control of the pipe that connected me to my vital air supply, and the tube that connected me to the heart machine. All in all, he was my passport to life. And there I was, lying helpless as a babe and totally at his mercy.

“A long time ago,” I squeaked.

“Oh no,” said David, “once a politician, always a politician.”

I groaned silently in desperation then tried to feign sleep.

He was insistent. “How did you vote over Brexit?”

“How did you vote?” I gasped.

“A crap decision, if I met that silly bugger Cameron, I would hit him on the nose for holding a referendum in the first place!”

“How wise… nay, far-seeing. I wish I’d thought of that myself!”

“And Corbyn?  What do you make of him?”

“Such a well-trimmed beard. Nothing quite like a good beard!”

“Sod his beard, what about his policies? What do you think of them?”

“Very radical, fundamental… what do you think?”

“Hmmm, and that Diane Abbott?”

“Very sensitive, alert and twinkling eyes. Do you agree?”

“I think they’re a couple of tossers!”

“How very wise. I was about to say exactly the same thing myself.”

So we staggered on until the Black and Decker at my knee stopped buzzing. As I was wheeled into the recovery room, thankful to be alive, David appeared.

“I’m a Thatcher man myself.”

Still scorching weather, getting used to it. Just as well for there is not a lot we can do about it! The country – long white roads – makes me wonder if I am about to meet Hardy’s Henchard on the way to sell his wife at the fair, thence to become the Mayor of Casterbridge with all the terrible repercussions that follow.

We have had some kindly walkers join the team Benyon, for which we are profoundly grateful. We choose not to mention you all by name for where would the compliments end?

Hot

Friends warned me about the heat and that was kind. But when I was a young officer I spent a year in the Sultan of Muscat’s armed
Forces and so I know something about the sun. In fact I drink so much water I resemble a bladder on legs. We walk through endless vast fields and the end of the New Forest past a place where Sir Walter Tyrell shot at a stag and killed King William by accident, I can imagine him saying “sorreee” when he saw what he had done!

We face relentless challenges of having literally to crawl through tiny holes in wire fences illicitly raised by mean farmers and allowed to block footpaths by idle local government officers. Kipling’s poem “there is no road through the wood” was spot on and this is what we are going through today! There are no other walkers. Hampshire Authority is the worse, Wiltshire much better.

A Difficult Conversation

Any debate about immigration is marinated in emotion and the fear that one participant will accuse the other of bigotry and racism. Then the virtue- signalling trolls on Facebook start chanting abuse and label the accused as sheer evil.

But the issue will not go away. Please can we all grow up? There is a vital question that needs to be asked: which people do we not want to allow into the country? For if there are people we do want here, of course there must be those we don’t. If we can agree that the world and his wife cannot all live here, then this is a conversation we must hold – and soon.

Facing the Facts

The trouble is that the conversation has been hijacked by wicked, racist people who simply hate those from different backgrounds and ethnicities. None of us wants to encourage such people. But unless we can find the courage to hold a mature, dispassionate debate on immigration, then our mistakes will go on finding us out. For example, take Angela Merkel’s disastrous error in indiscriminately allowing 1.5 million migrants into Germany, all at once. We now learn that Germany has already suffered a double-digit rise in violent sex crimes, and that 90 per cent of this rise can be attributed to young male migrants.

Then we find that in four years, 411,000 Romanians have entered the UK and a distressing number have ended up in our jails. The Liberals were mistaken years ago when they forecast that just a few brain surgeons would arrive. What about the pressure on our schools, hospitals and housing, and the downward pressure on the wages of the lowest-paid – apparently one of the main reasons people voted Brexit? I don’t blame the Romanians for coming here given that the average weekly wage in Bucharest is roughly a quarter of what it is in the UK, but I just wonder if allowing nearly half a million to enter the country in a very short period was the best idea our politicians have ever had?

Some years ago, merely to hint that this might happen would result in an accusation of racism. But is it wise to shut down debate instead of addressing the problem? Should we presume – without any evidence – that the delicate mix of our peaceful society will not change for the worse? And is it right for all this to happen without the host community even being consulted? The peaceful character of a country does not remain constant by an immutable law of nature. Societies do not remain in harmony, no matter who arrives to live in them. This is an idiotic presumption for which the public is unwillingly paying right across our northern cities as well as in continental Europe.

Tough Questions

There are two major factors here: speed and character. Speed matters, for if you bring in people too fast, there is almost no chance of their integration within a foreseeable timeframe. To test this, just ask in any of our northern cities where an individual ethnic community is living and you will get directions. Integration is not happening: segregation is.

It’s even harder to discuss the identity of migrants than the speed of immigration, because some groups are easier to integrate than others.

Another tough question that needs to be asked is this: when we accept refugees from countries locked in vicious civil wars or from lawless regimes, to what extent will they alter the character of our cities?

Politicians – particularly those of the Blair and Brown governments – have done all they can to limit the population’s ability to express discontent at the indiscriminate immigration imposed on our communities. They have ignored votes in the ballot box and spurned manifesto pledges. And when the electorate voted for Brexit, the establishment and the political class continued to berate the public for its ignorance and bigotry.

It’s easy to do this if you live away from the centres of our northern cities. Tony Blair’s six luxury homes are sited in the west end of London and rural Buckinghamshire. He only ever met migrants in carefully planned photo opportunities. Of course, for Gordon Brown one such photo opportunity went gloriously wrong when he met the hapless Gillian Duffy, who expressed mild concern at the number of EU migrants. Brown was heard to proclaim in a live mic that she was a “bigoted woman”.

So where do we go from here? Moderate voters hope that the hordes of immigrants will integrate somehow and soon. But integration takes a good deal of time. Second, if our leaders read history, they would realise that our relatively peaceful societies are an astonishing blip in the world history of our bloody, war-torn planet. We are hugely lucky to live at such a time. So we should be very careful in carrying out irreversible experiments that will compromise our future, and we must develop carefully thought-out remedies for when our experiments go awry.

Above all, we should desire to hand over our good fortune to the next generation. That, at least, is within our nation’s gift.