Italian Dreams

We talked to two delightful Italian girls, Carlotta and Julia, both formidably bright. One was studying for her PHD in economics in Germany, the other working for Unilever in London. They were both adamant that Italy’s future lies in the Eurozone and they regaded the idea that Italy might revert to the Lira as risible. They hope their homeland will become more effcient and grow into the EU. In my opinion they are living in a dream world and so we will just have to see what happens after the Greek situation is finally resolved.

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A Tail of Three Dogs

I watch our young Cockapoo Moses bound along and it sets me thinking…

I suppose Oscar Wilde might have said that to lose one dog might be regarded as misfortune but to lose two looks like sheer carelessness. And I’m afraid the old sod would be as right as ever, for we appear to have “lost” two dogs inside a mere 15 months.

Readers of my past walk commentaries will recall that for four of our walks we were accompanied by our loyal Staffie Leah. However, after she contracted incurable cancer of the womb, we were forced to have her “put to sleep”. How I hate that euphemism, for there is no getting away from the reality of her end – because, dear reader, in the manner of Stalin, we ordered her to be killed and it was a truly harrowing experience. Leah must have walked well over 1,200 miles for the great cause of ZANE and, as I wrote in my last blog, at the end we condemned her to death.

Lovely Dinah

In order to recover from that ghastly experience we quickly rescued another two-month-old “champagne” Staffie from her birthplace sited in a smelly tenement just outside Birmingham. When we arrived, her owners and their two small children – who couldn’t have been more than seven or eight – were clustered round the telly watching an “adult movie” called Horny Housewives (I kid you not). In fact the film makers should be prosecuted for misrepresentation because these movies aren’t “adult”, but juvenile.

As we drove away, I grew convinced we were saving this poor little dog from a fate worse than death. When you take a look at what many of our nation’s children are allowed to watch you don’t have to ask why the number of alcoholics, drug abusers and sexual predators is rising. The Good Book tells us that the sins of the fathers are visited on future generations, especially if they watch crap on the box. Okay I invented the last eight words of that sentence, and yes I am becoming a curmudgeon – and increasingly proud of it as well – but I am convinced that people can corrupt dogs as well as children; their noble characters are often ruined by vicious, degenerate and drunken owners. Dogs don’t just end up looking like their masters, they can reflect their natures too.

Anyway, we called our new dog Dinah – I don’t really know why, but the name seemed to reflect the hint of wildness that shone from her amber eyes. She spent the first six months of her joyous existence destroying everything she could get her sharp little snappers into: £20 notes, treasured rugs and computer wires were her speciality, but of course she ripped into everything and anything she discovered at snout level. Last July, on our recent trek, she towed us from Ambleside to Oxford and it was a privilege to totter along in her churning wake. Dinah was a joy to behold with a broad head, a finely chiselled body, and markings so delicate I’m convinced the Almighty had plucked her from his vast production line to craft her to His special glory.

Dinah was perfect in every way. She did more or less exactly what she pleased and at frenzied speed. On our last golden holiday in Chichester, she spent hours running furiously by the seashore attempting to out-manoeuvre the zigzagging seabirds as they curved and swooped against the dark, grey-flecked sky. At night, she would crawl exhausted on the sofa, lazily turn onto her back and lick my face. As a special privilege, I would be allowed to tickle her tummy.

Under My Skin

On the afternoon of 5 October last year, I was in the office and Jane was outside gardening. Then I heard a shattering scream. We found Dinah hiding under a car. Her frightened eyes told me she had been mortally injured by a passing vehicle. I pulled her out and cradled her into my car. The vet told us that her spine was fractured and once again we were obliged to have a pet put to sleep. Of course it was the right thing to do but I wept at her passing. And I was furious with myself that I had failed to mend the hole in the bloody fence that I’d been too idle/stupid to do before Dinah went on her escapade.

So third time lucky with Moses, the new Cockapoo. Black and furry, he’s a real character – and a boy. But it’s a bit like owning a Ford Focus after a Maserati! I am sure I’ll grow to love him in time. It’s just that as the great Sinatra sang – I’m sure with Dinah in mind – “I’ve got you under my skin, I’ve got you deep in the heart of me…”

Well of course dogs like Dinah are all gifts, aren’t they? Gifts come to us undeserved and to enjoy for a time, and then they go. The sages advise us that it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Having said all this, recovering from the loss of a companion as beautiful as Dinah will take some time.

Hello Constable

We travelled from Fishbourne to Shanklin, about twelve miles. Constable country with the old world feeling about the place as if Dad’s Army might potter into sight at any time. The last three miles were traversed the sea shore. We spend the night in a couple of Victorian cottages sited in a large glade as guests of a couple of kind folk who lived much of their lives in South Africa. A friend living in the south told our hosts (who had never heard of ZANE) about our charity and they offered us hospitality on the off chance we were “fun people doing useful work.” I can only hope we lived up to expectations!

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Yacht a Lovely View!

It was that mouldy old philosopher Goethe who claimed that all views grow tedious in 15 minutes, but I think even he would want to revise this gloomy prognosis if he had watched the Isle of Wight yacht race today. I last saw 1700 yachts with multi coloured sales in a lovely picture by Edward Seago.

One minute the horizon was dotted by this teeming armada and then suddenly the sea was empty and glassy as if an artist had dragged a rag across his canvas.

We were passed by a team of young runners sweating their way around the island. One, James, managed funds for the fund management firm Blackrock in London.

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Filling the Void

As I wandered along I pondered that loneliness is a terrible blight. It is estimated that well over half of those over the age of 75 in the UK are living alone and do not speak to anyone other than their carers for months on end. My vicar friends tell me that at a great many funerals there is no one present other than the local vicar and the undertaker.

When she visited the UK, Mother Teresa declaimed that although we are “rich” in the West when compared to the ghastly poverty of the Calcutta slums, we have little community. “You are all so rich yet isolated,” she said. “The poor may have no material wealth but the extended family teems everywhere.” It would seem that the richer we grow materially, in terms of our friendships and love for our neighbours, the poorer we become.

Modern Connections

Family life is so important, yet it is under threat. Do Facebook and Twitter fill the void of loneliness? Well of course they serve us well by facilitating and speeding up social exchanges, but they have a darker side: social media simulates community and at the same time erodes family ties. Here’s an example of what I mean.

Until recently, if a boy wanted to take out a girl he was obliged to ring her home. Nine times out of 10, her parents would answer. The boy would then be obliged to demonstrate his manners and pass the time of day… and only then would he ask to speak to so and so. If he were favoured, the connection would be made, and if not, excuses – contrived or otherwise – would flow. Usually he would be the subject of amused family discussion – some occasionally negative, but more often than not, friendly and positive.

In this way, Jane and I got to know most of our children’s friends over the years. I suppose that for a time, in their teens, we acted as “gatekeepers” to their social lives. As a result, to this day we are still on good terms with many of these friends. Some, aged 40 plus, still charmingly call us “Mr and Mrs Benyon” as they did at parties or on the phone all those years ago. Despite the passage of time, the age gap of course has never melted away.

The advent of the mobile phone, Facebook and Twitter has changed all this, not I submit, for the better. Now when contact is made between girls and boys, the family is easily cut from the loop. No longer will parents necessarily know their children’s circle of friends – unless they are asked to teenage parties, which is highly unlikely! I do not mean that in our day we “guarded” our children in a heavy handed way, for I cannot think of a single occasion when we tried to censor whom our children wanted to meet. However, it was good to know who their friends were – and it was fun for us as a family to be involved in our children’s comings and goings, as well as the highs and the lows of them finding their wings with new friends and preparing to fly the nest.

I wonder if today the young ever have anything to do with people outside of their age group (other than schoolteachers)? Do the old know any young? If so, when do they meet?

The growth of social media means that maintaining opportunities for generations to mix outside of their age bands is vitally important. Long live churches, the hunting communities and other societies!

All You Who Pass By

I met the great Sir Michael Mayne after his retirement as Dean of Westminster when he was living in Salisbury. He once mightily irritated Margaret Thatcher by holding a service for the mining community when the pits were closed in 1991. He also set up a remembrance stone for the innocent victims of violence and persecution, which reads, “Is it nothing to you all you who pass by?”

Michael told of how his vicar father committed suicide when his son was three by throwing himself down from the roof of his church. Sixty years afterwards Michael preached in the church where his father died. After he had finished an old lady told him that she had known his father: “such a jolly man”. How little we reveal. How little we know of others’ lives.

Michael was a great man who writes beautifully about the mysteries of faith. In Pray, Love, Remember he recollects when he was strongly criticised for holding an interfaith service in Westminster Abbey on grounds of John 14:6 “No one can come to the father except by me”. In other words, his critics thought all other faiths are plain wrong, whilst Christians have a monopoly on being right!

I have always been bothered by the concept that the Christians have it all right and everyone else is wrong.

Mayne argues: “This text relates specifically to the fatherhood of God: it is not simply a question of coming ‘to God’ but of coming to the father. There is but one God, ‘in whom we live and move and have our being’ and when we worship, we stand before the mystery of that deep and eternal reality to whom we give different names. From the Jews we learn of his faithfulness; from Muslims of his sovereignty and mercy; from the wonders of the natural world, a realisation of his mystery and power. Christians speak of something more intimate: of his fatherhood, for only in Jesus can we begin to experience the truth of a God as father. The presence of those from the commonwealth of other faiths, each person praying to God as that faith conceived him to be, did nothing to compromise our belief that in Jesus Christ we see the ultimate expression of God’s nature, for that belief does not deny the truth of other revelations of God, nor our hope that in Christ all may ultimately find their fulfilment.”

This sets me thinking. I suppose we will never know for sure until we confront the recording angel!

Win/ win

A successful businessman and ZANE donor told me that he made his money by stealing from the rich and selling to the blind!  You have been warned!

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Wilde Speculation

When Oscar  Wilde was asked if he believed other planets harboured life, he said that he did,

“Why?” they asked.

“Because we are their insane asylum.”

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Hosts with the Most

We stayed last night in the happy home of a Bill and Penny Evershed. Apparently they built their own house and very nice it is too. I have to say that I find the extraordinary talents of my hosts overwhelming. I can’t do any of the things they can do so feel rather useless.  Bill – who is a retired naval officer- walked steadily with us the whole day and he was the ideal guest. He was quiet and he only talked when he had something interesting to say.

We arrived at the Isle of Wight ferry with literally ten seconds to spare.

We are staying tonight in a glorious house in the Isle of Wight. Peter and Johanna Truman were generous hosts and they gave a dinner party for us and asked some of their buddies -all delightful and interested in Zimbabwe.

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His Term Has Ended

I see that the great educationalist Sir Chris Woodhead has died. He spent most of his professional life battling against what Michael Gove called “the blob” that is the cloud of educationalist lefties who seek to protect useless teachers often at the expense of  pupils.

Chris pointed out that there were at least 15,000 useless teachers working in the state system.

When one of our daughters attended our local grammar school we noticed with some incredulity that her history homework was unmarked. We  complained to the head teacher to be told that the history teacher suffered domestic “problems.” I said why should  domestic problems affect the educational future  of the entire class. I was then invited to see the teacher in question with the head teacher.

I protested that this was beyond the absurd and this was not my job. The education went from bad to worse.

As our daughter’s  education was suffering so we bit the bullet and sent her to a local public school. From day one she improved.

Chris Woodhead knew great vilification in his life when he tried to take on the blob and at the hands of cowardly politicians who failed to back him. May he rest in peace.

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Royals and Rackets

I am an ardent royalist but that doesn’t stop me from pondering on some of the less appealing aspects of the monarchy! For example, have you ever wondered at the sick-puppy expressions on the faces of those in proximity to anyone with royal blood? I am sure that most members of the royal family are pleasant and able people, but what special personal qualities do they possess to garner such adoration? They must wonder why the good Lord created humanity with faces permanently puckered in an ingratiating smile, for that’s all they ever see when they meet ordinary mortals.

The Royal Effect

Why do people turn to glue when there is a royal within a hundred yards? As the effect of the monarchy is socially crippling, do the royals have any “real” friends? Surely they must always wonder at people’s motivations? We have an admiral friend who tells us that when he was at sea people used to laugh at his jokes whether they were funny or not… but the laughter stopped dead when he retired. How much more amplified must false mirth be for those in the Queen’s tiny circle; they must have noticed that all their vaguely funny comments are greeted with shrieks of hilarity. Who dares to tell the royals when they are talking balls? Or inform them they’ve told the same tedious story twice – and that it wasn’t funny the first time round?

Can you really be close friends with an HRH? And please don’t believe the fiction that ladies in waiting or equerries form close friendships with their royal employers, for that’s highly improbable. How many of the tailored suits and frocks are sufficiently brave to chance the royal scowl and speak an occasional unvarnished truth? This is sad for the royals, sad for everyone.

Why is it like this? It’s nothing to do with the fact that the present Queen has served the country with rare distinction. I know we live in a celebrity culture – most people live relatively tedious lives and so royalty adds a touch of spice to the mix. But I’m sure there’s a darker reason… perhaps it’s because when Charles I was executed, the “divine right of kings” nonsense never fell into the basket along with his head. So today, deep down in people’s psyches – so far buried, they’re probably unaware of it – is the idea that the royals are semi-divine. I am sure if they were to be challenged, people would see this idea as risible, but if you think I’m wrong then please come up with a more convincing explanation!

A Brilliant Wheeze

And while I am on about my theories, here’s another one. Do you recall being taught about Martin Luther, the original whistle blower and the total outrage of “indulgences”?

It was dangerous blowing whistles then. To remind you, indulgences were part of a Catholic racket that guaranteed that if, for example, you paid say £10,000, you could avoid the fires of Hades despite that little spot of adultery you committed. And your bribe could ensure a shorter time in purgatory too. And what about a package of, say, £50,000 to absolve you if you wanted to go on committing the same crime! It was a sort of spiritual extortion and hugely successful. On top of this, the good old Catholic Church had the monopoly on forgiveness. The whole thing was such a brilliant wheeze that the Mafia’s Don Corleone would have given his mother and her spaghetti sauce recipes for even two per cent of the gross.

To the vast irritation of the Catholic Church, on 31 October 1513, one-time monk Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral; amongst his trenchant criticisms was a claim that indulgences were a disgraceful fraud. Only God, he proclaimed, could forgive sins through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice and his blood spilled on the cross.

Are you paying attention, class? Sit up straight!

The Church had another monopoly: deciding who was to be regarded as a heretic. Luther was sentenced and they immediately began to stoke the faggots for his bonfire; so he went into hiding and who can blame him? To cut to the chase, Luther had influential pals and survived. Then came the Reformation and after a time indulgences were scrapped.

Today, no one in authority in any Christian church would be daft enough to formally reintroduce indulgences as such. But has the notion completely gone away?

What are the motives of the faithful, for example, when they help to fund church building projects? Perhaps the idea that if I donate £20k towards a loo extension, then somehow God – never mind the vicar – will be pleased, and my gift might still prove to serve as penance for that derring-do (or don’t)?

If churches are facing financial difficulties, perhaps they might bring indulgences back. It was such a good idea until dear old Luther blew his whistle.

Lame Excuse

I sat and stared dismally at my red and rather swollen left foot.

“I don’t think I can walk today dear,” I said to Jane.

She strode over to take a look then she grabbed it and gave it a squeeze. I yelped. Jane stared at me with narrowed eyes,

then she gave me her medical opinion

” Just shut up and start walking.”

So I did.

I was more or less fine. In fact this episode illustrates “Benyon’s law of do it yourself medicine”. It says: Usually when you pull a muscle or something relatively minor, if you walk through it the pain will recede. It’s as simple as that.

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Painted Ladies

Some years ago I told my daughters at dinner that any woman with tattoos was clearly a hooker. They jeered abuse at me and went shopping. That evening to my horror they reappeared covered in garish pictures all over their arms. They then told me they were only stick on wash off transfers.

In our wanderings round the UK over the past 4 years or so I am in the position of being able to assess the state of my countrymen. I have to say they are even larger and I reckon 25 per cent more tattooed than four years ago. And, no, I still don’t like it.

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Taxi Assessment

Do you recall the abuse and scorn poured out on the hapless David Mellor, culture secretary in the Major government, after he had vented his spleen at a taxi driver a few months back? Yet when Boris Johnson told his taxi driver to “eff off and die but not in that order” everyone said “good for old Boris, attaboy!” , but what’s sauce for the Goose should be sauce for the Gander and, if it isn’t, then it should be. Mellor is an excellent cove – as I am told is Boris – and he was much defamed by the scurillous Max Clifford who is now languishing in the nick. Mellor deserved better from the media.

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Reality Bites

Last August, I nearly sent a letter to the Telegraph asking if there was anyone alive in the UK whose grandfather was born before June 1840. My grandfather was 54 when my father was born, and my father 52 when I was born.

I was just about to send the letter off when I spotted a letter from an aged man living in Devon. He wrote that his grandfather had been born in 1797! That’s years before Napoleon even became consul! His grandfather was 70 when he sired his father, and his father was 68 when he was born. And there was no Viagra in those days either!

I’ll wait a little while before I send off my letter…

Mental Gymnastics

It’s all so arbitrary. One of my friend’s mothers is in her early 80s, and she is fast developing dementia. Although the queen is three years her senior, she – and of course thousands like her – are still going like bullets.

I wonder if there is a lucid moment when we can tell we are in the process of losing it? The moment of icy truth. Can we face it?

T.S. Eliot wrote in “Burnt Norton” that humankind “cannot bear very much reality”. If he is right, when facing the hideous reality of one-way street madness, we go into denial.

Some face it head on. I recall when the great and lamented Bernard Levin knew he was developing dementia, he is said to have shouted at his partner: “Go, just go… run for the hills and don’t come back. You have to leave me for I am going mad!”

Levin’s wonderfully lucid articles simply fell off a cliff, for either you are writing world-class articles or you aren’t! There’s no halfway house. One of my friends – now dead – was a High Court judge when he suffered a massive stroke in his early 60s. He recovered his mental capacity pretty well but he immediately retired. How can you be a judge when you hesitate to identify which day of the week it is? How do you reinvent yourself then? How do you stop turning your face to the wall?

Clement Freud once told me: “When you go into the kitchen and you cannot remember why you went there, don’t worry, for we all do that… but if you go into a kitchen and you cannot remember what a kitchen is for, then you know you have a problem!”

Actress Maureen Lipman believes that there are hardly any actors with dementia. She thinks this is because working and aged actors are continually undergoing mental gymnastics in learning lines and brooding how they are to embrace this or that role. The moral may be that if you want to keep your marbles in the right order, don’t retire – but if you have to, immediately start to learn Mandarin!

Get Rich Quick

We have Brazilian cleaners, quick, honest and efficient, and they speak not a single coherent word of English. We know they clean at least 20 houses each week and their car is far newer and smarter than ours. My car is (occasionally) cleaned by a group of Bulgarians who speak no English, and they do at least five cars a time for £15 pounds each. I am told by our accountant that one of her dog-walking clients earns £60k per year and another does forecourt car cleaning for about £50k per year.

OK, of course there is “poverty” in the UK, but with a bit of initiative anyone can make a decent living provided they are prepared to do cleaning work: you don’t even need to speak English, a few gestures will suffice.

And I’ll bet there are no British youngsters cleaning houses and cars in Rio or in Sofia.

My Left Foot

I am in Chichester A&E with a swollen rather painful left foot. The local doctor suggested I should have it X-rayed to ensure nothing is broken.

After the X-ray – and what an efficient hospital it is – I walked, or rather shuffled, down a corridor barefoot carrying my socks and shoes. I was greeted by a small group of nurses who anxiously asked me if I was all right? One took me by the arm and started patting me.

I then realised they thought that I was demented.

Perhaps they are right?

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Well, I took a knife to my walking boot and cut half of it away to take the pressure off my left foot. This seems to be working a treat which is rather more important than the fact that the result makes me look even more like a down and out than I nomally do.

As we walked from Chichester to Havant we were joined by three guests – all delightful people, quiet yet informed. Hazel claims to be a retired teacher and all I can say is that I wish I had been in her class. Then there was Timothy a delightful young man from Oxford Brookes University and his father, Julian. Both walked like troupers.

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Scrooge

Last Christmas, it was decided that alongside the traditional turning on of lights ceremony, the Woodstock community would celebrate the start of the festive season with a brief sketch portraying a scene from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. In terms of character and looks, I was – so the organizers cried – born to the role of Scrooge. All I needed was a nightcap!

The Ghost of Christmas Future

As an incentive, I was informed that I could add a few lines to the part, so I set to work with enthusiasm. The ghosts of Christmas past and future were an excellent back up. My Scrooge decided that Woodstock was a dull place (it isn’t), and that it needed livening up. To achieve this, comprehensive planning permissions should be sought: and to start off with, consent for a McDonalds to be sited bang in the middle of the town opposite the Bear Hotel. Then all the craft shops should be gutted and turned into amusement arcades with fruit machines, and the town hall changed into a casino – Las Vegas comes to Woodstock! Finally, I decided that the church should be changed into a squash court, and added that I had heard that the curate was said to be a woman called Clare Hayns. “How ridiculous is that?!” exclaimed old Scrooge. “The next absurdity will be women bishops!”

That evening, a number of outraged people anxiously questioned the curate, the saintly Reverend Clare Hayns, who that “dreadful old man” was who had the temerity to abuse her by name?

“Oh, that was my father!” she answered sweetly.

A Day at the Races

When we visited a small town to the north east of Bulawayo (security prevents me from naming it) in March this year, the services veterans ran a series of races.

As all the contestants were aged over 65, it was an unusual event to say the least. Each veteran was given a dollar just for taking part, so needless to say there were a great many contestants who started and then stopped after about 10 yards. It was a roasting hot day and the event went on for hours. Then came the 2-km race for the over 70s. I was placed under considerable pressure to take part. In my youth, I was a fairly decent cross-country runner, though admittedly that was some time ago. However, I was sorely tempted – and then caution kicked in. I might win, and that would be disastrous – a white man dominating his hosts! Or I might take part and then die and that would be worse. Then the worst possible denouement of all – I might win and then die. That would be the double whammy! So I gracefully declined, presented the prizes and made an encouraging speech instead.

A Racy Tale

Reader, I am about to make a shameful confession. I was caught speeding and because my excess was relatively modest (34 mph in a 30 zone) I was given the choice of accepting points on my otherwise pristine licence or attending a speed awareness course.

The course, run by the Institute of Advanced Motoring or some such body, was excellent. The group looked downcast at the outset when the lead speaker said in a hushed voice that our attendance as potential offenders was a secret, and that no one need ever know we had been there.

On the way out I asked the course leader to give his sister my fond wishes because his name’s a rare one and I was almost certain she had been a girlfriend of mine before I was married to Jane.

“But I can’t do that without disclosing the fact that you were an attendee on a speed awareness course”, he cried anxiously.

I nearly told him that she wouldn’t mind. As I recall, she was the fastest lady I ever met. But discretion kicked in and so I thought I had better keep that fact to myself.

Fat Nation

If you want to know why our nation is clogged up with fatties, all you have to do is look at what Costa sells with its creamy coffee to hungry punters. The choice is apparently limited to cup cakes, cream-filled buns, nutty topped sweet bars and sugary drinks. What hope has the public got of staying lean and slim?

My Pain, Her Gain

Miles walked through a weather forecaster’s nightmare. Each time we put on our waterproofs the sun blazed down and then more or less instantly starts a Noah scale downpour.

Eight miles in I told Jane that I was stiff all over like an ancient cart horse just taken from the summer’s corn. Each muscle shrieked, “Forget about collecting £200, I want to return to go!”

Jane then voluntered with an irritatiing smile:

“I feel totally fine,. No discomfort at all”

“Thanks very much! That’s all I need.”

Great wife I have.

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The Selfish Gene

We are a profoundly selfish species. Incurvatus in se is the fancy Latin phrase that underlines this fact. The idea was identified by Augustine and developed by Luther. The fact is, dear reader, that we are all bent inward towards ourselves and are only really interested in furthering our own interests.

Luther concludes we are so totally obsessed with number one that we consider this state of profound selfishness to be perfectly normal. Dawkins would agree. He calls it the “selfish gene”. This is why the Christian commandment “to love your neighbour as yourself” is so revolutionary – easy to say and more or less impossible to follow.

There’s None So Blind…

The theme is explored by the poet Auden in his poem “Musée des Beaux Arts”– in it he claims that the old masters knew all about this bleak aspect of the human condition. Auden tells us there is a painting that demonstrates the fact by the sixteenth-century painter, Brueghel. In Greek myth, Icarus flew too near to the sun and his wax wings melted – Brueghel depicts him falling into the sea. In the foreground there are various people busy and seemingly oblivious: one is ploughing, another is fishing and there is a ship sailing along. All are preoccupied and don’t give poor old drowning Icarus a second glance.

I see this bleak prognosis of man’s selfishness working out in Zimbabwe. Pensioners are more likely to seek ZANE’s help than to ask their children or family for support. Of course, at root that’s all about pride. The default position of an elderly person is often to seek help from an anonymous charity rather than approach their family. The sad fact is that the children often don’t want to see what’s bang under their noses. Apart from paying occasional lip service or indulging in the odd spasm of nostalgia, they often choose to more or less forget the people they left behind in Zimbabwe – particularly, it so often seems, their aged parents.

Picture the scene: the children ring at Christmas and after discussing the weather they might enquire: “How are you Mum?”

“I’m fine,” comes the answer.

The parents don’t want to admit their desperation to their children because they “don’t want to be a burden”. How sad is that?

After the brief call, the children convince themselves that everything is fine and leave it there. There’s none so blind as those who don’t wish to see: often these children just don’t want to read between the lines and discover a desperately lonely and aged pensioner who is stranded with no food in the house, no medicines for, say, a heart condition or prostate problems… and no money to pay the bills.

When ZANE workers come across someone in need, their first step is to contact the children. Why do that? Well ZANE is not serving our generous donors by ignoring dysfunctional families who don’t communicate, and we hunt for cash from wherever we can find it. If there are any close relatives, we track them down to wherever they may be living to gently tell them that their father or mother – or whoever it is – is more or less destitute. They often express astonishment – and I am pleased to say that nine times out of 10, they accept their responsibilities.

Incurvatus in se about sums it up. Bloody stupid selfishness I call it.

Everybody’s Doin’ It

We all need ceremony at the great punctuation points in our lives – birth, marriage and death. One of the great sadnesses of our time is that many do not understand the crucial significance and value of ceremony to the family and community.

Our neighbour’s children left home to go to university. The next thing our friends knew was that Emily was living with someone – just like that and before they had even met him (never mind approved of him!). Then – a number of partners later – Emily announced that she was in (yet) another relationship, likely (but not certainly) to be long lasting – though no marriage was in sight. Then sometime later, she introduced Fred, her “partner” as a sort of fait accompli. Then a baby just appeared and a family had simply and seamlessly morphed into being.

We are told that this “informality” is the new way of doing things, the implication being that the old ways are old hat and presumably restrictive to the liberty of the young. Today it seems that the measured introduction of the intended to the family or the carefully planned dinners so that everyone could get to know the potential new member have vanished. Also swept aside is the announcement of a formal engagement, and out goes yet another excuse for a party. Often there is no marriage ceremony or any celebration of the couple’s union. Perhaps some time afterwards, a baby is born – there is no baptism, and yet another opportunity to mark the occasion and have fun is lost.

You don’t have to be a hand-waving Christian believer to mourn the loss of the ancient customs of our tribe. And the scrapping has been swift and comprehensive. There was a song by Irving Berlin with the chorus, “Everybody’s doin’ it, doin’ it, everybody’s doin’ it now” – and so it seems that without much thought at all, traditional ceremonies –deemed now to be old fashioned and stuffy – are simply ignored. Yet the new ways of doing things lose opportunities for a vast amount of fun. Does dumping custom make anyone any happier? Do relationships last longer as a result? Are any of the children that arrive from “morphed” relationships any more secure or settled than hitherto? I doubt it – and in fact I am sure the reverse is often the case.

When children drift into relationships with no parental involvement or approval sought, and when there is no engagement party, marriage ceremony or baptisms, family cohesion becomes unglued: uncles, aunts, cousins and family friends (and parents!) feel sidelined and remain uninvolved. It’s all very sad. And for what purpose?

The great poet Yeats understood all this. In “Prayer for my Daughter”, he writes:

“And may her bridegroom bring her to a house

Where all’s accustomed, ceremonious;…

How but in custom and in ceremony

Are innocence and beauty born?

Ceremony’s a name for the rich horn

And custom for the spreading laurel tree.”

Wilde and Beautiful

We stayed last night with the Lears; they are old friends we have known well for thirty years. They live in a glorious farm surrounded by assorted ducks, hens and bees and some of their adult children; they have the rare gift of effortless hospitality.

On through the endless suburbia of Worthing: the only interesting thing I can recall about the place is that Ernest was found in a handbag in Wilde’s great play: “The Importance of Being Ernest”. Then we plod on through lush countryside so glorious that heaven will have a serious problem in trying to surpass it. Nowhere on earth can match this Sceptered isle, this England, set in a silver sea especially in the months of late May and June. One feature unique to our land is that because of our wet climate all long views are seen shrouded through a very faint mist. No wonder so many of the world’s poorest are clamouring to get here.

We walk through Poling and then Angmering – where I asked a delightful passer-by called Alison where the name came from: she hadn’t a clue. On through Arundel and to Petworth where we spend the night in a house built at the time of Cromwell and is today owned by renaissance man (and women) called Raymond and Rosemary Harris. What an immaculate garden and blow me down we learn that the beautiful furniture was in fact built by our hosts. they are both retired architects. Very capable and kind and generous people who now tirelessly work for the community.

—

Through a Glass, Darkly

In last year’s Christmas mailing, I included a First World War letter from nursemaid Amy Harding to her lover Jack Clifton. She wrote: “ …my Jack – my same, same heart-mate….Oh! let me feel you crushing my life into yours! Jack, Jack, I live for you, always my own.” However, I can’t help thinking that even had Jack lived, however much Amy might have tried to achieve total intimacy, Jack would always have remained something of a stranger to her.

Can we really ever get to know a person? At funerals I often wonder whether I actually knew the departed, even when he or she had been a close friend. The reality is that all we can ever really have is an impression, an outline, some bits of detail and experience that we may have been privileged to share – and even from time to time helped to shape. However, we are all so complex, I wonder if we ever really know even ourselves? Sometimes I look back at some incident or other in my life and reflect, “I must have been quite mad to have done that!”

Plumbing the Depths

However much we delude ourselves that we are all as one flesh, the infinite variety of unrepeated snowflake patterns against a winter sky reminds us that we are always destined to remain separate from one another. Even those whom we love deeply will always remain something of a mystery, for they have had experiences that we can never really share – we cannot know what their world looked like at the age of eight, or how they felt when they first heard the Beetles or Beethoven’s Pastoral. And what’s more, they may even have forgotten the experience themselves. This forms part of the acute frustration of loving someone deeply: we can never see the whole or plumb the deepest depths of their heart, and are privileged only to snatch flickering glimpses of the personality we love.

Only God can really know each one of us, and plumb the millions of our passing thoughts and actions that combine to make an individual life; only God can know each of us in the deepest sense, in the muscle and the bone and the sinew, and the racing blood and the workings of our brain cells; and only He can know the real reasons that lie behind our actions – some virtuous, and others deeply flawed.

For as St Paul wrote, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then, face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

In Search of Lost Time

We make the division between life and death a matter of dates, being born on one date and dying on another years later. But we are asleep for half our lives and often when we are awake, we are often only half alive… wasting time, day dreaming, waiting for trains, sitting in traffic jams on hot days, waiting at airports for late arrivals, standing in queues, watching meaningless telly, wasting time in the wrong job, arguing, filling in forms, hanging on to call-centre calls and being told endlessly, “your call is important to us.”

Life is a quality, not just a quantity. Malcolm Muggeridge called one of his autobiographies Chronicles of Wasted Time. It is tragic we cannot refine our lives and drain away the waste, and leave the pure gold behind. Those golden moments of say listening to Mozart’s Great Mass for the first time, seeing our daughters marrying good and loving men, watching our children being ordained, or sharing laughter with our grandchildren: all moments of 22-carat gold. If such wonderful times could be preserved and the rest of the dross drained away, who could hope for anything better? And just as those times of great ecstasy and joy highlight our lives, so too might they be preserved in the lives of our friends and close family. Perhaps this is what is meant by eternal life?

Wilder tells us that our dead friends will be loved for a while and then forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love – the only survival, the only meaning.

Soul Talk

Some time ago I read a book by the late US philosopher and Christian thinker Dallas Willard. The book was primarily about how to stay spiritually healthy. One piece of advice particularly has stayed with me: “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life”, he wrote. “Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day.”

He went on to say then that the other important thing in your life is not what you do, but rather who you become. That is what you will take into eternity. “You are an unceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe.” Then he repeated it: “You are an unceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe.” That’s the most important thing to know about you. You should write that down and repeat it regularly. You may think you have something more to do or need to be someplace else to find peace, but its right here. Your soul is not just something that lives on after your body dies. It’s the most important thing about you: it’s your life.

Dallas was an extraordinary man. He once wrote about a tiny child who crept into his father’s bed to sleep. In the dark, knowing that his father was present was enough to take away his sense of aloneness.

“Is your face turned toward me, father?” he would ask.

“Yes, his father replied. “My face is turned toward you.”

Only then would the child sleep.

Brighton (didn’t) Rock

We trail through Brighton keeping to the
rather tatty sea-shore. I don’t much like touristy seaside resorts in the
sunshine but in the grey mizzle that passes for an English summer, the sea
road out of Brighton is not a pretty picture. Our walk is punctuated by
cheap eateries and second hand car lots. The harsh cries of the shrieking
sea gulls fill me with gloom. After a mile of identical swimming huts we
pass the unremarkable appartment that used to be the home of music hall
diva, Vesta Tilley. I wonder if she rests easy in her grave? She seduced so
many fresh faced innocents to their death in WW1, with the brilliant
recruiting song; “We don’t want to lose you, but we think you ought to go”,
Vesta would stand on stage flanked by recruiting sergeants and as the young
men filed up she would give them a kiss as they signed their lives away..

I suppose she would say she was only doing her duty, and so she was…. but
yet it was a desperately sad business..

—

You may recall the terrible event of little over a year ago when, without warning, 15-year old William Cornick murdered his teacher in a Leeds school. Afterwards, Cornick claimed that everything was “fine and dandy” and that he was “proud” of what he had done.

The boy’s background looks spotless. He was a gifted student who had achieved five GCSEs a year early, and prior to the murder seemed “amicable” and “enthusiastic”. Social workers described his parents as “entirely responsible and caring people” and his family life was marked with “love and respect.” We are told that none of the usual characteristics – such as manipulative behaviour, dishonesty, cruelty, or impulsive risk-taking – were apparent at an early age to indicate that here was a psychopath in the making. Cornick was reported to be “a delightful pupil” with 100 per cent school attendance, and “polite, cooperative and helpful.”

Searching for Reasons
I read that research psychologist Professor Kevin Dutton reckons that 15-year old Cornick “defies diagnosis”. Mr Dutton concludes that the “malevolent fog” that descended on Cornick’s brain may eventually condense into a “full-blown personality disorder”. So, in other words the murder may not be Cornick’s fault, and is instead the fault of a malevolent fog and perhaps a personality disorder.

I think Mr Dutton is probably plain wrong. In our atheistic society, the professionals always seem to conclude that when someone has done something terrible, “society” must somehow establish the reason precisely why it ever happened; then we must stick labels all over it to prevent the same thing ever happening again. We are left with the impression that whatever the crime, had there been superior housing, improved teaching, better care and more social workers, then society could have prevented it.

In Thomas Harris’s book The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lector challenges Officer Starling who is trying to psychoanalyse him thus:

“Nothing happened to me… I happened. You can’t reduce me to a set of influences. You’ve given up good and evil for behaviourism… nothing is ever anybody’s fault. Look at me Officer Starling. Can you stand to say I’m evil?”

I know of a number of cases where young people with ostensibly enviable backgrounds have done terrible things; and other cases where people with apparently ghastly backgrounds are living lives of great virtue. Does extreme youth matter here, for we are pretty much cast as people by the time we are five?

Perhaps one day we may face the reality that we will never know what twisted the black hearts of the likes of Pol Pot, Saddam, Hitler, Stalin and probably young William Cornick – and that innate evil is not a medieval concept, but still exists.

—

We were joined by a delightful ZANE supporter, John Haskey, and we put
much of the world to rights as we walked. We are getting into the swing of
the old routines again, Moses behaved well enough at least when compared to
dear late Dinah whose parting gift to us we find was to have eaten the
chuggles from our drinking octopus rendering them more or less useless!

The Day before – where to begin?

The worst possible trip to the start line. Sod’s law kicked In snd what could go wrong did go wrong. Never ending trafic snarl ups and our drivelling sat nav suddenly rebooted itself and decided to take us to Wales! That’s the cost of relying on what my old Aunt Daisy would have called “new fangled gadgets”

Come back maps; all is forgiven.

Two hours late we end up arriving at he home of Nigel and Maggie Kay who ten years ago created “Homes in Zimbabwe” today absorbed under the ZANE banner. We first met the Kays when our daughters were at school together half a lifetime ago. We have since forged a warm friendship; they are hugely supportive of the work we jointly undertake in Zimbabwe.

—-

I am a member of a serious men’s group. We were all members of parliament at one time
or another, and we have met at least monthly over the past 20 years or so. We talk about
our lives and problems, and we do all we can to help and encourage one another. As the
old saw goes, a problem shared is a problem halved – and so it proves to be.
I realise I am fortunate since I know that few men enjoy the blessing of such support –
and for all I know, many would regard such a group intrusive and unnecessary. But I
need my friends and we all dislike small talk. Over the years, we have grown to trust one
another and we allow an occasional torch to shine into the dark places in our lives. We
run our meetings according to the so-called Chatham House Rule, and so none of us
discusses individual problems with anyone else.

Timely Kicking

A few weeks ago, we discussed our lives in general terms and those of our often-troubled
offspring. I said that I was saddened that for career reasons, some of my children were
moving out of Oxford and to posts up to a couple of hours away. I said I was also upset
that our two sons were to be ordained on the same day and in separate places, 300 miles
apart – meaning that our family and its celebrations to mark the occasions would have to
be split.
A grave silence fell upon the group. Then one of my friends mused: “In past months, we
have discussed financial difficulties and various serious illnesses. One of our brothers has
a bad drink problem. Two of our children are living in South America, and one has
emigrated to Tasmania; another of our children faces imprisonment for attacking
someone in the street and yet another is suffering from bulimia. And then there are the
two children who refuse to talk to their parents civilly, and instead communicate via foul
and angry text messages and emails.
You, dear Tom, expect us to sympathise with you because two of your children are being
ordained on the same day. Gentlemen, a two-minute silence for poor Tom – how on earth
will he cope with the stress of such a burden?”

We all need a kicking sometimes to allow us to see things in proportion and in
perspective, and believe me – that felt like quite a kicking…

* Please note that the problems in this item have been altered so as not to betray confidences

—

A murkey warm day. We start with a new car and a new cockerpoo dog called Moses. The poor animal has no idea of the ups and down of what lies ahead. We also have a new driver (Markus) from Bulawayo. Markus is of German extraction and electrified us all at dinner last night by telling us that his nickname at school was “Kraut!” Clearly political correctness was not a strong suit in Zimbabwean schools. Markus tells us he rather enjoyed the name.

Off we go to our first start point in Brighton.