Nearly all telly programmes start – ludicrously in my view – warning viewers that watching, for example, Putin’s war in ghastly detail involving bombing, death, and rape “might be offensive to some viewers”. What do they expect? Do they think viewers live in a perpetual world of Little Bo Peep and The Sound of Music?

Anyway, following the nannying trend perpetrated everywhere, my walk commentary may be offensive to some readers. If it is, stop reading and get a life!

Over the years, I am sure I’ve started many walk commentaries with “ Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun,” and so we do today.

Miles of sandy paths cut through the beautiful county on the “Peddars Way”. Kind and generous hosts to see us on our way. Heroes Charles and Angela walk with us often as pathfinders.

Baby Wants Cake! 

Why do people accuse politicians of being liars?

The answer is easy – if politicians told voters the unvarnished truth, they’d never get elected in the first place!

Do people realise how darn difficult it is to run a country effectively when the electorate act like babies who refuse to recognise the inconsistences of their demands? People cry for better healthcare, “free” social care, better paid teachers, more money for defence spending and roads without potholes. Then they simultaneously squeal for lower taxes – while failing to notice the impossibility of having all these things at the same time. Voters want their cake, but they won’t pay for it by voting for the bills.

No, Nein and Non

Of course, it’s not just British citizens who practice such willful blindness. In the US, people want to see an end to gun crime and mass shootings but steadfastly refuse to ban guns. They complain about eye-watering debt but decline to vote for candidates who pledge to do something about it. Remember Ronnie Reagan who quipped, “Our debt’s big enough to look after itself!” – and so he let it balloon. Of course, when the debt parcel finally reaches the end of the line and bursts – as it surely must – the poor sods holding it will face a world-shattering debt crisis, and everyone will blame them for being lying, useless hounds.    

In Germany, voters want energy security but said nein when asked to buy the nuclear reactors that would have delivered what they needed. That’s why they were in hock to Putin’s oil. It’s much easier now for voters to lazily blame poor Angela Merkel and Gerhard Schröder for incompetence than accept responsibility for their own fecklessness. 

In France, poor Macron is trying to deliver vital pension reform – an essential matter that has been ducked by previous presidents who saw that the issue is electoral dynamite. Macron can only deliver it in his last term of presidential office when finally freed from democratic constraints. 

We live like babies, voting for politicians who tell us what we want to hear and then accusing them of being liars when things go wrong – as they usually do in the end.   

DH Lawrence’s poem “We Can’t Be Too Careful” sums things up. Here’s an extract:

“We can’t be too careful
about the British Public.
It gets bigger and bigger
And its perambulator has to get bigger and bigger
And its dummy-teat has to be made bigger and bigger and bigger
And the job of changing its nappies gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger
And the sound of its howling gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger…
And soon even God won’t be big enough to handle that infant.”

Lawrence died in 1930. The baby’s got a bit bigger since then, hasn’t it?

There’s an election in just over a year’s time – another mouthful of cake, Baby Dear?

Time Waits for No Man

Now, something to cheer you up. As you get older, you of course have less time left but it seems to flick by much faster than when you were a babe.

For a 10-year-old, a year seems an eternity, while for a 79-year-old, that same year passes by in a flash. A paradox of course, but the mathematics tell us this. For a 10-year-old, a year adds 10 per cent to their life, a huge amount. For a 50-year-old, a year adds 2 per cent, a tiny amount. And that percentage diminishes each year that passes! 

The sun is like a bishop’s bottom: large, shiny and hot, the first continual sun we have seen for months. Lunch in Castle Acre, a gem of a town with a priory, a castle and a grand house lurking somewhere.

I see the news is dull, which is good when you think of the miseries we have endured these past years. Perhaps our politicians might be persuaded to go on holiday more often! Give me dull at any time! I am reminded of the newspaper competition for the dullest headline ever. The winner was “earthquake in Chile, only a few dead!” ( Sorry to Chilean donors, but I thought it was funny! it shows how tasteless I can be!)

An Unholy Mess

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy,” recalled Nick Carraway in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. “They smashed up things… and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

Readers of my last commentary will recall the case of the great Post Office mess whereby this old British institution prosecuted around 900 sub-postmasters for theft, false accounting and fraud. After a lengthy court case, it was found that 99 per cent of them were wholly innocent and that many had been maliciously prosecuted. Many lives were destroyed. 

Oh yes, I nearly forgot to remind you – the Post Office CEO at the time, the Rev Paula Vennells, is a former Anglican priest. At first, she said she was misled by computer experts – but when she was told the full extent of her mess, she said she was “sorry”. That’s nice, isn’t it? Bound to reassure those whose lives have been wholly destroyed. Pity about those who took their own lives before she issued her apology.

You think the Post Office scandal was a one-off? Think again.

Dirty Money

If any ZANE donor was found to have assisted drug smuggling by laundering money, he or she could rightly expect up to 20 years in the slammer. But not so if you’re too big to jail. The world’s biggest bank is HSBC. During its recent drug-running days, the CEO of HSBC UK was the Rev Stephen Green – yes, these Anglican priests pop up everywhere.

Between 2006 and 2009, the bank – under Green’s watch – allowed a breakdown in money laundering controls in its Mexican subsidiary with the result that at least $881 million of drug trafficking cash flowed through its US accounts. The bank was so blatant in its enthusiasm to assist the drug cartels and enhance profits that bank cashiers’ windows were specially adapted to allow large bungs of dirty drug money to be posted easily. When HSBC was warned – several times – that the practice was illegal, it turned a blind eye. There can be no argument about guilt. There is even a recording of a Mexican drug lord saying that HSBC Mexico is “the place to launder money”.

When finally confronted with HSBC’s crime of profiting from drug running on an industrial scale, Green expressed his “regret”. That’s it. No explanation as to how the bank landed a fine of $91m, the largest penalty ever recorded. Amazingly, when the US authorities decided to prosecute HSBC, it was the UK’s chancellor, George Osborne, who defended the bank’s executives and pleaded that the economic fallout would be so great that prosecution had to be avoided.

Of course, Osborne was right. To bring criminal charges against nice, non-violent people like us, who hail from similar backgrounds and circles, and send us to jail and thereby ruin us and our families is quite another.

I bet you’ll never guess the next bit. Partly thanks to Osborne’s intervention, HSBC survived. And once Osborne had moved on from his chancellor role, he made two speeches for HSBC, one in Davos for which he was paid £51,000, and another for which he received £68,000 (he was obliged to register these fees in the Commons file of financial interests).     

A Blooming Shame

This all makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? You see, the authorities view non-violent criminals differently from violent criminals. They don’t regard them as, well, quite so criminal. Remember the old song “It’s the Same the Whole World Over”?

“It’s the same the whole world over,
It’s the poor what get the blame,
It’s the rich what get the pleasure,
Isn’t it a blooming shame?”

So, what happened next? The key drug runner in Mexico, “El Chapo”, is incarcerated for life in one of America’s most secure prisons, the US Penitentiary Florence Administrative Maximum in Colorado (its nickname is “The Alcatraz of the Rockies”). He’s locked up for 23 hours each day. A former warden claims, “The jail is not fit for humanity… I think being there day by day is worse than death.” 

Meanwhile, Rev Green (Cameron elevated him to Lord Green) “regrets” what happened. So, that’s all right then.  

Just like Rev Paula Vennells, today the Rev Lord Green is rich, retired and free – he’s a member of the House of Lords and he continues his ministry as an Anglican priest.

Careless people these vicars. Smashing things up… and then retreating back into their money or their vast carelessness and letting other people clean up the mess they’ve made.

A Wonderful Beginning

Zimbabwe can be summed up in the words that Bill Clinton’s secretary of state, the late Madeleine Albright, once quoted:

“God made a wonderful beginning,
But man spoiled it all by sinning.
We hope that the story will end in God’s glory,
But, at the moment, the other side’s winning!”

And how! A once wonderful country has been reduced to a comprehensive ruin!

So, Jane and I – along with Moses, the dog – walk to draw attention to the plight of those in Zimbabwe who are trapped in penury and destitution. All too many of them look to ZANE as their only lifeline.

As Stiff as Stoats

The setting for our fourteenth walk is Norfolk – and to be honest, it’s getting harder to find locations we haven’t already covered! This time, I demanded our walk planner look for a route that didn’t involve major roads – in the past, we’ve nearly been mown down by lunatics. Then we proscribed major hills for we’re running out of puff, and told him no plough, for it clogs up our boots. And then last – and pleeease – no minor, overgrown paths that make the job of getting lost all too easy!

Someone asked me why the walks continue to be popular. I reckon loyal supporters assume that after all these years Tom and Jane must be as stiff as stoats – so they back us “one last time”. And then, guess what? The following year, we pop up again like a jack in the box with, “Hello! Here we go again!” And so, our supporters think, “Gosh, one more time it is, where’s the cheque book?” And the process repeats itself!

So, it’s the same old boots, the same old sticks, the same old trousers and the same old dog – and off we go!

Postcard from Paris

I saw a postcard that made me smile. An elderly couple are eating breakfast and she says, “Darling… when one of us dies, I’m going to live in Paris!”

A couple of our closest friends are celebrating 45 years of a wonderful marriage. They told me that before they had even decided on a date for their wedding, James suggested to Mary, “Let’s anticipate the marriage. Come and live with me now?”

“Oh, no,” she replied. “I’m far too fond of you to do that.”  

I suggest that this story would be incomprehensible to today’s young.

The Mystery of Faith

Alec Douglas-Home, prime minister from 1963 to 1964, and a devout member of the CoE reticent, was once cornered in a lift by a woman who roared at him, “Have you been saved?” 

A nervous Douglas-Home said thanks for asking and that he thought he had.

“Then why aren’t you leaping up and down and waving your hands above your head with pure joy?”

The PM anxiously replied, “I thought it was such a close-run thing, I had much better keep quiet about it!”

Winning Souls

Many attempts to evangelise can seem insensitive and impertinent. Alastair Campbell famously said, “We don’t do God!” and I sympathise with his sentiments because the harsh and cynical world of politics, particularly political media management, and “God” are not an easy mix. Christian sentiments can all too easily be mistaken for virtue signalling and are a short ride to mockery.

I think it’s patronising and profitless to badger people we hardly know about God. I was recently asked by a friend how she could persuade her son to take an interest in Jesus? I was astounded by the question, for to my mind, it’s wholly fruitless to even try. Attempts at religious coercion are not something Jane or I would ever have tried on our children. In our (long) experience, children pretty much bring themselves up and the best thing that parents can do is pray (if they are so inclined), try and live decent lives, teach children the basics and otherwise keep out of their way. Persuading the young to slouch out of bed before 11am is hard enough, but hectoring them to go to church, read the Bible, or take even a vague interest in “religion” is highly likely to be counterproductive.

More young people have been put off “God” for life by insensitive parents frog-marching them unwillingly to church and banging on about the Bible than any other factor. Calvin had a point: either we have the religious “gene”, or we don’t; either we are “ripe”, or we aren’t. If parents draw a blank, they should just accept that their child’s time has not yet come – and indeed, may not come in their lifetime.

Whether people come to faith or not is a mystery, and it’s vanity to think family agency has much to do with it.  We have known “churchy” children from ostensibly orderly and devout families, only to watch them slide off the rails into promiscuity or drugs – one even ended up in the slammer. And we have seen parents whose lifestyles were far from ideal (as far as we could tell, for how can one ever judge the integrity of other people’s lives?) produce “model” children, who ended up as hand-waving believers. 

There is a story about a woman who longed for her son to become a Christian. She prayed that whatever was blocking him from accepting Jesus into his life would be removed. Her prayers were answered and she vanished!

I told my friend this anecdote and she looked rather thoughtful. Perhaps I was a bit unkind? 

The penultimate day, spent with delightful ZANE supporters. We discussed a range of subjects, including Brexit and the current political turmoil.

We ended up in Runnymede, where the Magna Carta was signed. When they get their faces out of screens, I wonder if the young are taught the importance of this vital key to history that set the foundation, not only for our legal system but that of the US? Do they know that people have died to win freedom of speech, the right to freedom under the law, and the right to vote? Do they care?

Hocus Pocus

When I was chairman of the Milton Keynes Health Authority – many moons ago – the incidence of drug abuse there was higher than anywhere else in the UK. The town (now a city, of course) wasn’t then regarded as an attractive place to live, as it has now certainly become. 

In the final months of my term, we were required to recruit someone to head up the drug abuse department. As chairman, I was part of the selection committee. 

After “due process” – whatever that means – we were obliged to select someone from, as I recall, a very thin list. In the interviews, we were given a list of questions we were permitted to ask about any candidate’s private life. Undaunted, I asked one dreary looking candidate with pale blue eyes and a small ginger moustache what he did in his spare time? It seemed a harmless enough question to me. I suspected pigeon fancying or perhaps square dancing?

Then an extraordinary thing – the air was sucked from the room and the temperature dropped.  “I’m a witch,” he replied. 

Silence. He had to be joking? 

“Broomsticks and all the trimmings?” I innocently enquired. (Reader, what would you have said?)

The chief executive clicked his teeth disapprovingly. 

The man said nothing. It transpired he was being totally sincere, and I had offended him deeply. Apparently, there is a flourishing coven somewhere near Milton Keynes and the whole thing is a deadly serious business! 

I forget most things, but this event and the man’s face and name are tattooed on my memory. It transpired he was a leader of the coven, no less. 

I couldn’t think of a darn thing to say, so I bowed out of the meeting and let them get on with it. Soon afterwards, I left the authority to become director of another one, but not before I was told by my chief executive that being a practising witch doesn’t preclude you from holding a public post in the UK. Sure enough, the witch subsequently took up his new day job in the drug abuse department. I can’t help wondering if he had declared his Christianity instead, would he have been appointed? I doubt it.

Anyway, if you are driving along in Milton Keynes one dark night and a man suddenly flashes by on a broomstick… please remember I left before this curious appointment was confirmed!

Ho ho! From the perspective of years, I can make silly jokes about it now – it makes a good story. But it wasn’t funny at the time, and, if truth be told, it still bothers me.

Boys Will Be Boys…

Half a lifetime ago, Jane and I were almost content with the birth of our two daughters, Clare and Camilla. But we both wanted to try and complement the family with a boy. How to go about it?

One evening, an aged maiden aunt silenced a supper party with the advice that if we wanted a son, steps would have to be taken – by me! I was curious enough to ask what on earth she thought I should do about it.

“I was told by Great Aunt Hetty that you should eat a vast quantity of kidneys and liver. Then each night, drink a glass of port with a raw egg switched in it!”

“Ho ho,” we laughed. What a farce. What did Great Aunt Hetty know about anything? I forgot the episode.

Sometime later, I wondered why we were eating so much liver and kidneys – always followed by a glass of port and orders to drink up. In fact, Jane would stand over me until I had drained the glass. Afterwards, I wanted to be sick!

Ten months later, our baby son was christened “Thomas”.

I promise this is true!

Trust No One

I have just read a remarkable book, The Great Post Office Scandal by Nick Wallis.

The Post Office, that core member of the establishment – slightly dull, yet a deeply respected British institution – prosecuted around 900 sub-postmasters for theft, false accounting and fraud. After a vast court case, it was found that 99 per cent of those prosecuted were wholly innocent and that many of them were maliciously prosecuted.

The prosecutions were based on evidence drawn from the Post Office’s software system, Horizon. The PO had proclaimed the system to be infallible when in fact it was as full of holes as a rotten Swiss cheese. But it gets worse – the accountants, the solicitors and the managers all went on prosecuting even after the directors had been reliably informed that the system was flawed. The lives of those ensnared in this misery were destroyed – they ended up bankrupt, divorced, disgraced and suicidal. Then, during the trial, the Post Office managers used taxpayer money to try and run the sub-postmasters’ action group out of funds by playing legal games. Of course, none of those responsible for this carnage have been prosecuted. Most are still sitting on their plump arses to this day drawing their wages and seemingly couldn’t care less.

As far as the prosecuted sub-postmasters are concerned, the empirical evidence suggests that those from a minority ethnic background received harsher sentences than their European counterparts.

And, oh yes, I nearly forgot. The Post Office CEO was an Anglican priest. She says she’s “sorry”.

You wouldn’t believe this ghastly story if you had read it in a novel.

Russian Roulette

I’ve been here before. Years ago, against acute establishment resistance, I founded the Association of Lloyd’s Members (ALM) to represent the investors towards the owners of the enterprises that were meant to make them money. It was, I imagine, rather like starting the first trade union for horny handed mill workers. The mill owners were pissed off.

I was amongst the first to expose the scandal where half the investor market (made up of the posh boys) was dishonestly shafting the other half (the common twits) with the losses.

We litigated and won all the cases. I had to fight two defamation cases personally – thank God I settled both before trial.

But my experience tells me that I’d be better off chancing my luck on the Las Vegas roulette tables than relying on justice in the UK courts. At least in Vegas, they lay on drink and entertainment, more than they do in the High Court – and the odds are better in Vegas.

Those fighting the Post Office mafia found – as we did all those years ago at Lloyd’s – that the first implacable barrier that had to be overcome was the iron curtain of certainty of innocence that prevailed. Both Lloyd’s and the Post Office were at the heart of the establishment and virtually synonymous with “respectability”. Allegations by the plaintiffs alleging greed, corruption, deception, institutional ignorance, ingrained superiority, gross dishonesty and venality on the part of the posh boys seemed simply impossible. 

So dear ZANE supporters, I’ve two things to ask of you.

One: Please read the Post Office scandal book and thank God you weren’t a sub post-master under that cruel and wicked regime.

Two: Imagine you are in the office of an institution that’s been around for a generation. You are led through a marble hall into a meeting room with expensive paintings and a crested Latin motto on a wall plaque. The suits are smart, the smiles reassuring, and the overall ambiance is one of deep respectability, honesty and integrity. Before you write the cheque, just remember a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.”

Dry and a beautiful walk. Chains of pleasure boats. I wonder if I would be bored on a boat. I think I would be.

I was going blind recently. Seriously I was unable to read, and it got worse quickly. Then a consultant in Oxford lasered my eyes; once I was blind, and now I can see. It was a miracle. We are so fortunate to live in 2022, and we are inclined to take it all for granted. So thank you to those who invented this procedure.

A Family Affair

When I started my campaign to wed Jane in the late 1960s – in those days, marriage was the only way I could possibly get her into bed! – I was obliged to ring her home and say, “Hello, this is Tom – can I please speak to Jane?”

Jane’s parents were delightful and would never have tried to stop the relationship (unless, perhaps, if I’d worn a pigtail and walked a dog on a rope). The point is that because of my repeated calls, they knew I was after their beloved daughter Jane!

In time, after endless calls, the relationship hotted up and Jane’s parents held a dinner party to meet me. Later, there was another party so her vast family could meet me and do what families usually do (i.e., pass judgement and say, “Surely she could have done a lot better than that?”) In time, there was an engagement and a wedding, both accompanied by more parties. Then, when the four children emerged, there were more yet more celebrations.

To cut to the chase, mobile phones today mean that the young can start a relationship without their parents or families knowing a thing about it. No parties – and indeed, no family involvement of any kind until long after the event.

I think that is immensely sad.

His Finest Hour

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is the hero of the hour. I wish him well, and I really mean that. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

The world desperately needs a hero who can lead, and Zelenskyy is that man today. However, I have learned in a long life that when someone is praised to the skies, the hype is rarely justified. And, in turn, when someone attracts the hiss of the world, I only half believe anything I hear or read. We are all a mix of virtues and faults, and most of us have done things we would rather not read in a banner headline. When the media builds someone up and praises them as if they can do no wrong, it’s usually only a matter of time before they find a reason to tear them down again. Cracks are detected, and faults and mistakes gleefully paraded.

I hope that when Zelenskyy’s enemies have a go at him – and they will – his descent from hero to ordinary man does not destroy him or Ukraine.

Queen Elizabeth is dead: Long live King Charles 111

Sad day and a great loss of a magnificent woman.

The only time I met her was unfortunate.

As a Scots Guards officer, I was asked to go to Dane in Holyrood to dance with Edinburgh maidens,

Highland reels are a sort of war, not a dance.

I found to my astonishment that I was dancing with the Queen. To my horror, I kicked her sharply, and she was forced to hobble off the floor.
Years later, I mustered the courage to write and apologise. I received a delightful reply saying that I had long since been forgiven!

Our ten-year-old granddaughter Annabelle Benyon wrote a prayer that seems to sum it all up:

Lord Jesus, we are so sad that the Queen died today.
As I speak to you right now, you are likely to be speaking to her as you welcome her into heaven. Please would you make her feel very welcome. Would you tell her what an incredible job she did and that everyone in the world is crying and missing her.

Who Packed my Parachute?

Charles Plumb was a US Navy fighter pilot and Vietnam veteran. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy territory. Captured, he spent six years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived and went on to lecture on the lessons he learned from that experience.

One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table approached him.

“You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”

“How on earth did you know about that?” asked Plumb.

“I packed your parachute,” the man replied.

Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man vigorously shook his hand and said, “I guess it worked!”

Assuring him it had, Plumb reflected, “If the shute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be sitting here today!”

Unsung Heroes

That night, Plumb couldn’t sleep. “I kept wondering what the sailor looked like in a navy uniform: a white hat, a bib at the back and bell-bottom trousers. I wondered how many times I must have seen him, but never bothered to say, “Hello, how are you?” or anything, because I was a self-important fighter pilot, and he was just a lowly sailor.”

He thought of the hours the man must have spent in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silk of every shute. Each time, he held in his hands the fate of someone he didn’t even know.

Plumb went on to give many inspirational lessons to people. He would point out that he had needed many different kinds of parachute when he had been shot down in enemy territory: his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute and his spiritual parachute. He had called on all those supports before reaching safety.

Having read about Plumb, I ask myself how often do I fail to appreciate the help I am given? How often do I fail to say hello or thank you, to congratulate someone when something wonderful has happened to them, to pay a compliment to someone, or just do something kind for no reason at all? How many crucial jobs by kind workers go unnoticed by me? Or what about the people who work so hard behind the scenes, yet get so little reward for their efforts?

I look back at my childhood: my old teachers (one in particular), or an aunt who read to me when I was unhappy and lonely. Fast forward to now – what about the people who have tolerated me, supported me and prayed for me?

There are a good number of people who have been packing my parachute. And, of course, there are the people who have been packing ZANE’s parachute.

Many have worked hard for ZANE, both in the UK and in Zimbabwe, to make this charity a success. It would be invidious to name names – they know who they are, and so thank you!

And our supporters must be thanked too, for without their great generosity and financial parachute packing, ZANE would have been in free fall long since.

The unsung kindness of so many is overwhelming.

Thou Shalt Not Eat Meat

I thought I’d seen it all. However, now I see that the Liberal /Green / Labour majority of Oxfordshire County Council is imposing veganism by diktat. Meat is banned at the council’s official events and only plant-based food will be on the menu. This is on grounds that it will do us all the power of good and benefit future generations. I am all for vegans eating whatever they want, but this is daft gesture politics, a tedious lesson in how not to promote a cause to voters.

Oxfordshire is crowded with farms crammed full of cattle. Such suffocating moral certainties arise from the tyranny of a tiny minority. When did consuming dairy products and steak imply that you are not a good person, or that you don’t want to leave the planet a better place for future generations? Politicians of all stripes need to keep their noses out of other people’s food choices.

Left-Wing Social

Author Robert Conquest has a famous law of politics. If you add the world “social” to any noun, it both demeans the word and at the same time politicises it in a “left-wing” way.

We all revere justice – but what about “social justice”, a lefty degenerate that usually leads to the exact opposite of true justice?

If you remove the word “social”, you get a far more honest (and less left-wing) noun. Try removing “social” from “social market”, “social enterprise”, “social policy”, “social care”, “social housing”, “social media”, and so on.

See what I mean?

The Scots call it “drookit”, and that is good enough for me. We were drenched in a proper downpour. We went from drought to Noah’s Ark in a single hour. Neither Jane nor I mind walking in the rain, as we were brought up in the Scottish Borders and in Edinburgh, that is what one does. And as sensible Princess Royal said, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just inadequate clothing.” Incidentally, I can’t help wondering what that sensible woman thinks of Meghan.

While walking down the Thames Pathway, we were passed by several coppers, all chasing towards an “incident.” I immediately wondered if we were involved in a Telly film.

Notes From a Proud Island

Many years ago, George Orwell warned us that the “most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history”. We should not be surprised, then, that destroyers in our midst are promoting a false narrative. These critics claim that Western history is a litany of cruelty, greed, patriarchal oppression, sexism, racism, transphobia, theft, snobbery, and much more. They praise all other cultures (provided they aren’t Western), and then wonder why anyone should wish to live here in the UK when so much bigotry, racism and hatred is baked into our DNA?

Why these individuals behave thus is a mystery. Perhaps it’s because they hail from countries that have contributed little to the overarching wellbeing of mankind and, knowing that the West has contributed so much, are consumed with envy and bitterness? I am reminded of that old, cynical saying, “Why do you dislike me so much? What favours did I ever do for you?”

Her Crown is Honour…

Here, under the Crown, human life is regarded as sacred, people are endowed with dignity and wrongs are addressed in honest courts. Just consider the eternal beauty of Oxford and Cambridge, or of Salisbury and Ely Cathedrals. Think about Shakespeare and our rich cultural and artistic achievements. Then imagine what life would be like without our social services, our freedom of speech and religious freedoms, and democracy and the rule of law. Has this bounty been exceeded anywhere on Earth, in all recorded history?    

Our critics fail to express gratitude for these blessings, instead expressing resentment and bitterness at all the things they lack. The countries from where many of them come are places where lives are brutish and short, where corruption is endemic, where the young have no chance to make a difference to the way things are run, and where thinkers and critics rot in jail. And they are often places where racism flourishes – but it’s black on white, so no one bothers to comment.

Under our monarchy, citizens experience a form of liberal government and access to justice for which they ought to feel profound gratitude. The blessings of our monarchy are summed up by the chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis:

“Her crown is honour and majesty; her sceptre, law and morality. Her concern has been for welfare, freedom and unity, and in the lands of her dominion, she has sustained justice and liberty for all races, tongues and creeds.”

Citizens in the West experience a form of liberal government and access to justice for which they ought to feel profound gratitude. Of course, our Western freedoms and ways of doing things aren’t perfect, but they are better, by far, than any of the alternatives on offer elsewhere. 

The West is under relenting pressure to accept growing numbers of immigrants struggling to get to the UK. In terms of newcomers, we apparently add a city the size of Newcastle to our small and crowded island each year.

I can’t help but note the lack of immigrants desperately risking their lives to settle in Russia, Africa, India or China. Funny that!

Pure Poetry

I recently visited a vicar friend dying of cancer in Oxford’s John Radcliffe hospital.

“Please will you read a psalm?” she asked.

I read the best-known psalm of all, “The Lord is my Shepherd”.

A nurse nearby listened with great care. “That was lovely,” she said. “Did you write it?”

“Oh yes,” I replied, “I knocked it up in the lift on the way up.”

The Limits of Forgiveness

How can we offer forgiveness on behalf of people we don’t know or have never even met? The famous Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal illustrated this with a story that began on 10 October 1944. At the time, he was a young architect incarcerated in Janowska Concentration Camp, just outside Lviv, in Ukraine.

One day, Wiesenthal was summoned by guards to the bedside of a young Waffen-SS officer, Karl Seidl, who wanted to “speak to a Jew”. Mortally injured with burns, the dying Seidl whispered to Wiesenthal that the SS had herded dozens of men, women and children into a house, set it alight and shot all those who tried to escape the flames. Seidl admitted his involvement and claimed he was tormented by his conscience – he needed to confess his sin to a Jew and begged for forgiveness.

Wiesenthal listened to this tale of horror, pondered for a minute and said nothing. Then he walked out of the room.

For years, Wiesenthal was tormented by the memory. Had he had done the right thing? Should he have offered the dying Nazi his forgiveness?

However, when he told his story to Jewish friends and rabbis, they agreed that he had been right not to offer forgiveness. How could he do so on behalf of victims he had never met? He was right to walk away.

By the same token, the alleged “sins” of our ancestors should not be visited on subsequent generations.