“I died to save my children. People of the world, see that they shall not die.” Gravestone of Cpl Arthur James Jones, killed on the first day of Operation Market Garden, Arnhem, aged 24.
In memory of Arnhem 1944
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Blog
The amazing Rose Reilly
As someone brought up to believe in exemplars rather than heroes it was a delight to spend an evening with Rose Reilly at Laura Martin’s fine production of Rose at the Perth Theatre. Looking fit enough still to be on the football pitch where in 1984 she was voted the world’s best female player, this genuine hero spoke after the one-woman show about the life that took her as a teenager from the...
Ten Years Hard Labour
To be smeared and abused with impunity by Israel-supporting figures in politics and the media is part and parcel of the corruption and decadence that increasingly disfigures what is left of our democracy.
Beryl and John: modest inspirers
To celebrate the lives of two inspirational figures in the same week has been a therapeutic diversion from the depressing spectacle of two Lilliputians vying to become British Prime Minister. One was my old schoolteacher and friend John Forster whose North Yorkshire funeral I attended last week. The other was world champion cyclist Beryl Burton who lived in the next block of flats to my Aunt...
Grenfell, Gresford, God – and Myrtle
In the week when would-be Tory successors to Boris Johnson speak of the urgent need for integrity and truth telling, the Dean of Durham used his Cathedral platform at Saturday’s Miners’ Festival Service to put those qualities in powerful historical perspective. The ground for the sermon to the packed congregation by the Very Reverend Andrew Tremlett had been well prepared by the vibrant playing...
Three cheers for the authentic
We are better people than Rupert Murdoch and his minions in the media and Westminster want us to believe.
Grenfell: home is where the heart is
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Flags, flunkeys and flummery
Couldn’t we liberate our fixed-smile TV presenters and reporters from spending the Spring Bank holiday dutifully gushing what they know to be largely saccharine guff?
Waking up to Priti Patel
Who is this character Prime Minister Boris Johnson entrusts with our safety as Home Secretary and with that of the very existence of the Australian founder of Wikileaks accused of espionage by the United States?
Standing with Shireen
Imran Khan and a matter of principle
Imran Khan, the ousted prime minister of Pakistan, is not someone whose tenure in office I know much about. Equally, my knowledge of the country extends little beyond awareness that its history has been of much turmoil and foreign intervention, and that many of its politicians have not died quietly in their beds. But I have worked with Imran and the impression I gained of the former captain of...
Ukraine needs our hearts – and our heads too
As I’ve never been to Ukraine or Russia or speak the languages, what can I usefully say about this detestable war beyond expressing my outrage at yet another invasion and again feeling grievous disappointment that instead of the peace dividend promised after the collapse of the Soviet Union last century we see another round of increased military spending in 2022? Friends who live in Central and...
A whiff of Munchies in the air?
What a start to the week: Rupert Murdoch telling those who read The Sun or hear of it in news reviews that there’s just “48 hours to war” followed by a Times front-page picture of a gun-toting Ukrainian grandma. If the gnarled old media mogul ever reaches the Gates of Heaven will he be able to plead with St Peter: “In my long life of feeding fear and promoting conflicts around the world I may...
Here come the McDermid Ladies
While some footballing eyes were on Boreham Wood as they dumped Bournemouth out of the FA Cup on Sunday, others looked to the banks of the Forth to watch McDermid Ladies emerge for their very first fixture. Not that this was their first game together under captain Tyler Rattray. After years as Raith Rovers, they had swapped for and the BBC, STV and Sky News were among lots of news outfits there...
A good sign for our times
The unopposed second reading of the Private Member’s Bill to give British Sign Language (BSL) legal status is a welcome bright light in these dark and dingy days. In proposing the Bill Labour MP Rosie Cooper recalled her own experiences of growing up as the hearing child of deaf parents. “I saw first-hand the difficulties deaf people face every day – the huge challenges my parents had to...
While waiting for Sue…
Whatever “formidable” civil servant Sue Gray uncovers about the Prime Minister, his wife and their coterie of pals, advisers and party backers, there are a few other events going on worth our attention. One takes place in the High Court on Monday morning to Julian Assange: will he be allowed to appeal the High Court’s ruling on extradition to the United States? Try to hold these two pictures in...
Are you the wrong kind of…?
What must it have felt like for Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, to learn that he was “quite a lightweight figure” in the eyes of his fellow Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg? As a qualified football referee the MP for Moray will have received much more vulgar abuse than this patronising putdown from Boris Johnson’s fellow Etonian, but it was still pretty nasty from the grandiloquent...
Still seeking justice
It’d be hard to think of a better time to celebrate the life of Hillsborough campaigner Anne Williams, brought so vividly to life in ITV’s drama Anne. ((https://www.itv.com/hub/anne/2a5505)) If we’re discouraged by Downing Street deceit as we try to cope with Covid, rising inflation and the rest, imagine what it was like for the Merseyside mum whose young teenage son died in the 1989...
Dissent and Delight
As we ring in the new year there’s good reason for us to seek with Alfred Lord Tennyson – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbnsIydaYYg – “the larger heart, the kindlier hand”. Fear that grows with pandemic warnings, climate change threats, rising inequality and all the rest of the “grief that saps the mind” can easily discourage us from reaching out for anything, settling instead for the same...