Rudinblog

The Brand and Ross affair and why it wouldn’t have happened if they’d been ‘radio people’; memories of the great Kenny Everett

(WARNING! CONTAINS EXTREME ANORAK-DOM AND OUTRAGEOUS, SERIAL NAME-DROPPING!)

Well, at least I can't be accused of rushing to judgement on this one! The original, and offending broadcast was nearly six weeks ago and the official report by the BBC's Trust was out last Friday, so I've had a fair bit of time to mull it all over and compare my own experiences with the Corporation to the views and judgement of others.

The first thing that struck me was how astonishing it was that the BBC, which is such a stickler for protocol on other matters (as I know to my cost-but that will have to be another Blog!), could possibly allow situation in which a producer - a Corporation employee - was allowed to put aside his contract to the Corporation and be paid directly by, and be responsible, to an independent production company, headed by the very "star" he was charged to produce!

I mean, wasn't there just one amongst the six figure salaried higher managers in the Corporation who thought this just might be a teeny-weeny bit risky? How likely was it that a £25,000 a year producer who was, temporarily, contractually required to follow the orders of said presenter, would put the interests of the Corporation first? The whole thing is insane.

As to the actual content of the broadcast: at first I have to say I thought it was a lot of fuss about nothing, but on further reflection it not only showed a grotesque error of judgement on behalf of the two 'stars', and then on all the way down the line - when the situation could have been rescued or at least mitigated before it reached crisis proportions - but that it revealed a nasty, cruel and very regrettable side of British culture. To embarrass and insult someone is not, in my view, something that should be encouraged on the public airwaves, certainly not those on the BBC, but it fits in with the YouTube, Facebook culture (and yes, I know I'm being somewhat hypocritical here because I do have a Facebook page and it is extremely useful for contacting people and general fun), which produces anxiety for so many people, who fear that they are likely to be publicly humiliated or ridiculed. To that extent, I suppose you could say that Ross and Brand were tapping in to the zeitgeist, which I suppose is what they were paid to do.

In Ross's case, there can be little doubt that the negative coverage was partly prompted by his outrageous but seemingly sincere belief that his £6,000,000 a year contract with the Corporation was "worth a thousand journalists". It was that remark that prompted me to stop listening to him -- I rarely watched him, in any case -- because the BBC must have, as its irreducible core, robust, well funded and well staffed journalism, and the thought that, at a time when it was cutting journalist posts, such cuts were helping to pay this grossly overcompensated 'star' was offensive, to say the least. No doubt Ross also felt threatened by a relatively new enfant terrible in the shape of Brand and possibly was going through a midlife crisis: that's the trouble with being an enfant terrible - by definition, you cannot be enfant for very long and you are required to be ever more terrible in order to keep up your status!

The thing is though, although this was on the radio, and neither Ross nor Brand are "radio people". They arrived at their semi-radio careers after they had become well established in television. I do not believe that any "radio person" would ever have committed this error of judgement, because "radio people" are of a different character and are much closer to their audience and more respectful of it then are television people - who are driven by a performance ethic, and live in s strange la-la land of commissioners and agents, rather than the intimate and more grounded experience of radio presenters.

Even those who are big television stars but started on the radio do, I believe, maintain their radio approach. An example of this type would be Chris Evans, who is a tremendously creative person and producing great television in his time but began his career by making tea at Piccadilly radio and now of course hosts Radio 2's Drivetime programme. He clearly loves the job -- he's a multimillionaire, so why do it otherwise? This comes over so strongly. Radio, when it works best, is a strange alchemy, and a lot of it is down to the atmosphere created in the studio. A significant difference between Ross and Brand and other radio presenters is that they never present the show on their own -- they always have to have a string of sycophantic sidekicks to perform to; whereas good radio people, even when they do have elements of the "zoo" format, can do it by themselves.

Terry Wogan, the presenter of the most successful breakfast show in Europe, certainly in the UK, is another excellent example of this. He has had and, of course, continues to have, a tremendously successful TV career and has managed to adapt his persona to that very different medium, including in 'live' audience shows. To understand his real magic, though, you have to listen to his radio programme, where he creates a brilliantly warm and engaging show which never teeters over into blandness, containing as it does Sir Terry's often quite caustic wit. However, individuals are never the target, but rather attitudes and situations. This is what Ross and Brand have just not learned. Plus, as I say, they cannot just talk to the listener directly: the listener is eavesdropping on their programme, whereas with Wogan, or other great radio presenters, you believe he's talking directly to you. An even more impressive 'trick' – which impressed me so much today, when the show came from a cruise liner – is to combine both the intimacy of a radio show, with a 'live' performance in front of an audience.

In the process of researching a new book (note to publishers: it's coming! It's coming!) I was privileged to be allowed to watch the 'World's Greatest Living Irishman' at work on his breakfast show. I found it fascinating to see how he talked to the microphone as if it was a person -- and an intelligent and good-humoured person at that; his eye contact is directly at the centre of the microphone and the facial expressions all those that one would use if the person was sitting opposite.

His evident good humour and courtesy was vouchsafed by his producer who told me he was always exactly the same every day; was never starry and treated everybody exactly the same whether they be the Director-General or the cleaner. When he spotted me in the control room he took the first opportunity to come out to shake hands with me, making a quip: "is this the man who's come to tell us how to do it?" Thus, typically, breaking the ice by making a slightly caustic but good-humoured remark. He could not have been helpful in the interview we did in the studio after the show and interestingly, unlike many radio people, he held eye contact throughout. Tony Blackburn revealingly once said that the reason he loved being on the radio was that he could talk to people without having to maintain eye contact, which he always found awkward. It surprises many listeners that radio people are often diffident and shy and in social situations, as well as being quite serious -- they are the ones who are usually wallflowers at a party, talking earnestly about politics or whatever, whereas those in non-'showbiz' type jobs are the ones going mad on the dance-floor or cracking jokes. 'Introverted extrovert' I suppose best describes a typical radio personality. This is allied to what most would acknowledge is a somewhat imbalanced personality, which drives them to this rather weird type of performance (which is contrived and an artifice but has to sound completely natural) and the insecurity that comes from usually being freelancers on relatively short contracts and in a highly competitive business, in which their value and worth is usually judged by the most recent RAJAR audience figures.

 

Extreme examples of all the above are celebrated in last Saturday's Archive Hour on Radio 4, on Kenny Everett's radio career. Now, there was a complex personality! He was broadcasting's enfant terrible of his day and got sacked many times – but never for being nasty and certainly never for attacking anyone, except powerful people and institutions (such as the BBC!) and who had an excellent producer, Angela Bond (who worked with me years later on the music selection and format of a station I was programming). She also protected Kenny from the senior management and it was shortly after they split up that his famous (first!) BBC sacking occurred. Kenny is also probably best remembered generally for his television work, but was first, second and third a radio person. He was also somebody who everybody in the business loved and who was also never 'starry', despite his astonishing talent and the fact that he was, genuinely, a friend of The Beatles, who even did jingles for him (which, for a DJ, is about as good as it gets!) and was often given exclusive advance copies of their new albums, going on tour with them, and even being allowed to produce their Christmas Fan Club records. I'd been a huge fan of his since the late 1960s, on Radio 1 and even more, perhaps, of his commercial radio days, particularly on Capital Radio from October 1973, which bounced off the ionosphere and crackled through from London to my home in the West Midlands. My fandom even lead to trips with two friends to the station, so we could meet and talk with him before and after his Saturday show there. I remember he used to pull up outside Euston Tower in his black BMW, just a few minutes before the start of the programme and would sometimes take us up on our offer to help carry his "carts" (tape closed-loop cartridges), containing his jingles etc., into the building. After the programme he would descend in true camp style down that amazing staircase from the studios into the reception, where he would spend half an hour or more signing autographs, posing for photographs, chatting etc.

The Radio 4 programme also included interviews with Keith Skues -- talk about a living legend! He served on the 'pirate' Radio London with Kenny, Tony Blackburn, John Peel and many others, then on to Radios 1 and 2. I had met him when I was just 18, doing my journalism training course and I and a fellow student went to Radio Hallam (where he was Programme Director and mid-day presenter) to do a 'project' on the station. I was mortified – some 16 years later - to be told I was to take over from him on BBC Radio Sheffield's Drivetime programme, when the manager thought that a more 'news friendly' type was needed and my attachment to the station - which had initially been for three months - was extended indefinitely to allow me to do this. The fact that this meant the end of Keith's time at the station did not change his attitude towards me. He understood that it was not of my doing and was completely fine about it. We kept in touch and a couple of years later stayed over-night at our house en route to somewhere and I was added to the mailing list of his amazing annual Skuesletter.

 

The good thing about radio is that the 'nice guys' do tend to last and to prosper. I could go on and on about my life and times and thoughts about radio (and frequently do!) but time to hang up the anorak for now. Thanks for reading.

 

Baby P, feral youths, ‘the smug generation’, why I blame the ‘cult of Diana’, and a modest proposal or three

News and discussion items relating to children, young people and parenting have come into the public domain over the last week or so, and in this blog -- which might seem even more meandering than usual but I hope you will bear with me - I've tried to pull together my thoughts on how I think these stories and discussions are related.

 

First, we have to come to the highly distressing and completely avoidable death of Baby P. Avoidable, because of the 60 plus visits by the social services and that two occasions when there were strong recommendations that the baby be taken into care were over-ruled. This case in fact seems to sum up everything that is wrong and indeed catastrophic about British society. It brings together the grotesque "tick-box culture", in which a bureaucratic response is thought to be superior to people's judgement and experience and -- dare I say it? -- common sense. Even on Monday I was still hearing an apologist talking about the need to look at the "processes" that led to the death of this wretched child. It is nothing to do with processes -- the processes were all fine, it's just that the decisions and judgements were disastrous! Yet many of these so-called public servants are still refusing to acknowledge it. These same cretins were still talking about the need to "support the family". But there was no family! How can you call a loose collection of dysfunctional and sadistic adults 'family'? Apart from mother and child no blood ties, no contractual arrangements, no nothing - except a similar penchant for a degrading, sordid lifestyle, supported by the state it seems at every turn and facilitating a lack of any responsibility or morality.

 

Now, the idea of the state - in whatever form - marching in on homes and removing children is abhorrent to me; as a libertarian I believe in a 'small state and big people', but when it comes to the protection of children I'm afraid I'm a neo-Stalinist. When there is clearly no chance of a child receiving any care of any discernible kind there's only one thing must happen -- the child must be removed and placed in the care of the state and, hopefully, in turn, into the much better care of private individuals in terms of foster parents, or be adopted. Of course, it is a horribly difficult to construct a system which does not encourage such utterly feckless and selfish behaviour but at the same time does not punish and further impoverish the innocent children.

This is not an argument against, or an attack on, all 'non traditional' families; single mothers/lone parents, or the claiming of welfare benefits in bringing up a child. There are untold cases of children being perfectly well brought up by one parent, by grandparents, by aunts (as in Barack Obama's case) and even by family friends. Many single parents I've known have been brilliant parents and brought up well-balanced, delightful children. Sometimes, indeed, it's far better for the child/children if a couple splits up then stay together than live in a home constantly wracked by arguments, violence and tension. In addition, partners die, got to work abroad for periods, or are so severely ill –mentally or physically - they cannot in effect be a 'full on' parent. In all of the above cases, the state should be 'on side', as should a variety of other agencies, not least social workers, if requested or required. I don't despise or look down on such parents - I greatly respect them.

I also accept that in many cases the child at risk is not known to the authorities and that children can and certainly have been harmed, indeed murdered, by supposedly ideal 'nuclear', 'respectable' families. Not all foster parents or even adopted parents are ideal – though many I know have been. And of course we all know about the horrendous abuse in some children's homes. The state is not an ideal parent but, on the other hand, it doesn't usually kill children in its care.

 

Allied to this is any is a most peculiar attitude we seem to have towards children; on the one hand almost fetishising them as "princesses" or "angels", yet simultaneously fearing them as soon as they are able to walk out of the door. The mawkish headlines in the tabloid press over the pictures of Baby P talk about this "beautiful boy". But what if he wasn't "beautiful"? What if he had a hare lip, or was awkward, squat and short, or disabled in some way, or just plain ugly? I was supposed to feel less outraged about his totally unnecessary death? Every time a child or young person is killed now they are betrayed as goodness and beauty personified -- think of the way those two tragic but completely unexceptional girls who were the victims of Ian Huntley were described. They even had a memorial service. I don't wish to sound unkind but, surely, a memorial service is completely inappropriate for two 10-year-olds, who had led completely unexceptional lives, but and died (thank goodness) a very exceptional death. I'm sorry, but I don't think that a memorial service is appropriate until you have reached well into what adulthood and have social and work contacts in addition to the immediate family. But the scene of any tragedy is now visited by grief tourists and we are all supposed to be enjoined in an emotional spasm about people whom we do not know. The 'modern approach' of course all started with Diana -- a neurotic and not very bright woman, whose death produced an almost psychotic reaction amongst millions of fellow citizens; some of whom confessed that her death had affected them more than that of their own parents. We seem to have lost all sense of judgement and perspective.

 

Children are also penned in far more than previous generations and are generally over –protected : this isn't some myth, we really did go off on our bikes for the whole day during the summer, with our parents only having a vague idea of where we were, but it is also true –again, not a myth – that friends and neighbours really did 'look out' for other people's children, or, indeed, any children, and were not afraid to intervene, whether to help a child in distress, or of course to tell them off.

 

But now, according to a new survey, just under half of the population is actually scared of feral kids. Are things really that bad? Do adults go about their daily lives in constant fear of these little -- or not so little – 'monsters'? And if so, who or what is to blame and what can be done about it? The usual cry is that there is no respect of anything or anyone, which is largely down to the fact that there is no discipline, in or out of school, and no legal means of punishing children. It is certainly true that many children lack the boundaries that existed in previous generations and certainly are not physically punished at school, as my generation was, for behaviour which is disruptive, antisocial, mean or dangerous.

And this brings me to the final point about the state of young people who are, according to a new book The Smug Generation; overconfident and a feeling of entitlement, combined with self obsession and self regard. Our failing education system I think is much to blame for this. Indeed, it isn't an education system but a method designed to enable children to pass tests, which in turn means that their school can do well in the league tables. Consequently, the idea -- the real idea of education: to inspire and motivate; to instil a curiosity which should last a lifetime not just to the school leaving age, and an appreciation of the fascinating if sometimes terrifying world around them in science, literature, history, etc. - has been lost and reduced to bite-sized chunks that can be prepared and improved over and over again. This "teach to the test" approach at every stage of school life has now infected higher education, so that many students do not want to do anything unless they can see some point to it in terms of the grade. The idea of intellectual enquiry and development is about as alien as ancient Greek. In the excellent if depressing and disturbing BBC Panorama programme is to be believed, Baby P's mother sought excitement in her sex and personal life to relieve boredom. Boredom often derives from a lack of real education as described above and self-obsession. We need to abandon all the league tables and testing of children until 16, bar internal assessment for the benefit of parents/guardians so that they can check on their child's progress. In doing so, we can free up time in the school day for all those activities that stimulate the mind and prepare it for a life-time of engagement with the exterior world, and develop skills in the arts, sport and other talents.

 

Of course, it is a sure sign of advancing middle age when you think that the previous or younger generation is not a patch on yours and that society is going to the dogs. Certainly, my parents' generation -- the ones who had their teens and early 20s in World War II and its aftermath and then endured years of rationing and austerity - rightly believed that my generation was somewhat spoiled and overindulged; born into and so far lived their whole lives in peace and plenty. I was going through my filing cabinet the other day and found a letter to me that expresses this perfectly. It was from the then chairman of the hospital broadcasting service that I joined as a 16-year-old -- in fact this last week also marks the 30th anniversary since I did my first broadcasting. It was a hugely important part of my life and brought me together with a wide range of people from many different occupations and backgrounds in Birmingham, including one Afro-Caribbean young man who worked at British Leyland, who presented the weekly programme - aimed at those from the Caribbean islands and were languishing for whatever reason in a hospital ward on a Friday night in the Birmingham area. At the end of one night's broadcasting and just before we repaired to the club for our customary late Friday night socialising (and in my case then onwards to stay the night with a couple I knew well, who were living together and (gasp!) weren't married!), all of a sudden, and seemingly out of nowhere, an argument broke out between this young man and a white fellow of about the same age, which quickly turned into a fist fight. I must have led a sheltered life, because this was the first time I'd seen at very close quarters and indeed in a confined space a real fight between two men in the prime of their lives. I don't mean the sort of pushing and shoving with occasional half-hearted blow of school fights or the sort you might see in a bar someplace: I mean a real no- holds - barred fist fight. I tried to intervene and was told in no uncertain terms by both of them to get lost.

 

But the important point about this story was that my friend (well, actually I was friends with both of them I suppose) was dismissed from the network. Some of my other friends and I were not happy about this at all and wrote to the chairman in protest, threatening to picket the station if he was not reinstated. A letter of protest to the 'papers even led to the Birmingham Evening Mail, as well as the 'paper for which I was then working, the Shropshire Star, running the story. This led to a sort of formal enquiry, held at the solicitors' chambers of one of the executives -- yes, pretty heavy stuff. It was pointed out that had someone in any employment thrown a punch at another employee they would have been instantly dismissed; which is a fair point, but I and my other friends thought that there had been a racist element in this -- I think it was actually also bound up with them being rivals for the affections of a certain female member of the team! -- and that there was provocation. I resigned in protest, which was a big thing for me because the whole place and accompanying social activities were certainly a central part of my life.

 

Anyway, this letter from the chairman to me in response to mine which had proffered my resignation, was full of loathing and hatred, from a man who I suppose by then was in his early 50s, and a stalwart of a local Conservative association to a young man. It was unsurprising that I took that attitude, he wrote - being part of a generation that had never learned to take any responsibility for its actions. So, no change there then! It's important to remember this when one starts to rant about young people. In fact, there is much less of a generational chasm between my generation and my son's than there was between mine and my parents. The Second World War really was a dividing line in so many instances.

 

When I see a programme like Skins, for example, I think it is pretty well spot on from how I remember my years of, say, 15 to 18, although perhaps Skins has more drug-taking and, more significantly, there does seem to be a self obsession amongst the young people and a lack of reference to external events, which I think IS a variance from my generation, where politics and other weighty matters interchanged in conversations with talk about music, sex, or whatever. (Of course, this being a drama, it cannot have references to too many contemporary events which will not be contemporary by the time it is broadcast!). I certainly think that there is a genuine difference also between the two generations in our expectations of what life will bring and in the levels of confidence and feelings of self-worth. When I was at school, there was a marked reluctance to praise you because, I suppose, it was thought he would get too big headed, whereas, for the last 20 years or so, children have been brought up with high levels of self esteem due to being over-praised for their efforts and so when they come across rejection or failure they don't have the resilience or inner confidence to cope and often go into depression. In other words, it is a confidence that is thin and brittle. If we are going to have a national curriculum, then failure should be included in it because it is only when you have tasted failure and dealt with it you become a mature adult.

 

I do think in fact, that mine was a much happier generation than the present one and perhaps we have the best of it all -- certainly, depression or something that was unheard of but now it seems almost endemic and we never heard the word "stress". One of my old school friends and I talk recently about this -- is depression a construction of modern society to the benefit not least to the pharmaceutical companies? In any event, all those friends that I've been in touch with again and met this year rule were regarded as "failures" by the Grammar School because we were not seem as especially academic and were not expected to go on to A-levels and university, so we all left with a certain understanding that if we wanted to do anything in life we had to do it ourselves and we had to work bloody hard to get there. We also probably had a certain 'F you' attitudes to the school and were determined to prove them wrong in so dismissing us. I do think also that an 'F You' attitude is a very important part of a well balanced character!

But what about those young people when they do get into work? They now have almost zero job security -- even, especially in a bank, which is comical when you think that when I was a young man the prospect of a job in a bank was regarded as the most secure, and one of the most prestigious you could aim for! There is a massive disconnection between those in work and the owners of the business, or those who run the particular public service they are in. Marx got it absolutely right on this point and this is part I think of the modern misery and anxiety in society. But now we have an opportunity in this financial crisis -- a better opportunity and I think we will ever have in my lifetime and I hope to live to quite an old age!

So, here's a couple of ideas: re-mutualise many of the building societies and other former mutuals, or create new ones -- we would not have had a disastrous consumer led credit boom and financial irresponsibility in all areas if the building societies had remained just that. We need to go back to the future and restore the sort of friendly societies and other kinds of institutions that our 19th-century forebears created to help ordinary people and to give them control over their destiny. Also: provide "seed" funding for all manner of social enterprises and co-operative societies. The big companies and multinationals are terrified that 'ordinary' people might actually form and control their own businesses -- they have done and can do so on a much wider scale. People are happiest when they have a direct link and influence with the people who employ them and even best, in John Lewis style, actually own the business. It also worked the coalminers such as the Tower Colliery in Wales and can be established in pretty well every sphere of economic activity.

From 1848 to 2008?

90 Years On-Dreams of my Grandfather

So here we are -- 90 years to the day when the guns fell silent and the war that was supposed to end all wars effectively came to an end -- although we must remember that it was 'only' an Armistice and that the final, humiliating surrender of Germany did not take place until the following year. Indeed, many war memorials, including the one in the Post Office in a nearby town, commemorates lives lost in the Great War 1914 -- 19.

It won't surprise anyone who has read some of my rather emotionally overwrought previous blogs that I find this time of year particularly moving. As noted in my last posting, my generation is the first in three not to have directly experienced war. War, though, certainly formed the backdrop in our upbringing -- memories of the two world wars and fear of a third, even more devastating, nuclear one. Many of our grandads had fought in the first war and our parents in the second -- on the home front too, of course.

 

My maternal grandfather, who was old enough only to have served only in the last year of the First World War (his Naval Squadron became 210 Squadron when the RAF was formed in April 1918), was nevertheless decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross and Bar for his exploits in those flimsy wooden and wire constructions that seem almost capable of becoming airborne, let alone taking part in dogfights and bombing raids. His brother -- my great uncle - was in the army and was killed less than a fortnight from Armistice Day. In turn, his name was given to my grandfather's son -- my mum's brother -- and then it was given to me as my second forename and my wife and I gave it to my son as his second name.

 

My grandfather wrote a kind of autobiography covering his experience in both wars and his public life in between the wars and after World War II -- he was appointed CBE for services to local government after World War II, when he risked social ostracism by becoming a Labour councillor: the family was relatively well-to-do and well-known because of the family business. He also -- and very controversially at the time -- rejected religion, mainly because of his experiences in World War I, and, of course, the loss of his brother and the injunctions from both sides that God was on their side. I am the current keeper of his work -- some of it typed by my grandmother and a few pages in his own writing. It deserves to go on the Internet and I hope to get this done some day with permission from my cousins, brother and mother. His official papers, log books etc ., areat the RAF Museum and some years ago even one of the aircraft that he flew turned up at a museum in Poland.

Here is a short extract from his experiences and thoughts as he saw refugees fleeing West from the Germans in 1918:

 

I saw hundreds upon hundreds of families of men, women and children struggling with all the possessions they had left in the world. Old prams were being pushed with household goods stacked on them, the men and women had packs on their backs -- screaming children, tired women -- and I could see the whole futility from a civilian point of view of how war affects the ordinary men and women who are involved in the actual fighting area. This was one of the sights which brought home to me what war really did mean and which I had never met until that particular time…

 

He was a sensitive man and another incident did jolt his nerves and as he observes 'these days' he would probably have been given psychiatric treatment. This of course means that his continued action and bravery was even more impressive. As has so often been said, the survivors of the First World War rarely talked about it -- the memories were too awful and painful and they were probably correct in thinking that it was impossible for anyone else to understand the full horror of what they had gone through. My Grandfather did talk about it on a few occasions and I remember once blurting out how terrible it must be to know that you had killed so many men -- naturally there was something of a frisson in the room and my mum gently asked me not to say such a thing again and that her father certainly was well aware of the result of his actions.

I've just watched the last three survivors of the war laying wreaths at the Cenotaph in London. Soon, there will be no living witnesses to that carnage -- men who had joined up in the Pals' Brigades with boys they had grown up with, gone to school with and then seen blown to bits in front of them, or drowned in the mud, or perhaps impaled on barbed wire in no man's land; or, like my grandfather, seen them disappear in a ball of flame a few hundred feet above the ground in that then very new form of warfare.

My Grandfather tried to sign up for active service at the outbreak of the Second World War but was too old for this and instead was assigned to Intelligence -- number 12 group - under the Air Ministry. He was involved in some highly secretive and vital work to the war at various stages, including the defence of Liverpool. He spoke directly to Churchill on one occasion, as he recalls in his autobiography:

 

In the Intelligence Office down in the control room underground of Fighter Command was a special telephone which was, in actual fact, linked directly to the Prime Minister. When the bell rang everybody jumped and took the receiver off with some trepidation. It might be the old man himself coming on or it might be one of his aides there, probably an Air Vice Marshall standing by and wanting to know how things were going. One experience I had with this was in the early hours of the morning after a day when we had a record number of enemy aircraft shot down over England in the Channel and it was really the biggest and most hectic day of the Battle of Britain. I had been on duty on the morning of that day and night and was still on duty when the bell rang. I had just got all my figures together ready to give out to the press so that they could get the information in the early morning editions of the papers when at about 7 a.m. and after I had been on duty continuously except having cups of tea and little snacks for the past 24 hours when the bell rang. I picked up the telephone and announced that I was speaking from the Fighter Command Headquarters down in the Ops. room and said I would put him through to the Senior Staff Officer. Churchill's voice answered and said "never mind doing that, had I been on duty all night?" I said "yes, and all day Sir". "Well you know more about it and then he does anyway so you tell me". So I had to give out the information direct to the old man himself and then had the rather difficult task of getting in touch with the Senior Air Staff Officer and telling him what I had done. He understood the dilemma I was in, I told them exactly what I've said to the Prime Minister and, of course he obviously accepted my explanation.

 

 

The Second World War of course was much more talked about partly because undoubtedly people felt that it was a war that definitely had to have been fought and won, and it was one in which almost everyone participated. I used to love hearing these stories, particularly from the Home Front and I suppose was perhaps rather unusual and perhaps showing my nascent journalistic bent in patiently listening to stories from my friends' parents when visiting their homes -- "Dickie is talking to my mum/dad again about the war", my friends would say, rolling their eyes, when they wanted to play me a new Black Sabbath album, or whatever. In many ways the bravery of the participants at home and overseas was even more remarkable in World War II because then people had no illusions as to what war meant. But it is not the bravery and courage as such that always gets to me; it is the stoicism and acceptance of what were some unbelievably tragic circumstances.

 

On the 60th anniversary of VE day I was doing some radio interviews with survivors of the Liverpool blitz. This was in a strong, working class Catholic part of the city. Some of the men had returned home from fighting on leave to find that virtually their entire family had been wiped out in the Blitz. One interview I remember so well was with a woman in her 80s who, in one air raid, lost four of her six children, as well as her mother. Her baby was found in the rubble, dead. "But God is good" she said to me, smiling. I just about held it together until the recording was over and then I had to go away and did break down in tears. One of the men whom I had interviewed about coming home to try and find what is left of his family, put his arm around me and said: "come over here, son, and have a cup of tea." Pretty much what would have happened during the war itself. And now the Greatest Generation -- my parents' generation - are dying out and I don't like it. I don't like the fact that we are now governed by people who haven't gone through it. When I was growing up your parents, your friends' parents, and that many of our teachers -- -- had all experienced war - if not old enough to have been participants, remembered it as children - and it gave them a perspective on wisdom that only such experiences can bring.

 

Between the wars my grandfather had been a fervent advocate and supporter of the League of Nations, hoping desperately to avoid a second war -- his autobiography reveals his disappointment in the failure of the public to be interested in the League. After the second war, despite the terrible sacrifices his generation had made and in contradiction to what could have been quite understandable hostility to Germans and other Europeans, he forged twinning links with the former enemy countries; thought that Britain should give up its pretensions and its desire to be a world power, and became a passionate supporter of what was then the European Economic Community. Although I too in the 1970s and '80s was a supporter of what is now the European, for some time I have regarded it as yesterday's solution to the day before's problem and that strong, democratic nation states are a far better model and far more likely to prevent war than attempts to force people into transnational groupings that cut across historical and geographical ties. As we have seen all too vividly, it is the break-up of strong nations and the resulting far more toxic links between regions' ethnicities and religions which are causing conflict today and likely to do so in the future. And that is before one even considers the loss of those so hard fought-for and defended rights to be self-governing and to be subject only to laws made by one's own parliament. I'm sure that my grandfather would be as appalled as I am that it is now possible (and indeed has happened), through the European Arrest Warrant, for police officers from other states to come to Britain and arrest citizens and drag them back to other countries – and, indeed ,be tried and convicted, not only in their absence without them being even aware that they have been charged and were "on trial".

 

It is important to reflect on history and to acknowledge it, but very important not to become trapped by it. The impact of those two wars sectors though have impacted on my life; without the first war and the (to some extent) the legitimate cover it gave to German expansion and aggression leading to the Second World War, and without the Soviets getting into Berlin first and carving up Germany in the hope that it can never be a threat to them again, I would never have found myself in Germany in the early 1980s and therefore would almost certainly never have met the woman who was to become my wife and that, in turn, would have meant that our son would never have been born.

 

The great sweep of history scatters us all up and throws us around, for good or for ill.

Dreams of Obama

What to say that others have said far more eloquently than which it is in my power so to do?!! Well, as this is a personal Blog, I suppose the right thing to do is to make a personal reflections and links to my own life.

So, here goes but first let me state I have never been so happy to be proved wrong! You see, in April I was in Las Vegas for the annual broadcast and broadcast educators conventions and pretty well every conversation at dinner and between sessions turned to the then Presidential (nomination) race. At this time Hilary Clinton still seemed to be the front-runner for the Democrat nomination. However, I thought that Barack would get the nomination-but not win the Presidency. The longer I was there in fact the more I became sure of this. I vividly remember watching a TV newscast in a bar one night with some of my fellow conference speakers from the UK. McCain was in full flow and I turned to one of my companions, saying:" You know there is no way that guy can be beaten-I mean, look at him, listen to him. He is perfect Presidential material, with his war record, his obvious strength of character…no way will Obama beat him." When asked by my American colleagues who I thought would win, I trotted out this argument/opinion, to their obvious indeed palpable despair: "Oh no! Don't say that!" they pleaded.

I became more hopeful that I might be wrong as the polls looked favourable during the summer and my amazing experience triggered by a school reunion on July 4^th (of all days) that I've discussed (at some length!) in previous Blogs led to an amazing mental change that I've likened to a mental Radox bath – a kind of mental make-up rather than mental break-down. Anyway during our family holiday in a villa in Mallorca, which solidified this amazing feeling, I read Obama's Dreams from My Father. I thought it was one of the most amazing books I've ever read-written in the mind-1990s before he entered politics but almost certainly when he was thinking towards such a career, it is a both frank and profound. His frustrations, dilemmas, conflicts sometimes despair, and above all, love and compassion, combined with what we can call 'tough love' - his lack of sentimentality, particularly towards his African relatives, is quite striking: Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech about the yearning for a time when a man will be judged not by the colour of his skin but by the content of his character cuts both ways. Here we have someone who is very clear-eyed and pragmatic, as well as inspirational and delivering fantastic oratory. This hard-headedness of course does not necessarily endear him to some black activists, who want to blame all the failures and problems of African-Americans on society and the 'system'; the Rev Jesse Jackson (who somewhat improbably is due to visit the college at the market town near where I live in a few weeks) thought that Barack should have such impudence rewarded by having "his nuts cut off" and doesn't want anyone to point out some 'inconvenient truths', e.g. the disproportionate numbers of African-American men who abandon their partners and children.

Anyway, what would have in any case been a near-perfect holiday was enhanced by listening to my i-Pod with tracks triggering more school-day memories and texting one of my renewed school-mates, I was deeply moved and absorbed by this man's story. I really wanted him to win but I hardly dared hope for it. September's financial gales started moving the polls in the right direction but still I could hardly believe it. I really only became convinced that it would actually happen on the late afternoon of the election, driving home and listening BBC 5 Live's coverage. At that point I became so emotional I had to pull off the road for a few moments and compose myself.

 

The next day was amazing-the reaction unlike anything I can remember in the UK to a 'foreign' event in the way it dominated the media and conversations, even more than the 'fall' of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 – which affected me very deeply (and by the way, as former resident of, and broadcaster in West Berlin, when I was called onto the air-waves to opine about the likely next steps I made another incorrect prediction –that it would be years before Germany was re-united!).

The brilliant things about this win are –aside from the obvious - that the campaign was fought on hope, not fear (even JFK's narrow win in 1960 was partly fought on far-of the supposed 'missile gap' between the USA and the USSR; that it was largely funded by small donations from 'ordinary' people, not big corporations; that it has engaged millions of young people for the first time – are topped by an almost palpable change of mood and renewed optimism, and (dare one say it) a new feeling of compassion and inter-connectedness across peoples and countries. All of which was perfectly articulated in Obama's victory speech, which I now have on my i-Pod, alongside Kennedy's inauguration speech – neither of which, I am afraid, I can neither read nor listen to without becoming 'emotionally incontinent'.

Of course, such emotional highs cannot be sustained - this is not the Second Coming; there will be frustrations, accusations of betrayal, disillusionment, etc., etc. As JFK observed: "You campaign in poetry, but govern in prose." Many millions of Americans - including a majority of whites and those over 65 - voted for the 'other guy'. There are some very big and seemingly intractable problems at home and abroad. But, you know, Obama's experience, his character and his intelligence lead me to be hopeful that things never will be the same again.

It may seem preposterous and egotistical in the extreme to make a link between my own utterly inconsequential life experiences compared to the 'big picture' but I am going to do so! The incredible feeling that I experienced in July have now become more settled (as I knew they would), I am at a much better state than I was before it: the effects - like my 'Radox bath' – have endured. And I reckon that's not a bad estimation of what will happen in the Obama presidency.

Finally, another apology of sorts. This next bit might sound smug. It is not intended to be, but, now I am in this reflective mood, a totting up of the 'what's not to like?' list:

I am so fortunate to have been born in a relatively wealthy and democratic country in the latter part of the 20^th century; to have been given some pretty good genes (along with a few 'jokers'!); to have had a loving, secure and supportive family; to have never known hunger, disease, or (unlike the previous two generations of the family)war; to have never been out of work since starting employment at 19; to have the most fantastic life partner; a brilliant son; interesting and stimulating work that is reasonably well paid and secure; as a broadcaster and journalist to have met some amazing people - including 'A' list 'celeb's' and many others with amazing stories; to have friends old and new; some superb colleagues and a network of academics/practitioners across large chunks of the world; to have witnessed man landing on the Moon and the fall of the Berlin Wall; to have reached middle-age without dying in a nuclear war (a likely prospect when I was growing up) and, according to my doctor, in good, general physical (and, as discussed above, mental) health; and, now, seen the election of Barack Obama as 44^th President of the USA.

I prayed for him the night of November 3^rd/4^th and I do now every day to save him for the crazies and the guns that blight that wonderful country. Other than that fear, I can't wait for the story to unfold…