Dermot: History

Enniskillen; The Poppy Day Massacre Twenty Years On

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:44:58 GMT

Twenty years ago the Provisional IRA, an organisation that had the support of London Mayor Ken Livingstone, committed the most despicable act of the War in Northern Ireland. And there are a lot of such vile, base and disgusting incidents from which to select…

Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh saw eleven people perish as the Provos bombed a Remembrance Sunday Parade. What sort of mentality even considers such an action?

And now Vampire in Chief Martin McGuinness, a blood soaked murderer is the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. It’s the sickest joke imaginable but is proof, is any was needed, that it’s all about power and it’s trappings.

Whilst the likes of people I rubbed along with such as Declan Moen, who were mostly inadequate types looking for validation and a role were taking the lives of fellow Irishmen, Adams and McGuinness were pulling the strings and taking no risks. Lives were ruined and now they sip (non alcoholic) cocktails and nibble on canapés with the likes of Ian Paisley.

You have to ask what it was all really for?

Remembrance Sunday each year grows in importance as the First World War generation is virtually gone with only a handful of survivors left, and this gruesome conflict was the curtain raiser to the most violent century in human history.

It seems that we have become more addicted to war the more “civilised” the human race becomes.

100 million people (this is a crude and conservative UN estimate) were killed by war in the 20^th Century and this blood lust shows no sign of abating into the 21^st as we see 670,000 (figures that the Foreign Office describe as being “robust” when scrutinised) Iraqis die at the hands of the Coalition and each other, and the carnage continue from Afghanistan, to Palestine, through swathes of Africa and into places such as Indonesian Occupied Papua where it has emerged British sold weapons are responsible.

An MOD Minister told the Observer; “We repeatedly told the Indonesian Government not to use them on civilians”. Satire is alive and in rude health.

The industrial scale casualties of the Great War demonstrate the absolute contempt that Capitalism has for human life.

Capitalism as a system, works on the premise of unfettered competition and survival of the fittest, which naturally leads to violence as people seek to protect their interests. Ergo Iraq.

Saddam’s vile Fascist regime, whilst it posed no threat to US economic interests, was indulged and Human Right abuses ignored.

George Galloway, for all his stupidity called Saddam; “a bestial Dictator” and took part in protests outside the Iraqi Embassy as early as 1988.

Meanwhile UK Defence Minister Alan Clark was busy doing under the counter deals with Saddam via Matrix Churchill, a British arms company who were helping the Iraqis develop a “super gun” missile launcher with which he could menace his neighbours.

All highly illegal and Clark lied about this in Parliament, and when caught out came up with his classic line about being; “'economical with the actualité”.

Former US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld was pictured with the Butcher Of Baghdad as late as 1981. But as soon as Saddam looked like upsetting the apple cart with his invasion of Kuwait then the full might of economic power was unleashed and 1.5 MILLION Iraqi civilians paid the price between 1991 and the invasion of 2003.

The UN Under Secretary, Denis Halliday, called this; “a Genocide I can no longer be part of”, and resigned his post in 2002.

The price of the Somme and other Great War Slaughters was paid with the blood of largely Working Class men aged 15-25. Hundreds of thousands of them. A true lost generation. We must never forget them.

My Granda Joseph O'Shaughnessy's Mark on History.

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 19:04:41 GMT

In the photo below are my cousin, Kieran and his daughter Fiona, on a recent trip to the Old Country from their Stateside home.
The picture is taken in Kilkee, County Clare which is the traditional seaside retreat for the people of Limerick, and in the rock you can make out the names N. Naughton, and J. O’Shaughnessy (our Granda) with the date 18/4/1926.
My cousin takes up the story…

“This is in the Diamond Rocks part of Kilkee, just beyond the famous pollock holes. Seemingly on Easter weekend the bould Joe and his neighbour Naughton (what did they call them, Shaughers and Knockers??) cycled to Killkee and carved their names. Its pretty cool as there are other names carved much later and you can barely read them. You can read these clearly.”

Stuff like this is just so brilliant. How could my Granda have known that a full seventy one years later, that two of his grand children would be talking about something that he did just for a laugh?

I hope that in years to come, that my son Conor and one of his cousins in Ireland will have a similar conversation. But my Granda's true legacy is our strong sense of family and what it means, following his example.

By the time Conor appreciates this part of his roots, my Granda’s etchings will be over a century old. Magnificent.

The Tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Ulilitarianism or War Crime?

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:08:03 GMT

This weekend sees the 62nd anniversary of the Nuclear Strikes on Japan which are credited with bringing the Second World War to a close.
Hmmm...I'm not sure on this one. I’ve always taken the Utilitarian point of view on this passage of history .i.e. the Atomic strikes were a necessary evil to force the Japanese to end the war.
But there are a few issues of concern.
1) Is it ever acceptable to knowingly cause mass civilian deaths in such a cold and calculated way? In this age where the US considers itself to be the World's Policeman it is still the only nation to have unleashed WMD, and in the ’Sixties used chemical weapons in Vietnam. In addition there was the carpet bombing of the North in that war which resulted in nearly a million deaths.
The Vietnam War all told cost 2 million lives.
2) It is accepted now that the Japanese Government, or at least a section of it, was seriously interested in opening negotiations via the Soviets. Japan was not a dictatorship in the sense that the other Axis Powers were. They operated a Cabinet system of Government. Did the US try hard enough to make contact with the doves in the enemy administration?
3) At Potsdam the initial communiqué called for total surrender. This caused wavering amongst even the hawks in the Japanese Government. However it was amended to allow the retention of the Emperor. This was meant to give the hawks a way out but instead unwittingly sent a message of indecision thus encouraging the Tokyo Government to fight on.
4) The received opinion at the time was that the Japanese would have fought to the last man. On what basis? Kamikaze? Stereotyping? This theory merits more academic investigation.
5) Why the second bomb so soon? How much effort was made to open channels between the bombings?
On the counter balance the line had been well and truly crossed regarding civilians with the barbaric fire bombing of Hamburg and then Dresden, in the European theatre and of Tokyo in the East, so I suppose Truman was immune to considering such an argument.
This, however doesn't make it right and anyway, I‘m convinced that the Allies wouldn‘t have used Nuclear Weapons on the Continent of Europe. It‘s a lot easier to justify, and stomach blowing up homogenous Japanese stereotypical Bad Guys, the Yellow Peril, than to condemn people like you, and in the US case many were directly descended from German stock.
Dropping the bombs in the sea or on land would not have had the same effect and they only had a limited supply of devices.
At the end of the day the Japanese hadn't exactly played it by the Geneva Convention ,and operations during the island hopping campaign had caused tremendous death and suffering on both sides, so at least it brought it to a head.
The Bombs had the effect of preventing a Nuclear conflagration during the Cold War due to the fact that people could see the consequences. Agnostic as charged on this one. There was plenty of Hot Action as a result of the US/Soviet rivalry, as large swathes of Africa, Asia and South America will testify to. Just because it didn’t affect European White Developed Nations didn’t mean it wasn’t happening. I feel the sobriquet Cold War is quite offensive actually.

But in the end we will never know whether it was possible to bring the War to a close by any other means, because as is usual Capital demanded a quick end so that it could continue on it’s merry way. The reinvention of the defeated nations shows that as long as the flow of money is protected there is no problem. Hence the use of Nazi technicians on the Space Programme...

Wilberforce Weekender. City of Hull Marina and Museum Quarter

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:01:19 GMT

This weekend saw more celebrations in the City of Hull to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of abolition of the Slave Trade in the British Empire which took place via an Act Of Parliament steered through by Non Conformist Hull MP William Wilberforce in 1807.
The museum which is located in this famous Son Of Hull’s family home, conveniently located in the Museum Quarter of the Old Town, has be reinvigorated and is well worth a visit.
It’s amazing how, when you live in a place you ignore what’s in front of your nose in favour of visiting other Northern locations such as York, Leeds or Lincoln.
The weekend was ushered in with a yacht race from Rotterdam to Hull completed by eight of the vessels which are to compete on a Round the World Challenge which sets of from the Mersey in September.
Yorkshire Forward, which is a Government Quango charged with spending Public money in order to attract business to the Region has devoted £4 million towards the entry of a yacht (The Hull and Humber) and crew in the Global Race, and the evidence was on show yesterday as the Clipper Class yachts were paraded in the River Humber, and very impressive they are too. (See photo album).
Yes, we can carp about the money and I can’t imagine for one minute that a business person watching as the boats sail up into New York Harbour under the watchful eye of the Statue of Liberty will jump up and down screaming; “We must invest in Hull!”, but it does raise the profile of the City as one with drive and ambition, and let’s face it, it is very easy to be cynical about such investment. And in the wake of the floods people will carp.
The magnificent, and underrated Waterfront of the City was shown off to be a vibrant and picturesque place, and for once in this wretched “Summer” we had a reasonable day to show for it.
We spent the day in the Museum Quarter, firstly at the Street Life collection which show the old transport systems of the City, set in contemporary scenery followed by the Wilberforce House which is lively, informative and has something for everyone. Conor is only four, but loved it as there is a trail for young one’s to complete whilst I immersed myself with the history and politics of slavery right up to the present day.
This includes a depressing, but necessary montage on contemporary racism in Britain including a contribution from Ian Wright who has donated a signed shirt.
And our very own Clive Sullivan’s World Cup Winner’s Medal from 1972, when he was the first black person to captain any British national side, is present reminding us (as if we need it) what a truly trailblazing and heroic person he really was.
The whole thing which doesn't cost a single penny, allied to the weekend's events showcase Hull (for once) in a positive light and I for one am proud of our Tradition of defiance (The English Civil War started here when the King was refused entry to the City) and progressive poltics via Wilberforce, and more recently John Prescott and Alan Johnson.

Today 27 million people in our World are Slaves (defined by the UN) and this, along with the grinding poverty that kills 50,000 souls a DAY, is a reminder of the Genocide that is taking place on our watch, and why Tony Blair’s vision to Make Poverty History must not be sidelined, or bracketed with his hubristic and criminal involvement in the tragedy that is Iraq.

Timewatch: Killer Cloud BBC2 Friday 9PM.

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 12:33:40 GMT

Anglo Irish 17^th and 18t^h Century history are my passions, stemming from my brilliant A Level teacher John Oxley, and then having been lucky enough to study under the number one contemporary teacher of this era, Prof. Sean Connolly during my under graduate days in Northern Ireland.
Thus it was with considerable interest that I tuned in to this fascinating documentary by the Timewatch team. I scoured my textbooks and could find not one single reference to this truly cataclysmic event that struck Europe in the summer of 1783.
The reasons become clear.
In July of that year there was a massive fissure volcanic eruption which took place over a period of some weeks in the tectonically unstable Iceland, turning out to be the second most devastating of the last Millennium after Krakatoa blew in 1883.
Massive one off plug eruptions, devastating as they are, tend to cause in most cases, short term problems but fissure ones can go on for weeks, as indeed happened in the Icelandic occurrence meaning that that millions of cubic tonnes of toxic gases are released into the atmosphere thereby combing with the moisture to produce sulphuric acid.
1783 was the hottest summer on record until 2003 usurped it and the result was that a huge anti cyclone parked itself over North West Europe and decided to stay put for three whole months.
The result meant that the air was incredibly still thus when the cloud of noxious gases arrived in the UK on 23^rd July, there was little wind to dissipate this killer fog which prevailed all over Britain and Ireland from late July to the early days of September.
Matters were exacerbated by a series of massive thunder storms which produced acid rain, ruining trees, crops and killing livestock.
Newspapers of the day comment on the phenomenon and describe the surreal conditions of extreme heat with this hazy cloud producing amazing blood red sunsets but there is little comment on the causes, this being the Age of Reason it was just attributed to the natural cycle of things.
Naturally the demographic that read these Journals made no remarks or investigations into how it affected the ordinary inhabitants of Britain at the time. Why should they?
But investigations undertaken over the last few years by the programme paint and very different picture.
The average 18^th Century citizen of either gender was forced to perform back breaking work in order to make ends meet, either on the land or for a few in the new wave of factories springing up in Pre Industrial Revolutionary Britain and the extreme heat of that long summer, allied to the toxic gas fog caused 23,000 extra deaths from respiratory failure.
Hard labour entailed a lot of heavy breathing which sucked in the gas turning it into sulphuric acid thereby destroying the sensitive lung tissue.
The better of were not so affected but it is certain that babies and the elderly of what ever class would have succumbed.
Assiduous research of Parish records plus ploughing through diaries of 18^th Century Clergymen produced the evidence of the savage results of this, the biggest natural disaster in British history.
The victims were ordinary working people thus the event has been lost in the mists of time.
Matters were somewhat different in France and mirrored events on this side of the Channel in the Mid 17^th Century.
It is the contention of many 21^st Century historians that a major cause of the English Civil War was the appalling weather that beset the UK at this time.
Tree rings tell us that the average July temperature for a long stretch of the 17^th C was just 10 degrees Celsius and this is verified by the diarist Samuel Peyps who recorded that the Thames froze on an annual basis for much of this period.
The results were desperate suffering and widespread famine, which in turn led to a break down of law and order.
Who got the blame? Charles the First. His flirtations with Catholicism and cosying up to the French had, for many in Britain brought the wrath of a Protestant God upon his people as a punishment for their Monarch’s betrayal of the Reformation.
Thus the seeds of discontent were sown and the rest, as the old cliché goes, is history.
The available evidence form France shows that Clerical reaction to the Killer Cloud shows a belief in Divine Punishment.
Could the cloud be a catalyst for the discontent which led to the events of 1789 and the execution of Louis XVI? I’d love to find out.

What all this teaches us is that arrogance about the environment and especially global warming will be the cause of serious conflict in the middle of this century as water becomes the reason to go to war, scrapping over resources is an age old human trait and we have no reason to think our Century will be any different.

"The Improbable Mr.Attlee". BBC4 Various Times

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 11:55:03 GMT

This is Public Service telly at it’s best and the reason why the Beeb’s independence from Government interference (did someone mention Hutton?) and the vagaries of the commercial media sector, should be protected come hell or high water.
The presenter, Prof. David Reynolds is ever so slightly bonkers, just like all the best History teachers should be, in my case Mr. Oxley at Marist plus Drs Ikeringill and Lemon at the University of Ulster who made learning such a pleasure, and not the chore it seems to be for today’s hot housed kids.
He did all the voices himself conducting conversations a la Rory Bremner between the main protagonists, Attlee himself, Truman, Churchill and the madly truly bonkers Ernie Bevin who was Foreign Secretary in the Great Post War Labour Government.
He drew some interesting parallels with the Blair Administration, namely that Clem understood the need for Labour to appeal to Middle England and woo the Northcliffe section of the media, as indeed Blair had to do with Murdoch.
On the morning of April 9^th 1992 I realised as soon as I saw the front page of the Scum (“Will the Last Person Left in the UK Turn Out The Lights if Labour Wins”) that the game was up. Sure enough quite one of the worst days of my life unfolded with a sickening inevitability. Five more years of THEM. Never again, and Blair did the deed in 1995 by meeting with Murdoch so sealing the support of his wretched Empire. Les Mains Sales, as Satre might have put it.
Secondly Reynolds showed us how adept that Attlee was at the seemingly new concept of “Burying Bad News”. Who can forget Press Advisor Jo Moore’s email to Steve Byers on 9/11?
Moore, it seems was just following in Old Labour’s footsteps whilst as the Nation literally froze to death in January and February 1947 with 2 million laid off and coal as rare as hen’s teeth, the PM withdrew from Palestine, pulled out our boys from Greece so sparking Civil War, and set a firm date to get out of India.
All three decisions were swamped in an avalanche as power cuts and desperate shortages reminiscent of the War, paralysed newspaper production and prevented many Parliamentarians from attending the relevant debates. Clever old Clem.
Un like Blair, Attlee had to contend with a number of “Big Beasts” who all had their eye on the job that Clem had only taken as a stop gap measure in 1935.
Twenty years on he was still standing whilst the likes of Dalton, Cripps, Bevin and the incomparable Nye Bevan were in the political wilderness or had joined the Great Debating Chamber in the Sky.
And as for the Herbert Morrison…. His grandson Peter Mandleson must have had Prince of Darkness genes, as upon our landslide victory in 1945 he proposed a Leadership Contest as he thought Attlee had no mandate from the Party!
Clem just got into the Official Car and made a beeline for the Palace. Good call.
In addition Bevin sent Cripps to see the PM in September 1947, after a run on Sterling suggesting he stand down. Attlee phoned Bevin and asked him out right if he supported the Chancellor’s view and surprisingly enough, when put on the spot the answer was certainly not what had been said over whisky the night before…..
Despite a humiliating devaluation and restoration of Currency Controls, Attlee and his Chancellors presided over economic upturn against all the odds thus de bunking the myth that Labour couldn‘t run the economy.
But, as with Blair subservience to the US in Foreign Policy fatally damaged the Government meaning that the 1951 Election saw Labour stagger over the line with an Administration bereft of ideas domestically and with a deeply unpopular Overseas Agenda dictated by America.
Britain took a lead role in the formation of NATO in 1948, as a bulwark against Stalin’s ambitions (un proven) of Pan European Communist hegemony, but it came with a price which was British involvement in Korea which cost 1,078 dead and more than 1,000 taken prisoner. And this was barely five years since World War Two.
The US wanted Britain to increase the defence budget to a then monumental £6 billion, up from £1.5 billion and this re armament caused anger in the country (rationing was still in operation) and near Civil War in the Party with Bevan resigning from the Government,
All sounds familiar as we lurch from disaster to disaster in Iraq and unless Brown takes a firm hold of the tiller on his ascent to the summit, the Party is in danger of drifting onto the rocks through lack of vim and vigour domestically, and because of the Abusive Relationship with America.
As for the Attlee Government, despite being beset with economic crisis and the aftermath of the grimmest decade in human history it delivered an historic extension of the Welfare State, record spending on schools and housing, and a re negotiation of the balance of power between industry, the Government and workers.
And of course, the greatest achievement, the Jewel In Britain’s 20^th Crown and the envy of the World despite the best efforts of vested interests and the BMA;
Nye Bevan’s National Health Service.
Not bad, eh?
http://www.labourhome.org/story/2007/1/8/81932/77524

Now, now children, let's all play nicely!

The Oik That is David Starkey

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:11:44 GMT

I have always found Dr. David Starkey an odious, pompous, self opinionated annoying little twerp but there something strangely compulsive about watching him at work, be it on his late night political talk show or presenting the latest instalment of his Monarchy series.
From how he desperately tries (and often fails) to cover up his Cumbrian accent, to his digs at New Labour is a constant source of amusement. And his assessment of history and politics are just so often plainly wrong as he places far too much emphasis on personality with very little analysis on processes, such as the influence of the economy and the environment on the English Civil War. Plus he praised Niall Ferguson, a hanging offence in my book.
On his talk show he is deliberately obnoxious towards lefty guests and cannot deal in the slightest with smart women, thus Polly Toynbee wiped the floor with him when he came up with the daft analysis of Blair being the natural successor ideologically to Thatcher. I forgot of course about how committed she was to the NHS model and State Education. Silly me.
My first sight of him in action was in the role of Prosecutor in the TV Trial of Richard III where he rude and abrasive manner managed to secure an acquittal, some feat given this Kings’s reputation.

The Monarchy series is lazy history at it’s worst. How you can make the Exclusion Crisis, the Popish Plot and the Glorious Revolution boring is beyond me, but he manages it because he quite clearly has little interest in this period of our heritage due to the fact he can’t witter on about the characters various peccadilloes, no surprise then that he is an expert on Court Etiquette and the wives of Henry VIII, an endless source of gossip which is what he does best. Altough he did point out that William of Orange was gay. Which no doubt went down a storm in various Orange Lodges and Shankill Road Drinking Clubs. And my money would be on Simon Schama in a drinking contest. Or a fight.

Simon Schama, Christy Moore and the Spanish Civil War

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 19:58:35 GMT

Simon Schama’s stupendous series “The Power of Art”, surely the best documentary series yet this Century, came to a crescendo on Friday with his telling of the story of Picasso’s Guernica, the monumental masterpiece which described the horror of modern warfare at it’s most dastardly, civilian Death in the Afternoon which has echoes in our own time with the Apocalyptic Slaughter of the Innocents which takes place every single day across the world, be it in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Palestine or on the London Underground.
Death rained from the azure siesta time sky. Ordinary people doing sometimes mundane, sometimes meaningful everyday things. Cut down. Their existence no more. Wringing out washing. Feeding a baby. Making love. Arguing. Cooking. Reading. Then oblivion.
This painting is important. A lesson in mindless suffering and what it does to us as humans, seemingly removing the part of our individual and collective psyche that registers and acknowledges revulsion.
The Spanish Civil War has always fascinated me. As a teenager the romanticism, fighting and dying for a noble Socialist cause, and then as an adult reading Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia” seeing Ken Loach’s “Land and Freedom”, taking in and digesting the futility of war and it’s grubby unedifying nuances which drag us into the dirt.
Schama conveys to the viewer the background to the horror of the Lufwaffes destruction of the Basque town and just why it was a watershed, the Rubicon moment of the 20^th Century ushering in the concept of Total War resulting in the deaths of 55 million souls in the Second World War.
Orwell mentions a young lad of 17 who went to Spain from Bristol to fight for the Republic. He later became a Trade Union work colleague of my late and much missed Father in Law, and I was privileged to read “Staff’s” recollections of the war, and it’s impact on his life as a Trade Unionist.

In 1984 Christy Moore wrote and recorded the song “Viva La Quita Brigada” which tells the story of Frank Ryan and his Irish comrades who like “Staff” went to defend the ill fated Republic. The attitude of the Church is shameful in the extreme but alas not surprising. The blame lies at the top of the Church Hierarchy who should have known better, allowing the fear of secularisation to overcome to overcome any reservations regarding the rising tide of Nazism.

Ten years before I saw the light of morning
A comradeship of heroes was laid
From every corner of the world came sailing
The Fifth International Brigade

They came to stand beside the Spanish people
To try and stem the rising fascist tide
Franco's allies were the powerful and wealthy
Frank Ryan's men came from the other side

Many Irishmen heard the call of Franco
Joined Hitler and Mussolini too
Propaganda from the pulpit and newspapers
Helped O'Duffy to enlist his crew

The word came from Maynooth, "support the Nazis"
The men of cloth failed again
When the Bishops blessed the Blueshirts in Dun Laoghaire
As they sailed beneath the swastika to Spain.

Bob Hilliard was a Church of Ireland pastor
Form Killarney across the Pyrenees he came
From Derry came a brave young Christian Brother
Side by side they fought and died in Spain

Tommy Woods age seventeen died in Cordoba
With Na Fianna he learned to hold his gun
From Dublin to the Villa del Rio
Where he fought and died beneath the blazing sun

This song is a tribute to Frank Ryan
Kit Conway and Dinny Coady too
Peter Daly, Charlie Regan and Hugh Bonar
Though many died I can but name a few

Danny Boyle, Blaser-Brown and Charlie Donnelly
Liam Tumilson and Jim Straney from the Falls
Jack Nalty, Tommy Patton and Frank Conroy
Jim Foley, Tony Fox and Dick O'Neill.

I was reminded of why I love Christy’s music (see Oct 10^th entry) so much by this appearance on Jools Holland.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jo_OcXTGSY

A man who means what he sings, giving it his all.

His new record “Live in Dublin 2006” comes in at 32 tracks charting his career to date. Old Favourites (Ordinary Man, Ride On, Natives, The City of Chicago) are augmented by interpretations of Morrissey’s America You are Not The World and the Richard Thompson classic Beeswing plus a balled to recount the horrific death of a modern Irish heroine Veronica Guerin.

It captures the intimacy of Christy at his best, and the sound quality is the best I’ve heard on a live record for ages.

Simon Schama's The Power of Art. Fridays 7.30 BBC2

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 16:50:12 GMT

The Daddy of history on telly, Simon Schama, returned to our screens on Friday night with a new series on Art History, looking at eight masterpieces, putting them in contemporary context and telling the story of the artist intertwined with the painting.
My benchmark for judging TV docs is how much did I learn? In this case absolutely tonnes as the artist in question Carravagio is someone whom I previously knew little, except that he was a nutter who painted religious icons.
Nutter is somewhat of an understatement as our hero’s main pastime seemed to involve hanging around the seamiest parts of town to indulge his love for drinking, fighting, gambling and bedding unfeasibly good looking lasses, whom he had seduced with the old “do you want to be a model?” line.
But the man was a total genius with a paintbrush and changed the course of art history as he was the first artist to paint raw, truthful depictions of the human condition through the medium of religious iconacry.
When Schama shows you the paintings and points out how politically subversive and yet human Carravagio was, it is simply breathtaking. His master piece being David with the head of Goliath, the clever bit being his face as Goliath in repentance for his debauched, and perhaps inevitably mortally sinful existence.
Unsurprisingly the painter’s fast and loose attitude to life got him into serious strife as a series of irate and cuckolded guys were queing up to have a go, Carravagio had the knack of keeping one step ahead until he was jumped outside a bar, suffering extensive injuries.
Daft lad, he didn’t learn and ended up killing a girl’s father in a duel, forcing him to go on the run, his artistic reputation saved him, painting in Malta got him into the Knights Templar and ironically just as he was about to receive a pardon, he duffed up a fellow knight, went on the run (again) and met a lonely and painful death stranded on a swamp only a few miles from sanctuary.
Schama is the master story teller always making his subject interesting, accessible and human.
The BBC public service telly ethos at it’s best.

Humber Bridge Anniversary

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 12:19:10 GMT

A Bridge across the Humber Estuary had been mooted as far back as 1945 and by 1959 the Macmillan Government passed the Humber Bridge Act which proposed an East Coast Motorway from London to Newcastle via Lincoln and to run west of Hull across the Humber, up via Beverley to link Geordieland with the rest of humanity (humanity didn’t have a choice it seems).
Nothing much happened however. Labour won the 1964 Election with the proverbial wafer thin majority but by early 1966 the Government was behind in the polls and facing a rough ride. The Tory (yes, it seems unbelievable but it’s true) MP for Hull North died in the spring and a by election was called. The seat was extremely marginal and seen as a decent barometer of the lie of the electoral land so the Government was desperate to get the psychological upper hand as Wilson had decided he had to go to the country soon to secure a working majority.
Thus it was decided by the Cabinet that the time was right to announce positive action on the Bridge and to point out the economic benefits to the voters of Hull North, who duly obliged by returning Kevin MacNamara who over the years turned it into a rock solid Labour seat which he represented with typical vigour until 2005. And Wilson won a convincing majority in October 1966 which cemented the era of the Second Great Labour Government.
The usual British faffing around with enquiries and working parties meant that the first sod remained undug until late 1972 and the foundation stone of the North Tower was finally laid in September 1973, the project was beset with ill luck (the South Tower had to be redone due to sinkage) and the inevitable Seventies bout of Industrial Strife meaning that by late 1979 only the Towers and the cables were completed.
The road blocks began to appear in 1980, but work was further held up when a section of road collapsed later that year but by June 1981 the Bridge was finished and traffic began to cross for the first time, the Queen completed the formalities and on July 17^th 1981 this magnificent structure was fully open for business.
There has been, and continues to be a lot of hot air over the cost and necessity of the structure but to me it is a true icon of British Engineering, once the envy of the world. It’s a symbol of East Yorkshire and the great spirit of our City. So there. I love it.
The 25^th Anniversary was a great event and gave positive images of our region across the UK and the world with spectacular coverage on the BBC and Sky News of various things that went on culminating in a massive firework display.
Cath and Michael went up on a helicopter trip and a selection of photos appears below.

A History of Britain

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 20:23:35 GMT

This fantastic and ground breaking series is having a well earned re run on UKTV History, otherwise known as the Nazi Channel as there isn’t one single day without some other angle on World War Two. “I was Hitler’s Toilet Attendant” is in post production, or if it isn’t then it feels like it should be. I mean, talk about flogging a dead horse…. The more that this stuff is on, then the lesser the impact. The History Curriculum cover the rise of the Nazis at KS3,4. A Level and on degree courses thus nullifying the shock value. “Bloody hell, not more dead Jews purl ease! “

This vogue seemed to start about ten years ago and is counter productive. A bit like Michael Buerk’s report in 1984 from Ethiopia which shook everyone to the core and now it’s like “Wipe that fly away you lazy bugger” as we have been inundated with shocking images of poverty and it’s become second nature. But notice, images from Africa are spun so that we think the cause is either corruption or war caused by said corrupt rulers. Then idea that Africa has been systematically economically denuded, and is poorer now than in 1980, is never mentioned.

Simon Schama is unapologetically a Marxist but not in a dogmatic Christopher Hill/Hobspawn type of way. His analysis is straightforward and above all, he takes the human element very much into account. Thus Henry II is put into context by his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitane, which was unusual “ as both parties fancied each other”. This is important because as the older and more confident party, she helped Henry to develop as an individual and have the self belief to take control and become England’s greatest ever Monarch.

The Penal Code, the Jury system and Local Government are all legacies of Henry, but of course he will always be remembered for the “turbulent Priest” and the brutal murder of Thomas a Beckett. But he established stable government, economic growth and the role of the Monarch as arbiter rather than despot which was revolutionary at the time, and inadvertently laid the seeds for the unrest against John, the Peasants Revolt and subsequent events.

As a rule we don’t do Absolutism in this country as Richard III found to his cost, and even Henry VIII had to play ball with the Church and Earls and it took his great political skill to try and impose his will, not always successfully.

The part played by nature in history is drawn out by Schama and we would do well to take note in our day and age. In our supreme Western Decadent mentality we think we can have control over our environment. We don’t, buster, and this has been shown by Katrina, the Tsunami and the Pakistan Earthquake (see 28/10 Year Of Disasters). The power of nature has the ability to cause human suffering on an immense scale, and of greater long term impact, on the economy. And this is what can lead to insecurity, a scramble for resources (oil now, water in the long range) and military action to protect said interests. The invasion and pillage of Iraq being the obvious example.

Schama shows how the Black Death was ultimately responsible for the collapse of the Feudal System as there was a shortage of labour thus allowing the serfs to move to farm for a more reasonable Landlord. In addition at least 1/3 of the population and in some areas over 50% perished, thus freeing up land and creating gaps in Local Government and the Professions for the street smart lower orders. This is how it was possible for a men of Beckett's ilk in the wake of the plague, to climb the greasy pole to power. And the leaders of the so called “Peasant’s Revolt” (today it would be the IT Consultants Revolt) came from these newly empowered Middle Classes.

A major cause of the Civil War? You got it! The weather.

Average July temperatures in mid 17^th Century England were a meagre 10 Centigrade and in the winter the Thames was regularly frozen over to the extent that skating was de riguer on an annual basis.

Such appalling weather resulted in starvation, civil unrest and a general malaise that was blamed on God punishing England for having such a Popish Monarch. Thus the seeds were sown for the anarchy and breakdown of law and order that resulted in the deaths of 700,000 people in the 1640’s mostly from famine and intercine conflicts over resources and land. This set the scene for Parliament to move against the King.

Schama’s style is academically sound but put across in an accessible manner and even a sad old history geek like me can learn something.

David Starkey should just go and crawl up his own pathetic Right Wing arse. Schama rules, sad boy.

Holocaust Survivours

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 18:23:16 GMT

Just got a copy of "The Teacher" which is the in house mag for the NUT. Even though I'm no longer involved I want to at least pretend.

Anyway the point is that there was an interview with Paul Oppenheimer whom I had the privilege to meet in 1994 when we did our first Holocaust Day at RMS.

You might wonder about all this but I passionately believe the only way we can make kids aware of what went on is by getting them to hear it first hand. I could rattle on endlessly ( and frequently did) about all these issues but to hear it first hand is unbeatable and I'm still so proud of what we did. It was at the height of the Yugoslav Civil War and John Major's craven stand off approach which allowed the genocide in Bosnia and the siege Of Sarajevo. A medieval and disgraceful period in European History and Thank God the Blair and Clinton were prepared to come to the rescue of Kosovo when they had nothing to gain. They did it because it was right. Period.

Makes the Iraq thing even more confusing when you put in this context.

But the slaughter in Bosnia was result of the same processes that produced the unbelievable thing that was the cold blooded industrial murder of 6 million Jews and 2 million others such as disabled,gays,gypsies,Slavs and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Paul was a Trade Unionist and in 1990 he was awarded the OBE for services to his local community through his Union work. The local press did an interview and within five questions had told them he was a Holocaust Survivor.

One problem, his wife and kids had no idea so that night he told his story for the first time and it all went from there as he felt ready to go public and relate what happened so that no one could use the excuse that they didn't know.

As it happens this coincided with the release Of Schindler's List (not as good as Mrs.Doubtfire) and the growth of what some cynics call the Holocaust "Industry".

There is a school of (stupid) thought that says this interest in the Holocaust is encouraged by Jews in order to excuse the excesses of the Israeli Government in their brutal and inhumane treatment of the Palestinians.

Bollocks. I’m sure there are a few Jews who do this. But we have to disentangle attitudes to Israel from what happened in Europe.

Personally I think the foundation of a Jewish State in Palestine was wrong. You have to see it as a Euro/American Colony in the Middle East and take it from there. The fact is that Israel exists and aint going away so we have to deal with that reality, BUT something MUST be done to stop the Israeli’s disgusting and humiliating treatment of the Arab people’s who are regarded as a conquered nation who are getting uppity.

It goes without saying that terror and suicide bombings are equally evil acts and are in fact counter productive as they provoke greater repression and plays into the hands of the hardliners like Sharon. (Why is he not standing trial for the massacre in 1982 in Lebanon?) But WHY are they happening? I said this back in July re the London Bombings..Bugger reality ,it’s all about perception. The Palestinians have seen their country occupied by rich Euro/American people who have stripped them of nationhood and made them poor. And the State of Israel is in receipt of huge US subsidies and has armed itself to the teeth including Nuclear Weapons. So it’s no wonder that Israel is seen as a Bad Thing in the region.

I believe that the Jews are suffering from a collective dose of Abused becomes Abuser.

Now I bet people like Nick Cohen would want to see me strung up as a Nazi sympathiser for saying this. In SOME Jewish people’s view you are automatically a Holocaust Denier if you air such views.

It is well recorded that kids from marriage splits are four times more likely to have a failed marriage, twice as likely to suffer domestic violence as adults (low self esteem being the main reason), have poorer educational outcomes, are more likely to “suffer” from dyslexia and AHDD and are three times more vulnerable to drug addiction.

Sad but true. Now take that and extrapolate it to the Jewish Experience. (Just go with me here). Such trauma has to effect the Collective Psyche of any group of people so the evil vested on them is now channelled towards the Palestinians and behind it all is “we were victims. It’s not fair”. So they lose the ability to empathise with the Palestinian people.

So the chain has to be broken somehow.

The Israelis have to stop seeing themselves as victims and reach out to the Palestinians from a position of self confidence.

Rabin started this process by saying “We have nothing to fear or feel ashamed about” and he and Arafat brokered a way out. Until he was assassinated by a fellow Jew who said he had “sold out”. Then retreat back into “everyone hates us” territory by Sharon. Cue Intifada Two.

Paul told us of his experiences which saw him lose both his parents and all four of his grand parents. He was born in Germany in 1926 but fled to Holland when the Nazis came to power and ended up in the same class as Anne Frank.

His life followed hers in parallel until she died in Belsen and he survived.

What I found amazing was that a small old guy with a weedy Brummie accent could hold 240 16 year olds rapt attention for two hours. It was incredible and powerful. He broke down when describing his mother’s last hours in Belsen but they went with him. But not in a mawkish way. You often find with teenage girls that they enjoy it if something like a car crash happens and they spend ages crying even if the had no connection with the person. Hormones I suppose. Or just immaturity. There wasn’t any of that and when I encouraged them to write about it, the analysis was spot on. Paul is an old fashioned Socialist and he described in class as well as racial terms. And he made direct parallels with Rwanda and Bosnia so it wasn’t seen in isolation.

Joe Perl. What a guy. I met him at a book launch by Terry Waite for the new Anne Frank Diary in 1995. I asked him if he knew Paul. “Lightweight! He was only in Westerbork and Belsen. Holiday Camps!”

I discovered there is a distinct hierarchy of Holocaust seniority and if you weren’t in an Extermination Camp such as Auschwitz then you had an easy war. He meant it as well.

Joe came to RMS in 1996 and his talk was the most harrowing thing I’ve ever heard…all told in a matter of fact cockney way.

He was with his family and forced to dig a trench in a forest. The Germans went along the line. A bullet in the back of the head and into the trench. He watched this happen to his three sisters and his Mum. Just as they got to his brother all hell broke loose as there was an air raid. He legged it into the forest with his brother. They went to a farm house but heard the guy alerting the authorities so had to run off again.

They were lucky to meet up with the Resistance who tried to help them but in the end they walked at night across Europe and eventually ended up being caught and put into the Camp run by Goethe of Schindler’s List infamy (Ralph Fiennes played him).

Joe has a scar on his face as he was slashed across the face by the Commandant for not throwing himself on the floor in supplication. He would have been shot but the gun jammed.

Then Auschwitz. Hideous. I can’t get my head around how people can behave in such a depraved way. Just the casual nature of the violence. Doing it for kicks.

Joe escaped when Auschwitz was evacuated by the Germans in December 1944 and lived rough until they made contact with the Americans in Austria.

He discovered his eldest brother had survived and was living in Russia in 1990.

What I find unreal is how he could switch off from this and lead a normal life and raise successful kids. It was the same for the Nazis. Eichmann (if you do spell check it comes up with henchmen weird eh?) lived a normal life as an office clerk and his colleagues were absolutely flabbergasted when Mossad caught up with him and his past as the architect of the Final Solution came out. They simply couldn’t believe it. He was deferential to the bosses, mild mannered, didn’t dominate in social events so how could he be one of the most powerful Nazis, part of the inner circle?

This is the sociopathic behaviour demonstrated in the Sopranos and in the real world by the Sinn Fein/IRA.

You dehumanise your opponents so you can’t empathise with their suffering. As we were saying about Israel….

Hiroshima

Tue, 09 Aug 2005 11:08:11 GMT

This week is the 60th anniversary of the nuclear strikes of Japan which are credited with bringing the war to a close.

Hmmm...I'm not sure on this one.I've always taken the Utilitarian pont of view on this passage of history.i.e the Atomic strikes were a necessery evil to force the Japanese to end the war.But there are a few issues of concern.

1) Is it ever acceptable to knowingly cause mass civilain deaths in such a cold and calculated way?In this age where the US considers itself to be the World's Policeman it is still the only nation to have unleashed WMD and in the 60's chemical weapons in Vietnam.In addition there was the carpet bombing of the North in that war which resulted in nearly a Million deaths.

2) It is accepted now that the Japanese Government,or at least a section of it,was seriously interested in opening negotiations via the Soviets.Japan was not a dictatorship in thes sense that the other Axis Powers were.They operated a Cabinet system of Government.Did the US try hard enough to make contact with the doves in the enemy administration?

3) At Potsdam the initail communique called for total surrender.This caused wavering amongst even the hawks in the Japanese Government.However it was amended to allow the retention of the Emperor.This was meant to give the hawks a way out but instead unwittiingly sent a message of indecision thus encouraging the Tokyo Government to fight on.

4) The received opinion at the time was that the Japanese would have fought to the last man.On what basis?Kamekazie?Stereotyping? This theory merits more academic investigation.

5) Why the second bomb so soon?How much effort was made to open channels between the bombings?

On the counter balance the line had been well and truly crossed regarding civilians with the barbaric fire bombing of Hamburg and then Dresden,in the European theatre and of Tokyo in the East,so I suspose Truman was immune to considering such an argument.This,however doesn't make it right.

Dropping the bombs in the sea or on land would not have had the same effect and they only had a limited supply of devices

At the end of the day the Japanese hadn't exactly played it by the Geneva Convention and operations during the island hopping campaign had caused tremendous death and suffering on both sides,so at least it brought it to a head.

So,a complex issue.

On balance it was the right thing provided the above questions are answerd and there was really no option.