Every person is significant, important and of value and deserves to be treated with dignity, honour and justice

My review of  The Iron Lady ruffled some feathers as I was anything but sympathetic to the frail old lady portrayed in the film. It attracted positive and negative responses – but all friendly. My blog on Why I am a Welshman didn’t upset anyone but I was forced to issue a fatwah on my good friend Luke for his outrageous comments.

So last Saturday I read a claim in the Guardian that a drop in Tesco’s share price was ‘due to an answer to prayer’ for Stephen Green of Christian pressure group Christian Voice who protested outside shops last year after Tesco decided to sponsor the family area at London Gay Pride celebrations. I was angry about this as Stephen Green spouts absolute rubbish at the best of times, but to claim that God would answer such a vindictive prayer was insane and ludicrous.

As a result I posted that Stephen Green’s claims that God had judged Tesco were nonsense and that Green did more damage to Christianity than Hawking, Dawkins, Hitchens and militant Islam combined. What I didn’t expect were flames from my Christian friends quoting Bible verses: ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone…’ and various other personal attacks.

I’m pretty thick-skinned generally but this penetrated all my defences. I have worked hard for some years to build bridges between the Christian community in which I place myself and my many friends who don’t share my faith. Because I live and die by my equal opportunities statement above, I value all my friends equally. The friends who have touched my heart the most are those who formerly were part of a Christian group who have gone through divorces, or have come out as gay, or simply have lost their faith. They have been subjected to cruel, bitter, judgemental criticism by Christians and have been totally rejected. All of which is utterly contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ whom the critics claim to serve. When I read the comments on my status I understood how they felt: despised and rejected of men.

I suspended my Facebook account and have just resurrected it to give this explanation to my friends and to give myself some time to reflect and regroup. And what is the ultimate irony? I received three concerned emails from friends who had noticed I’d disappeared and were checking on me. Two of those people were gay and all three would identify themselves as atheists.

I felt rather out of place with this group, as only one of them was born when Margaret Thatcher came to power, whereas I had already voted in the 1970 General Election before that dark day in 1979 when she became Prime Minister. NB: I didn’t vote for her! My expectation and fear was that this film would sanitise her historical role and leave us feeling sorry for her in her confused state of Alzheimer’s disease. I had read reviews that  she had been portrayed very sympathetically in those autumn years of her life so I steeled myself not to feel any undue compassion.

The film alternates between the present day and flashback throughout and it is the skilful make-up worn by Meryl Streep thet helps the viewer get the chronology correct. From the very start, in her role as the grocer’s daughter, you saw the determination, ambition and sheer bloodymindedness of Margaret Roberts, later Thatcher, in her determination to achieve her political goals.

The portrayal of Margaret Thatcher through her period as Education Secretary and then as Prime Minister was very much as I remembered it –obstinate, insensitive, arrogant and even cruel. It put me very much in mind of a sketch in the vicious satire Spitting Image where she is treating her cabinet to a meal in a restaurant

Waitress: Would you like to order, sir?
Thatcher: Yes. I will have the steak.
Waitress: How would you like it?
Thatcher: Oh, raw, please.
Waitress: And what about the Vegetables?
Thatcher: Oh, they’ll [The Cabinet] have the same as me!

The only thing that caught me out was the scene that portrayed the killing of Airey Neave by a car bomb in the Palace of Westminster. Although the INLA (an Irish terrorist group) claimed responsibility, a Wikipedia article suggests the security services or even the Americans were responsible. I always wondered how the INLA could get into the underground car park at the Housees of Parliament. I remember the incident well and how affected I was at the time, emotions I relived while watching. The film then showed Mrs Thatcher running up the car-park exit ramp seconds later, having just said goodbye to Neave. I suspect that was just poetic licence!

I felt again that same surge of anger that I felt at the time of the events when the film covered probably her most controversial policies during the Miners Strike (1984-85) and the Poll Tax Riots (1990) Seeing again the newsreel scenes of appalling police violence reaffirmed my long-held views of anger and incomprehension of her coldness and brutality.

Ironically, I had always promised myself that if I were ever to meet Margaret Thatcher I would tell her exactly what I thought of her. In fact, I met her on two occasions but both times “on duty” where I was representing another organisation and had a prior obligation directing my conduct. I would not have been discourteous, I would simply have asked her if she was aware of the hurt, damage, pain, distress, hardship, and loss of hope that she had caused to the poorest and most vulnerable people in society. This is probably the closest I’ll ever get to having asked that question.

The portrayal that I struggled with the most in the film was that of Denis Thatcher. He came across as an affable, slightly dotty, harmless old man. The reality is that he was a sharp businessman and from all I have ever heard of him, not a particularly pleasant person to know. There is no doubt that Margaret and Denis had a remarkably close relationship and the film betrayed that well. Meryl Streep’s acting was breathtakingly good and one of the few good things that I can take away from the film that stirred up powerful negative emotions in me.

My passport confirms I am a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As an aside, I have discovered that since 1983 I am no longer a British subject but a British citizen. Concealed in all that complexity is that fact that qualifying people in Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland all have the status of British citizen and there is no mechanism to become a naturalised citizen of just one of those three nations or one province. This is all beginning to get very complicated and I recommend you take five minutes out to watch The United Kingdom Explained. It’s a fun piece but beware of some inaccuracies such as Anglesey, the Isle of Wight and the Scottish islands NOT being part of Great Britain and England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland being “sovereign nations” with their own “Parliaments”. Ah, that it were so!

Anyway, I digress. This is all about me being Welsh. Was I born in Wales? No, sadly. I entered this world six weeks after the creation of the National Health Service (Architect: Aneurin Bevan – a Welshman) so I was free at the point of delivery which was Battle Hospital, Reading. My father? Born in London to English parents (with Irish and French one generation earlier). My mother, however, was born in Cilfynydd, a coal-mining community in the Rhondda Valley, to proud Welsh parents with many generations of North and South Welsh ancestry.

I loved our visits to South Wales as children and our times with our Welsh family and in the 1980s and early 90s I always felt at home when I travelled in Wales in my role of Wales Liaison Manager for the British Tourist Authority. The tipping point came when our elder son Mark moved to Llanberis in 2002. We visited regularly and both fell in love with North Wales and moved here in January 2007.

I realised almost immediately that for the first time in my life, I felt as if I’d truly come home. Some people scoff at the Welsh concept of hiraeth – a deep sense of longing for, and connectedness with, the land of Wales to its people and to its history. Hiraeth is probably the most tangible and real explanation I can give for my Welshness as it’s nothing to do with the more conventional Welsh icons all of which, other than the Red Dragon, are recent inventions.  It’s only slightly connected with rugby – that’s only been the national sport since December 1905; it certainly has nothing to do with thick woollen shawls and silly tall hats – an invention of Lady Llanover in the 1830s;  daffodils only became a Welsh emblem in  1911, courtesy of David Lloyd-George, and the Welsh flag was only officially recognised in 1959!

No, I’m a Welshman because I know I am. I cry when I sing Calon Lân or Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau. I’m profoundly moved when I hear Katherine Jenkins, Bryn Terfel or Cerys Matthews. I am joyously transported 1400 years into Celtic history when I sit in Penmon Priory and think of St Seriol and St Cybi in their daily meeting at Llanerchymedd after a 20 mile walk. I long for their connectedness with God and with the land.

It’s all summed up in a line from our National Anthem (also found on the edge of Welsh £1 coins) – Pleidiol wyf i’m gwlad – True am I to my country. 

Dw i’n Gymro balch.

Where are Welsh radicals of history like Anaeurin Bevan who single-mindedly fought to establish the National Health Service in July 1948, ensuring my birth seven weeks later was free to my parents at the point of delivery (literally)? Indeed one of his famous quotes could be his verdict on current politicians.

We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down.

We sadly miss Welsh radicals like David Lloyd-George, who for all his deep flaws, was the architect of educational reform and social benefits. He got to the heart of the matter when debating in Parliament on the new idea of unemployment benefit:

You cannot feed the hungry on statistics

Our lightweight, self-serving and ineffective politicians seem to have had every drop of radical blood removed and simple don’t or won’t recognise the need for radical solutions to the issues faced by today’s society. Indeed, they would shy from the dictionary definition of radical:

…a person who advocates fundamental political, economic, and social reforms by direct and often uncompromising methods

My passion for justice has been fuelled by many people who were uncompromising in their quests for reform. People like the great Christian reformers such as William, Wilberforce, John Groom, John Newton, Lord Shaftesbury and Elizabeth Fry. Campaigners for equality and social justice like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King.

When I grew up, my teenage years were the 1960s and I drank in every drop of news and information about the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-Vietnam War movement and shaped my musical taste with the protest songs of Pete Seeger, Woodie Guthrie, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Donovan and others. Thank goodness we still have Billy Bragg today carrying the torch – his unaccompanied singing of the Internationale always has me in tears.

Students were at the vanguard of reform in the 1960′s and individuals like Daniel Cohn Bendit and Tariq Ali were young focal points for students and others. Today, the Occupy Movement has adopted the view, misguided in my opinion, that everyone is equal and no individual needs to be a leader or spokesman. They need to learn the lessons of history – battles are fought around a leader and a flag. Wider society can then evaluate the arguments in the way they are familiar with.

I’ve given up on today’s politicians. There are young people out there burning with passion, energy and zeal that need to declare themselves, step up to the plate and be the leaders they are and then change Wales, the UK and the wider world for the greater good of the people.

Gary Speed

In a week when sports fans throughout the UK were saddened by the suicide of Gary Speed, I could not believe what I was hearing on the BBC1 One Show when Jeremy Clarkson made tasteless, insensitive and grossly inappropriate comments about people who chose to end their life on a railway line. For some reason, the media only latched on to the comments he made about strikers, who were demonstrating that day and our newspapers and TV have reported on the huge offence he gave to the trades union movement, generating some 25,000 complaints to the BBC.

In his regular column in the Sun on 3 December, Clarkson continued his whining complaints, describing those who choose to jump in front of trains as “Johnny Suicide”. He went on to make outrageously offensive comments about the bodies of those who had died on the railway Clearly, Clarkson has not experienced the torment of someone whose life is so excruciatingly painful that they see no alternative but to bring it to an end or the pain of the relatives who blame themselves because they did not read the signs of distress.

Last Monday, another man took his life. That man was Roger Crouch from Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, father of a 15-year-old boy. Dominic Crouch, who had six months previously, jumped from the roof of a six storey building because he had been unmercifully bullied at school. Fellow pupils in Dominic’s Gloucestershire school had taunted Dominic, calling him gay. Shortly after Dominic’s death, Roger Crouch was quoted as saying,

“If Dominic had not been the subject of rumours that he was gay it is highly unlikely he would have taken his own life.”

Roger & Dominic Crouch

Roger became a tireless campaigner against teenage suicide and was awarded the Stonewall “Hero of the Year” award earlier this year. At the ceremony, he said,

“I see this as an award for Dom. By choosing us for this award you’ve also chosen to take a stand alongside all the young people whose lives have been ended by bullying.”

His wife Paola posted a moving piece in the Facebook page, Friends of Don Crouch against Bullying,

“I have the saddest news to give you. The love of my life and Giulia and Domi’s beloved Dad, died tonight. The changes you have started, for young people everywhere, the work you have done against bullying will remain as a towering monument to you. Our hearts break Roger, Domi, Giulia and I loved you so much.”

This is the reality of suicide that Clarkson has chosen to trivialise: three lives needlessly ended, two families devastated, many thousands of people who held Gary Speed in regard confused and distressed, the friends and families of Roger and Dominic shattered and distraught.

–oOo–

Useful support organisation related to suicide:

PAPYRUS UK Support organisation for teens thinking of suicide
Samaritans General support line
The Trevor Project USA Support organisation for gay, lesbian youth

Steinbeck was clear about the guilt of the bankers in the Great Depression. As he prepared to write the novel, he said of them,

“I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this [the Great Depression and its effects].”

He made a statement in chapter 5 of the novel, published in 1939, which is even more true in 2011:

“The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.”

Then in chapter 14 a passage could have been written for the “We are the 99%” of the Occupy movement:

“This is the beginning—from “I” to “we”. If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into “I”, and cuts you off forever from the “we”. “

In 1962, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature despite the New York Times vilifying the award the day before,

“The Swedes have made a serious error by giving the prize to a writer whose limited talent is in his best books watered down by 10th-rate philosophising”

However, the Nobel Prize committee cited Grapes of Wrath as a “great work” and as one of the committee’s main reasons for granting Steinbeck the prize.

The saddest thing for me as I leafed back through my old copy of The Grapes of Wrath was that we never seem to learn the lessons of history. The Second World War that came hard on the heels of the Great Depression prevented social unrest arising from the poverty and anger from finding expression against the privileged few who prospered. We have fought two world wars and are still embroiled in military action overseas. People are finding expression for their anger and frustration through the Occupy movement. Let’s learn the lessons this time.

Footnote: Three unrelated Steinbeck facts.

• Despite what most people think, “I know this… a man got to do what he got to do” was not said first by John Wayne, it was a quote from The Grapes of Wrath.
• John Steinbeck Toured Wales in 1959 whilst researching The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights which was published posthumously in 1976.
• He used George Borrows’ wonderful book Wild Wales: Its People, Language and scenery for background for his first novel, Cup of Gold, about the Welsh pirate Henry Morgan.

The mantra ‘we are the 99 percent‘ has resonated with ordinary people throughout the western world. People in western nations are confused and angry as they see their standards of living reduced because of the economic crisis of the last three years. Their anger is directed against a tiny number of people and organisations of wealth and power who continue to increase their prosperity and their influence, whilst ordinary people see the deep reduction in their living standards. However, ordinary people perceive no outlet to express that depth of feeling and so the emergence of the Occupy movement has at last provided them a vehicle to carry their anger and frustration with the 1 percent.

Ironically, the ethos of the Occupy movement is actually quite difficult to get alongside. They state general principles of anger and rejection of the conduct of the bankers who caused economic ruin for many people, the huge multinational companies that pay little or no tax and politicians whose priorities include areas like substantial military spending whilst bringing in austerity measures which have hurt people at the most vulnerable end of society the most. However, they are radical because they don’t produce a simple manifesto with a list of demands which ordinary people would find easy to understand and to engage with. As was noted in The Guardian:

“To critics of Occupy Wall Street, one of its most glaring weakness is the lack of specific demands. To many supporters, that ambiguity is one of the main foundations of the movement’s success.”

Two goals documents, The Liberty Square Blueprint and The 99 Percent Declaration  that have emerged from Occupy Wall Street illustrate the diversity of ideologies of participants. The reason is simply that each expression of the Occupy movement is autonomous, and unlike most of society’s structures, is not a hierarchical entity but it represents a group of co-equal individuals, drawn together and united by their shared participation with the 99 percent of society that feels disempowered, disenfranchised and unable to influence the inexorable greedy progress of the 1 percent.

My good friend Steve commented on Facebook,

“If the ‘Occupy’ movement really does represent the ’99 percent’ … it should be no problem for them to accomplish whatever changes they are seeking at the next election opportunity.”

A great idea Steve, but unfortunately the disparate nature of the movement would never be able to stand on a common platform. I attended the planning meeting for Occupy Bangor group, some of whom made me feel decidedly right-wing! The group contained supporters of the Labour Party, Plaid Cymru, the Greens, anarchists, ordinary Bangor University students and people with no declared political affiliation. I know of church ministers, magistrates and other middle-class people who would not be seen as natural participants, joining the occupation at St Pauls.

Despite the setbacks in Cardiff, in Portland, Oregon and in New York where the police broke up the occupations, there is still a hunger for protest and more and more expressions of the Occupy movement are appearing all over the world. However, this movement will only succeed if it is embraced by a huge proportion of the public at large, something that won’t happen until people can find a point to engage. However, the movement has already succeeded by providing a useful platform for others to build upon. Despite St Paul’s Cathedral’s reluctance to endorse the Occupy movement and Ed Milliband’s over-long silence about the issue, St Paul’s and Milliband finally found some integrity and made positive statements of support.

My anxiety is that this movement has built-in the seeds of its own destruction by having no appointed leaders, spokespersons or manifesto to communicate their important message. Here in Wales 100 years ago we had our own movement, a religious revival in 1904 which impacted the nation hugely, transforming many lives. In 1904 nobody would have imagined that the movement would have all but run out of steam within two years. I would urge those involved with the Occupy movement – which includes me as one of the 99 percent — to learn the lessons of history and ensure that its aspirations are clearly understood, embraced and fought-for by the remainder of the 99 percent.

Just before we set off I was handed a leaflet, ‘What to do if arrested’. Suddenly the reality of what I was doing hit me. I had no plans to break the law but could easily be included with a group less cautious than I am! When we left, I had been hoping we would be greater in number, carrying more banners, but I had my walking boots and waterproofs against the rain that set in at 2pm precisely, and was prepared for a two-hour march. Two minutes after setting-off we had crossed the busy road to Cardiff Castle – and we had arrived! Swiftly jumping down from the pavement to the grass alongside the castle, the group set up tents and started its first General Assembly – a key component of the Occupy movement – which allows anyone to speak.

The General Assembly

That was the point when the weaknesses of operating an egalitarian group began to show themselves. Hesitation over who was facilitating the Assembly, a loud-hailer which was not up to the task, people not shown how to use the loud-hailer, batteries that were quickly exhausted with no replacement; all leading to disappointment that we couldn’t hear what was said. It would have helped to have more banners, some musicians, and some rehearsed chants to make for better engagement of all present. I believe there is a lesson here – having leadership, co-ordination and reference to a model that works elsewhere does not detract from the aims of equality for all. My other disappointment was despite a Cymdeithas yr Iaith banner, I heard no Welsh spoken. However, I was glad to see a later Tweet that the protest was the first time the, “We are the 99 per-cent” slogan had been heard in Welsh.

The police stood round in ridiculously over-the-top numbers looking embarrassed. There were mounted police, ordinary officers, community support officers, police cars, vans and, I suspect, every demonstrator could have been allocated his or her personal officer. Sadly, those officers waded in shortly after I left for my long trek back to North Wales, to remove the fledgling protest and the tents and some arrests were made.

I was energised by the passion and commitment of the participants and will take my experiences back to the nascent Occupy Bangor group. Hopefully, there will be a clear backlash against this attack on peaceful protest and the first Welsh expression of the Occupy movement will re-emerge to declare “We are the 99 per-cent”.

Helen Thomas at Greenham Common

A memorial bench to Helen Thomas, a peace campaigner killed while taking part in the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Protest, has been unveiled in the centre of Newcastle Emlyn by the town clock. Helen was born and went to school in Newcastle Emlyn and her family still have a business there. Aged only 22, Helen died after being struck by a police vehicle in 1989. Folk singer Dafydd Iwan wrote a song about Helen, ‘Cân i Helen’ and took part in the ceremony honouring Helen where Mayor Hazel Evans said the town council honoured her memory and her commitment to peace and her fight against nuclear weapons.

The Occupy movement has filled our media who struggle to understand the nature of protest which is not accompanied by a list of demands.  Thirty years ago Wales kicked off another protest which lasted for 19 years. The Greenham Common Peace Camp, where Helen Thomas sadly lost her life, was started in September 1981 by a Welsh group, Women for Life on Earth, who travelled to RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire to protest against the decision of the British government to allow Cruise missiles (nuclear weapons) to be sited there. The Women for Life on Earth group walked 120 miles from Cardiff to Greenham Common and on reaching their destination they chained themselves to the perimeter fence. They were joined by women from across the UK and during the height of the protests, thousands of women blocked the entrances to the base, cut through perimeter fences and formed human chains around the site.

There were some huge demonstrations during the tenure of the Peace Camp. In December 1982, 30,000 women joined hands around the base at the Embrace the Base event. On 1 April 1983, some 70,000 protesters formed a 14 mile human chain from Greenham to Aldermaston and the ordnance factory at Burghfield. Another encircling of the base occurred in Dec 1983, with 50,000 women attending. Sections of the fence were cut and there were hundreds of arrests.

The women were ultimately successful as the Cruise missiles were removed in March 1991. The airbase was closed in 1993 but the peace camp remained until 2000. The attention they received prompted the creation of other peace camps at more than a dozen sites in Britain and elsewhere in Europe so the Occupy movement is not breaking new ground. There are two clear lessons for Occupy from the Greenham Peace Camp.

• You have to be prepared to be there for the long haul
• Despite all the Police, the Media, the Courts and Local Authorities throw at you – peaceful protest is the way to succeed

Occupy is beginning to succeed. It has caused the St Paul’s authorities to (finally) take a principled stand and Ed Milliband to (finally) come off the fence. Thoughtful people are starting to think the issues through and I’m optimistic that the most powerful force for change, public opinion, will gradually start to bring about the changes our society needs.

My life has been very much like that jigsaw which has become difficult to complete because a key piece was removed at the time of my birth. I had a twin brother or sister who was undiagnosed before delivery and in the distant days of post-war obstetrics, my birth was very problematic, with the result that both my mother and I almost died. After I was delivered the midwife realised there was a second baby and that is all I know, other than he or she did not make it.

Interestingly I only learned of this situation when I was in my early 40s and my wife commented during a programme on twins on the TV, “Well, as a twin you would understand that feeling.”  I was extremely puzzled and asked her what she meant. My late mother had told her of the circumstances of my birth but had never told me! I queried this with my brother and sister who both commented that they were surprised that I had never spoken of it. Strangely, I had always felt a huge sense of something missing and when I qualified a counsellor, I specialised in counselling twins, followed anything about twins on TV or literature and always knew it was really important to get the names of twins correct.

Some years later I discovered a UK organisation, The Lone Twin Network (LTN) which exists to support surviving twins who have lost their sibling. I always felt that as my twin had died at birth, I would probably be less affected than other people but I have never been able to shake off the sense of loss that I felt. Because my father died when I was seven years old, I always put my sense of loss down to his death and my attempts form close friendships to combat loss and loneliness was due to his death. During my childhood and adolescence I was not at all close to my younger brother and sister or to my mother so we drifted apart when I was 19 and I hardly saw them for some years.

After over 60 years I decided to address the issue finally. I had been a member of the LTN for several years and even set up a website for them but had never attended a meeting. On Saturday I went to a LTN regional meeting and met with some 25 or so other surviving twins in central Manchester. Although about half those present had attended previous meetings, there was a slight tension in the room but gradually as members started to share their stories, led by the organiser of the event and the chair of the LTN — both are named Jill coincidentally — everyone relaxed. Although the stories were deeply moving the meeting never became mawkish or depressing. I was shaken by the number of stories from the surviving twins who, like me, had lost their twin at birth. Most significantly I began to recognise traits in myself that the others spoke of. For instance, several had experienced real relationship problems with siblings which sadly had continued throughout their lives. Fortunately I’m now quite close to my brother and sister.

The biggest light bulb for me was a realisation that the real closeness I have never been able to find in friendships is probably unattainable. The simple reason is I was trying to replicate the intimacy of a relationship with my twin. Many of you may feel that because I never knew my twin after birth and indeed had never even been told about my twin until the second half of my life, my expectations are unrealistic. I can only say that nine months in the womb is a long time in a very small place. All of the other birth-lost twins expressed a similar view.

The recurring theme that was expressed time and time again in the group was how helpful it was to be an environment where everyone understood the unique loss that is only experienced by a twin losing their sibling. Several spoke of other family bereavements but none came close to the total devastation felt at the death of a twin.

BBC TV carried a programme recently in a couple of English regions about the LTN which resulted in 400 immediate hits on our website and a large increase in membership enquiries. With one birth in 50 being twins, it is no wonder that the work of the Lone Twin Network is so needed.

For more information email: info@lonetwinnetwork.org.uk or web: www.lonetwinnetwork.org.uk