I didn't get where I am today ...

I wouldn't be where I am today without the support and encouragement of two wonderful teachers who inspired and nurtured my love of history at a young age. When I was around seven years old Mrs Hustwick at Woodside First School in Bradford taught her class two periods in history that changed my perspective on the world: The English Civil War (which motivated us to leave Star Wars alone for a while and play instead Cavaliers and Roundheads in the school playground); and the Russian Revolution. We learned how something called the CCCP believed in another something called Marxism, how an Emperor was killed by Lenin (with Charles I, I see now regicide was a common theme of these early years), and we made Borscht soup. From that time on, I became fascinated - obsessed almost - with Russia and the history of the Russian Revolution.

Fast forward to my final year at Woodside Middle School where, at 12 years old, I was taught by Mrs Tones who  knew I was infatuated with history and especially the Russian Revolution (I can still hear her groaning when my question in the school general knowledge quiz asked about the last Tsar). As soon as Mrs Tones told us that we had to research and write a project on an aspect of 20th Century history, I knew what I wanted to do.  However, Mrs Tones advised me against focusing exclusively on the Russian Revolution, so after some negotiation I decided to devote my attention to a sweeping history of Wars and Revolutions in the 20th Century.

Having moved house in the last month, I unearthed the project. It looks a little battered now, but I am still immensely proud of it, and especially the A++ and two Merit Awards Mrs Tones gave me for what she called "Work above and beyond the call of duty". I look back today at the naivety of my narrative (devoid of any analysis whatsoever): a whole paragraph on the Second World War - the same amount of space devoted to the Spanish Civil War, the Hungarian Uprising and the Troubles in Ulster. The Russian Revolution got three pages (one on Lenin, another on Russia Before the Revolution, and a third on the Revolution itself). Even the Vietnam War merited two pages (plus the inclusion of quizzes I cut out of my weekly Battle comic). The project ended with an index and a bibliography. 

So it is with a middle aged gaze - a heady mixture of pleasure and tender melancholy - that I look back and recognise this as the first tentative steps on my academic journey. Little did I know at 12 years old  that I would one day teach the Chinese Revolution at University level, or that the Hungarian Uprising, the Suez Crisis and the Vietnam War would each be chapters in my PhD thesis and first book.

So in sincere gratitude to Mrs Hustwick and Mrs Tones, and in appreciation for their work as teachers, I reproduce some of the pages here (including my terrible portraits of the main protagonists in the history). Thank you both for encouraging me, tolerating my 

idiosyncrasies, and helping me to begin my  travel along a very exciting and rewarding path. You represent both everything that was splendid about the Woodside Schools, and all that is noble in teaching. 

  

A letter to 14 year old Gary

Dear Gary

This week I should have been in Mauritius, but during the night before I was due to fly I started to experience severe abdominal pain and vomiting, so I had to pull out. It was a sensible decision; the pain is subsiding, but it does take a few days of resting and fasting to recover. I'm used to it, and in time you will be too.

It is 1984. You are now approaching your 14th birthday and you are lying in a hospital bed for the first time. It is a Nightingale ward in the Bradford Royal Infirmary, a horrible and depressing place that thirty years later has hardly changed. This will not be the last time you will be there, or Bradford's St Luke's Hospital. In fact, you will see inside a lost of hospitals: in Nottingham, Leeds, Aberystwyth, Tokyo, Kaohsiung (that's in Taiwan) and in Ningbo (that's in China - more of that soon).

I know that you are now feeling very scared and confused. You have been admitted to hospital following weeks of crippling arthritic pain in your legs. You can hardly walk, and you now find out that your weight has dropped to 5 stones 3lbs. After getting no satisfaction from the son-of-a-bitch GP who told your parents that there was nothing wrong and you were trying to stay home from school, your mum took you to the Accident and Emergency Department and the doctors there admitted you immediately. What they told you has changed your life for ever: You have something called 'Crohn's Disease'. You have never heard of this, but you will be surprised how many people do suffer from this condition. Right now, however, the word 'Disease' conjures up all sorts of frightening images and it feels like your world is crumbling. You don't know where it comes from. Sorry, even thirty years later, the specialists still don't know what causes Crohn's. Given the problems on your mum's side - a history of bowel cancer, colitis and other forms of IBD - it is possibly genetic, but no one seems to know for sure. And in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter why you have this problem? 

You learn that Crohn's is connected to stress, and that it is possible that the relentless and merciless bullying you have just experienced at your new school hastened the Disease's onset. Don't worry. You won't be bullied again, and the life you lead will be the best retaliation against your tormentors you could ever imagine.

Stress will always be a factor. You will want to live life at a constant gallop, and you will achieve so much in such a short space of time. You will learn to slow down, prioritise and avoid stress as much as possible. Rest as much as you can and always get a good night's sleep. It will take you a long time and much nagging from your wife before you accept this change. However, you will not only enjoy it, but benefit from it too.     

Right now you are in Ward 15 of the BRI and you are the youngest patient there. You are surrounded by elderly men, most of whom have had heart attacks. Every night you are awakened by the sound of doctors and nurses running down the ward; another patient has passed away. You were probably talking to him earlier as you made your way down to the television room at the end of the ward to watch the Olympics in Los Angeles. They tell you stories, ask you questions and you run little errands for them. You will visit some of them again after you leave, and soon read their obituaries in the Telegraph & Argus. This will be your first experience of death; it is not right that a 14 year old should be in such a ward and be so close to death, but I am sorry to say that this is typical of Bradford's hospitals. In 2010 you will lose your best friend in the same depressing place, and still nothing changes.   

You are lying in bed with a drip in your arm feeding you antibiotics and steroids, and you have to pass your stools into a special toilet for the microbiology department. You have had your first ever barium meal examination (it gets better, trust me), and your first sigmoidoscopy (sorry, that is still as painful as ever). You did not have an anaesthetic and two nurses held your hands while you screamed. You have never experienced such pain. You spend your days doing the school work that your magnificent teachers at Buttershaw Upper School have prepared for you, and waiting for the one hour of visiting time when Mum and Dad come to see you. Your Dad will make a request on the hospital radio for you - You're My Best Friend - and after you lose him in 2004, this song will make you weep because of the memories it conjures.  

In time you are discharged from the BRI, and your new life with Crohn's Disease begins.

At this point I want to hold your hand; I want to hug you and reassure you that everything is ok; it works out fine, better than you could ever imagine. You miss almost a whole year of 'O' Level schooling, need to get a taxi to school and walk with a stick for a while, but you do manage to get into the 6th Form and University. You have great teachers at Buttershaw who are sympathetic to your condition and cannot do enough to help you.

You have vowed to never let the Crohn's stop you doing anything. Congratulations - it doesn't! Boy, are you in for an adventure with, and despite your Crohn's! It limits you from time to time: you develop a photographic memory for the location of public toilets, you can't eat too much spicy food, and there are still times you have to use a walking stick. The abdominal pain can still be unbearable. But you are alive. You are ok. You grab every opportunity that comes your way. You are still happy and learning to treasure every moment.

From BA you start a PhD in your hobby - yes, all those hours spent listening to shortwave radio pays off and actually becomes your job! - and you set a new record at the University for speed of completion. You get your first job in Nottingham University at age 24 and make lifelong friends there; and your first book is published just two years later. That's correct, you do write books - perhaps not the ones you want to publish right now, but you are an author! Your dream since the age of 6 when you first learned to type on Mum's machine becomes a reality.

You want to travel; you plan to see the world. Well, you do. You will go to so many places: Australia, the US, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, through Europe, Japan and China - and that's just for work. You will travel to many more places for holidays. Right now, you have a map of the world on your wall and gaze at it with wonder. Never let that sense of wonder escape you. Sometimes, you will despair of foreign travel - airports, aeroplanes, hotels - but you must always remember to look around and remember how you felt when you stared for hours at that world map. Never take it for granted.

You may be a picky eater now, but you will learn to love eating (or at least trying) all kinds of food - and the more unusual the better. Your mum will worry constantly and tell you that you are sick because of the 'funny foreign food you eat'. Well, that's ok. Even with dementia thirty years on, she still worries; you will always be her little boy - that's what mums are for. You will come to appreciate how eating good, unusual food is a key pleasure in life. You will also learn to eat only when you are hungry. Don't be dictated to by time - if you are not hungry at breakfast or lunchtime, fine; you will feel hungry later and then you will eat. With Crohn's it is much better to eat small quantities only when you are hungry. You will also have to go to the toilet frequently - don't be embarrassed by it. Everyone does it, and you will learn coping mechanisms, such as always sitting in aisle seats on trains, planes and in cinemas. You will receive magnificent support from the National Association for Crohn's Disease and Colitis who will teach you so much and make your life that little easier. You will meet many doctors, surgeons, nurses and all kinds of specialists. Some will be better than others; some will be more trustworthy than others. The key is to listen to your own body; you are the most qualified expert about your Disease. You will have frequent small operations, abscesses, colonoscopies, blood tests galore, Vitamin B12 injections every three months, and when you reach my age you will actually be injecting yourself very two weeks.         

You will live in China for two years and be the founding Dean of the first foreign University there. You will return to the UK and become a Professor, a Head of Department, and join the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth. You haven't heard of that Department yet, but being part of it will become an ambition when you start to study International Relations at University. Remember, as a Professor you will be paid to speak, write and read - it doesn't get much better than that. It will be stressful at times, and the Crohn's will slow you down. Always remember how lucky you are, and remember how hard your Dad had to work in a proper job to help you get to this position. By 44 you have everything except perfect health, but it doesn't matter. You must never, never, never let the Crohn's determine what you do or don't do. Learn to live with the problem, not be submissive to it. In time, you will meet many people who tell you how sorry they are because you feel sick, that you are in pain and have to live with a chronic illness. You will explain to them 'that's my life; that's who I am. I'm used to it.' Having Crohn's will be normal for you; and that's a good thing. Never ask, Why Me? It makes no sense.

You will have a frightening episode in Japan. I don't want to tell you too much, but it will be the most serious threat to your life. But how many other people can say they've had life-saving emergency surgery in Tokyo? You will dine out on the subject for years; it will be an exciting topic of conversation. 

The most important thing I want to tell you is that you will not face this adventure alone (and yes, your life with Crohn's is an adventure). You will meet the most wonderful woman who will accept your illness and learn how to take care of you. She will always be there for you and never judge you or be embarrassed. She will do things for you that no wife should be expected to do.  She will travel with you, and you will enjoy the adventure together. She will stay with you all night on a waiting room sofa in the Tokyo hospital, and the first thing you will see when you awake from the anaesthetic will be her smiling, loving face. You will realise you could not do this alone, and that her love is the best medicine you can take.

So, as I write to you from 2014, thirty years from when you are first diagnosed with Crohn's Disease, I want to send you this simple message.

Don't worry; there are worse illnesses you could have, and you do have the most wonderful life. You have the best job and the best wife. You will learn your limitations, but they are few. Relax, enjoy the ride. It's all part of the adventure.

With love and best wishes

Gary   
   




  

The Long Good Friday

My love affair with movies began in 1977 when I queued around the streets surrounding Bradford's Odeon cinema to see Star Wars. Although I had seen other films there before - memorably Disney's Robin Hood and Bugsy Malone - Star Wars taught me for the first time about the power of cinema; of compelling characters and strong storylines; of how cinematography combines with the score to feed, nurture and manipulate our emotions. The empire is instantly recognisable as evil by its own theme, while the future heroics of the day-dreaming, wistful Luke Skywalker are suggested in his gaze at the dual sunset on Tatooine.

An earlier memory is sitting at home on a Sunday evening aged five or six watching The Battle of Britain for the first time. Growing up in a household with three older brothers and a father equally obsessed with war films as I have become it seems inevitable that this movie would encourage an interest in World War Two ("That's an Heinkel"; "No, it's a Messerschmitt"; "Heinkel"; "Messerschmitt"), just as the now painful-to-watch Green Berets got me interested in the Vietnam War.

Star Wars, The Battle of Britain and even The Green Berets are part of what I describe as my "comfort film" collection. These are movies that I can watch again and again; I put them in the DVD when I feel low, ill, tired or just a little restless. I know the words off by heart; I know the story arcs and the fate of each character. And yet, watching them brings some comfort, joy, release and transports me back to another time in my life - usually a Sunday afternoon in front of the TV with Dad. Other films in my comfort collection include older films such as Zulu, A Bridge Too Far, Lawrence of Arabia, and the complete James Cagney (in my view the most versatile actor ever to come out of Hollywood). But I also have a number of later films in my comfort collection: The World According to Garp which got me hooked on John Irving's novels and still makes me cry at the end; Die Hard; The Italian Job (the perfect original, not the travesty of a remake, or as they say today, reboot); any Spielberg movie (Close Encounters remains his absolute masterpiece. I remember writing in a school essay in 1983 that he would be known as the greatest movie director); The Untouchables; the Godfather trilogy (yes, even the third!); Apocalypse Now; Scorsese movies, especially Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Casino; and the Coen Brothers' Fargo, Bad Santa and Brother, Where Art Thou? I do wonder if my new found love of Ingmar Bergman may mean that his movies Wild Strawberries, Summer with Monika and Summer Interlude will one day become comfort movies, especially as my infatuation with Zhang Yimou's muse, Gong Li, has been replaced by my love for Harriet Anderson and Maj-Britt Nilsson.

A recent addition to my comfort collection is John Mackenzie's 1980 film, The Long Good Friday, which defined both a genre and an era. It gave birth to the British gangster movie that had its greatest success under Guy Ritchie in the 1990s; and it represented the optimism and ideals that are associated with the early years of the Thatcher government. It is hardly a coincidence that the Conservatives were elected to power only the year before the film was released, for it is difficult to imagine it having the same resonance against the backdrop of the severe 1970s and the Winter of Discontent (Mike Hodges' 1971 film, Get Carter, was a similarly brutal and raw gangster film that was embedded in the poverty found among the terraced housing in North-East England). 1980 was a time of possibility, of rebirth and regeneration when entrepreneurship promised to turn the country around. Watching it again in 2012 one can only applaud its prescience, since the movie turns on plans to re-develop the London Docklands a a venue for a future Olympic Games:

I'm not a politician; I'm a businessman, with a sense of history; and I'm also a Londoner. And today is a day of great historical significance for London. Our country is not an island any more. We're a leading European state. And I believe this is the decade London will become Europe's capital, having cleared away the outdated, we've got mile after mile, acre after acre of land for our future prosperity ... so it's important that the right people mastermind the new London ...    

The speaker is Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins in his career-defining and perhaps greatest role), kingpin of London's underworld and aspiring legitimate property tycoon. He is the standard-bearer of what we would later call "The New Right" - a man of imagination, determination; a member of the working class who had pulled themselves up to success of one sort or another. However, the Tory party (of 1980 and 2012) would no doubt recoil from Shand's unequivocal embrace of Europe.

In his quest for legitimacy and respectability Harold echoes Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) who spends his entire time in Coppola's Godfather trilogy claiming he aspires legitimacy for his Family, but never hesitates to resort to violence and intimidation when necessary. (Until Godfather, legitimacy and respectability were never the concern of the movie criminal classes; did Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart or Cagney ever worry about achieving legitimacy? Only Noel Coward's wonderfully menacing, comic turn as Mr Bridger in The Italian Job came close as an establishment figure to be feared, but he was seeking respect - for himself and Great Britain - rather than legitimacy). In the same way that Vito Corleone, the original Godfather (Marlon Brando), is envied ("He had all the judges and politicians in his pocket and refused to share them", says the head of the rival Tattaglia family), so Harold has senior London police officers and councillors on his pay-roll, and he is never reluctant to remind them where their ultimate loyalties lie. Increasingly frustrated by the police's lack of progress in helping him track down the perpetrators of the violence against his 'Corporation', Harold tells Chief Inspector 'Parky' (singer and comedian Dave King):

Don't you ever tell me what I can or can't do! Bent law can be tolerated for as long as they're lubricating, but you have become definitely parched. If I was you, I'd run for cover and close the hatch, 'cause you're gonna wind up on one of those meat hooks, my son.    

In The Long Good Friday Harold's future legitimacy depends on striking a deal with the American mafia (which he describes as "the hardest organisation since Hitler stuck a swastika on his jockstrap"), and the introduction of 'the Yanks' provides a segue in to the film's exploration of class, Britain's place in the world, and the fluid nature of the Special Relationship. "The Yanks love snobbery," Harold tells his partner, the decidedly upper-middle class Victoria (Helen Mirren). "They really feel they've arrived in England if the upper class treats 'em like shit." Harold's contempt for the Americans is exposed when his guests decide to leave London and head home without sealing the deal. Even they find the IRA's move against Harold's empire too risky. In their hotel room, Harold vents his fury:

I'm glad I found out in time just what a partnership with a pair of wankers like you would've been. A sleeping partner's one thing, but you're in a fucking coma! No wonder you got an energy crisis your side of the water! Us British, we're used to a bit more vitality, imagination, touch of the Dunkirk spirit, know what I mean? The days when Yanks could come over hear and buy up Nelson's Column and a Harley Street surgeon and a couple of Windmill girls are definitely over.

(American): Now look ...

(Harold):  Shut up you long streak of paralysed piss. What I'm looking for is someone who can contribute to what England has given to the world. Culture, sophistication, genius ... a little bit more than an 'ot dog, know what I mean? We're in the Common Market now, and my new deal is with Europe. I'm going into partnership with a German organisation. Yeah, the Krauts! They've got ambition, know-how. And they don't lose their bottle. The Mafia? Hahahaha. I shit 'em ...
 

Although we tremble at Harold's vicious way of doing business - his hanging upside down on meat hooks in an abattoir all his rival London underground bosses and the neighbourhood 'narks' is a memorable set-piece, especially as the scene begins from the distorted point of view of one of the victims as he is pushed and pulled into Harold's presence - we do feel sympathy and even compassion for the man. We know he is not responsible for the attacks against him, but he is nevertheless blind to two salient points which lead to his ultimate downfall. First, Harold is a 1960s gangster operating at the end of the 1970s. The East End of the Krays is long gone, and while he still thinks he can bring order to London ...

For more than ten years there's been peace - everyone to his own patch. We've all had it sweet. I've done every single one of you favours in the past - I've put money in all your pockets. I've treated you well, even when you was out of order, right? Well now there's been an eruption. It's like fuckin' Belfast on a bad night. One of my closest friends is lyin' out there in the freezer. And believe me, all of you, nobody goes home until I find out who done it and why.

 

 ... Harold is blind to the other reality - that the threat to him is not the other London villains, but an adversary far more obscure, sinister and dangerous, the IRA. The IRA's terrorist campaign on the British mainland was at its height in the 1970s, with London the main target: Parliament, Oxford Street and the Tower of London were all attacked, while the decade ended with the assassination of the Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, Airey Neave, as he left the House of Commons on 30 March 1979. In 1974 a bomb was thrown through the window of the King's Arms pub in Woolwich. Harold Shand's local, The Lion and the Unicorn, is similarly destroyed by an IRA bomb. Audiences watching The Long Good Friday for the first time would be familiar with the IRA's techniques; Harold's mistake, perhaps like the British army, is to think that he is able to defeat them.


The film's conclusion is the most powerful scene in the whole movie and consolidated Bob Hoskins' position as one of the most accomplished actors of his generation. In the back of a car with a young and silent IRA operative (played by Pierce Brosnan) pointing a gun at him from the front seat, Harold slowly realises that it is the end. As the camera stays focused on Harold, we see his face betray a range of emotions: surprise, shock, fear, submission, acceptance. Both the actor and the camera take their time; this is not to be rushed. A more satisfying denouement is rare in the movies, and for me this final scene and Hoskins' masterful performance, gives The Long Good Friday its status as a British, if not a cinema classic.

 

There are rumours of a remake: Please, Hollywood, don't do it; leave The Long Good Friday alone, in 1980, with its sparkling performances, witty London-based script (by Barrie Keefe), and New Right optimism. Don't let the IRA become Al-Qaeda ...   



Mrs Hill of Woodside School

Mrs Joan Hill was the music teacher at Woodside First and Middle Schools. I decided this year to nominate her for the Classic FM Lifetime Achievement Award for Music Teaching. I am extremely disappointed that she did not win. However, I thought I would publish here the statement (slightly extended) I submitted in support of the application.

This is an unorthodox application in support of a remarkable and inspiring music teacher. I cannot provide DVDs or CDs as evidence of her achievements; not can I detail pass rates in examinations. Instead, I am able to describe a lifetime of commitment, dedication and professionalism that transformed the sometimes difficult lives of children who still love and cherish her.

I first met Joan Hill in 1977 when I joined Woodside First School in Bradford. My family had just moved from a shop we managed at Dudley Hill, and joining a new school with just over a month before the end of term and the start of the long summer holidays was difficult. I cannot remember much about my first day except joining the rest of my class in mid-afternoon to sit around a piano to sing. Two teachers were present, one of whom I soon learned was ‘Mrs Hill’. Her first words to me were ‘Don’t worry; I’m not as scary as I look.’

 

 

Me with Mrs Hill, 2007




Mrs Hill continued to teach me music as I progressed through Woodside Middle School until I left in 1983 to start a new chapter of my life at Buttershaw Upper School. And as I reflect on my time at Woodside, I am again astonished by Mrs Hill’s sheer hard work at the school: She was the sole music teacher for two schools, playing piano for assemblies and concerts, organising and conducting choirs and orchestras, and was the driving force behind the annual musicals and pantomimes. In other words, she demonstrated an extraordinary capacity for dividing her time not only between tasks, but also the interests and needs of children of different ages and backgrounds, all competing for her attention. Her energy was, and remains in retirement, seemingly unlimited, and her enthusiasm was infectious among the children and her colleagues.

Woodside was a working class council estate in Bradford, a tough area in which to grow up (I remember waking up one morning to find armed police going through all our backyards preparing for an early raid on one of the blocks of flats close to my house). I am sure, given the problems we faced there, it was an even tougher place to be a teacher. Mrs Hill never commanded respect; she didn’t need to. The pupils loved her without question, and if she ever was annoyed, one look or a raised eyebrow was enough to make the toughest child cower. Without her dedication many of these children would never have been encouraged to participate in musical activities (and in lessons, everyone was expected to do something, whether it was shake a tambourine, bang a drum or play the xylophone). Nor would they have had the opportunity to experience live music or theatre (Mrs Hill and her equally dedicated colleagues organised regular trips to the Alhambra to see a musical). She made it clear to us that music is natural. It is not dependent on wealth or even ability; and that we all had a sense of melody and rhythm. Her patience and relentless encouragement meant that we all experienced music and we could all be musical. Above all, Mrs Hill gave us her time, and for a teacher with a growing family there is nothing more precious than time.

Woodside Middle School had a tremendous impact on the lives of its pupils precisely because all the teachers were so generous with their time, and I know I would not be where are I am today without the support of Mrs Margaret Tones – ‘above and beyond the call of duty,’ as she once wrote on a project I completed on “Wars and Revolutions in the 20^th Century” (with index and bibliography of course!) - who encouraged and inspired my love of history. Every day after school there was an activity into which we could all throw ourselves – sport, music, and science clubs. Mr Parker, the science teacher, even taught us to sail at Doe Park. The teachers also organised the annual residential school trips to Devon or North Wales for one week which for many children may have been the only time they had the opportunity to venture outside Bradford. It was only in August 2012 at the funeral of Trevor Hill, Mrs Hill’s husband that I discovered from my ex-teachers just how much time and hard work was involved in planning these trips. Moreover, we were different from many schools at the time because there was no separation between the arts and sports, no difficult choices to make about priorities (it also helped that our Games teacher, Mr Barstow, was also an enthusiastic performer). The captain of the football team may also have sung in the choir or dressed in drag for our final performance as a class – our version of the pantomime Aladdin in 1983. Whatever you wanted to do – be an extra in a play, help with building or changing the scenery, or try your hand at playing the recorder – your participation was both welcome and encouraged. Ability was never a barrier: enthusiasm, interest and curiosity were always more important. I know this from personal experience: A passionate performer I managed to work my way up from “Workhouse Boy” extra in Oliver! in 1980 to the lead in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in 1983, even though I was far from being the best singer in the school, as Mrs Hill’s end of term reports testify (in her customary diplomatic way).

 

Me as Joseph, 1983

 

Mrs Hill was also responsible for Hill’s Angels, a small group of musicians who, even after we left Woodside school, continued to rehearse at her home every Friday for concerts at her beloved Church and other local venues. She and her family always welcomed us into their home and Church, and I am honoured that I can say the same thirty years later.

For over forty years at Woodside Mrs Hill taught generation after generation of the same family, and she continues to inspire love and fond memories. For many, she is Woodside School, the first teacher they remember when recalling their time there. Everyone who grew up on the estate in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s have their own memories of parts they played in musicals, songs they sang around her piano (what was the song, Husky Dusky, about anyway?), or instruments played in class or in the orchestra.

She has now been retired for several years, and Woodside Middle School is closed (she actually came out of retirement to help Woodside in its last years when teachers were leaving and there was no possibility of replacement). Yet at 76 years old and recently widowed after 50 years of marriage, Mrs Hill continues to be as active as ever and still sings in her choir. If anyone deserves recognition for their lifetime contribution to music teaching, it is Mrs Joan Hill. Our lives are better for knowing her.

Bradford and Provident: Good news/bad news

I have just read an article in Bradford's local newspaper, The Telegraph & Argus with the headline: "250 new jobs as loans giant Provident Financial expands"

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/10028069.250_new_jobs_as_loans_giant_Provident_Financial_expands/

I must confess to experiencing mixed emotions about this news. On the one hand, in August 2012 there were 20,056 Jobseekers Allowance claimants in Bradford. This rate is higher than the Yorkshire & Humber regional and UK averages. Bradford's unemployment rate is c.10.9 per cent. So any news about an increase in employment opportunities in the city must be welcome, right? Apart from the fantastic museums (Bolling Hall, the Industrial Museum, the National Media Museum) and the glorious Alhambra Theatre the city is a rather depressing place to visit and certainly enjoys little in the way of retail opportunities. Manufacturing has long gone and Bradford's status as the world capital of the wool trade - Worstedopolis - is an historical footnote (its legacy can still be found in the wonderful old Wool Exchange that now houses what I think is the most delightful and charming branch of the Waterstones bookshop chain ). Hence the expansion of service industries, including finance, should be appreciated by such a tired old city.

However, Provident's growth in Bradford makes me nervous because they are providing minimum effort, high-cost loans. The operations of such firms are well documented, most recently in a BBC Panorama programme. In his wonderful but disturbing 2011 book, The Road to Wigan Pier Revisited (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Road-Wigan-Pier-Revisited-The/dp/1908238011/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1352215364&sr=8-2Stephen) Stephen Armstrong charts the rise of the mainstream moneylenders and has this to say about Provident Financial:

"A £500 loan ... means paying back £910 at an APR of 272.2 per cent. People borrow for little things - food and kids' clothes, racking up debts for everyday items. Agents offer fresh loans a couple of weeks before old loans are paid off and - although technically they are not supposed to let loans stack up - are quite happy to run two or three loans side by side. They're pain on commission, after all. ...
   ... Provident's hugely successful financial results link two groups of people: the 2.4 million desperately poor who have to borrow short-term cash loans on their doorstep at enormous interest rates (a number slightly larger than the population of Paris or Toronto); and Provident's shareholders who, with corporation tax falling from 28 per cent to 26 per cent in April [2011], saw their earnings rise 16 per cent." 

(Armstrong spent a long time in Bradford and writes passionately about the problems which the city and its people face. The book is highly recommended as a worthy successor to George Orwell's masterpiece.)

Now, it is all too easy to say that Provident and other mainstream lenders (Armstrong discovered that Wonga.com has an APR of 4,124 per cent) are merely offering a convenient service. If there was no demand, there would be no supply.

However, I would argue that it is important to look at the reasons for demand in the first place. Why do we find it so acceptable to read statistics that in 21st Century Britain there are 2.4 million desperately poor? Again, I turn to Stephen Armstrong:

"According to the Organization for Economic Development (OECD), children in the UK have the lowest chance of escaping poverty out of twelve rich countries that were studied. In the UK 3.5 million children live in poverty - 1.6 million in severe poverty. Almost half the children in the UK with asthma come from the poorest 10 per cent of families. More than one million homes in the UK are currently classified as being 'unfit to live in'. These are all the deserving poor - in that they deserve better."

Making it easier for them to take out high-interest loans to meet short-term cash-flow problems is not a long-term solution. Poverty on such a scale is everybody's problem, everybody's responsibility. It is ultimately the responsibility of a government which should be spending, not cutting during a recession: public sector investment means people in work with money to spend.    

Moreover, the people who take out these loans are just as likely to be in  employment as on the dole, but their income is unable to keep up with their expenditure on necessities. Food and fuel account for the biggest proportion of expendtiure by poorer households (at a time when the prices of food and petrol have seen some of the biggest increases), while they also spend the most on high tarrif pre-paid gas and electicity meters and must depend on Hire Purchase (it is not known as 'The Never Never' for nothing) for basic household goods such as televisions and washing machines. As Armstrong notes, 'Item for item, its costs more to be poor'. Save the Children call this the 'poverty premium', meaning that the poorest families often pay the highest prices for food, gas and electricity. This is why it is so vital that Britain now goes beyond the minimum wage (which was one of the greatest acts introduced by the  Labour government since the welfare state and National Health Service) and adopts the Living Wage which will help to ensure that working families are able to maintain a decent standard of living. 

What is most ironic about this news in The Telegraph & Argus is that the Conservative Party enjoys, like Wilkins Micawber, lecturing us about the economy, and that balanced books and deficit reduction is the means to achieve financial bliss. Mrs Thatcher always claimed that she ran Britain like a household. And yet it is this government's policies that are increasing personal debt and forcing people into a situation where they must turn to money lenders for help. Perhaps I am missing the joke here.

I also force a nervous smile at the fact Provident's new location will be in the former Sunwin House department store building and which was recently the home of discount clothing store, TJ Hughes. It may expand into the adjacent building that currently houses the travel agent Thomas Cook which is due to close. Where major retailers once stood tall and proud (I have fond memories of visiting Santa's Grotto in Sunwin House in the 1970s) money lenders now make their home (the term "carpetbaggers" springs to mind.)  

Bradford does need jobs. It need investment. It needs some TLC. It needs to attract organisations that will make a valuable contribution to its economy and not encourage more personal debt. Money lenders are not providing real investment; they are preying on the vulnerable and weak, and making them even more vulnerable and weak. It is a sad reflection of the times when we are asked to rejoice when a high-interest money lender is expanding its operations in an already depressed city.             

Freedom of Speech and Protest in Bradford

First written 12 September 2010


As I write this in Taipei, Taiwan’s ever more breathtaking capital city, the temperature is quickly climbing to the mid-30s, and we depend on cool, but dry and defiled manufactured air for sleep. We are currently sandwiched between two typhoons, though the local weather forecast reassures us that we will not feel the effects except for some thundery showers. In the heat, girls’ shorts are getting shorter and tighter, and I have realised that the true measure of getting older is when you start to look at the mothers instead of the daughters. Meanwhile, Taipei bustles along on its capital city business, and the news is of unemployment levels, concerns about the cost of the ‘Flower Expo’, and the usual round of elections, scandal, infidelity and corruption (this time within the Taichung police force). International news is largely non-existent, except on ICRT, a local radio station where the heavily American-accented presenters present heavily American-accented news.

Today, however, my thoughts are elsewhere. It is Saturday 28th August 2010, and it is only 6am. In my hometown of Bradford, the city in which I was born, nurtured and schooled, and which I left with a smile and a determination to never look back, it is still Friday 27th. On Saturday, Bradford will host what are amusingly called ‘static demonstrations’ by the English Defence League (EDL) and Unite Against Fascism (UAF). The EDL had planned a march through the city, but a citywide petition put a stop to it. For the first time in its one hundred day history I can applaud the actions of the Conservative-LibDem coalition government. In preventing the EDL from marching the government has not only prevented the ugly face of mass politics from getting uglier, and hence no doubt has saved a lot of innocent people from insult and injury; the government has also listened to the people. The petition was organised by Bradford’s Telegraph & Argus, the only local newspaper I have read wherever I am in the world.

The prospect of the march has filled columns in the T&A for several months and has generated much correspondence to the editor both for and against. Few, if any of the letters published in favour of allowing the march to proceed claimed to support the EDL and its overt racism. Instead, the correspondence tended to profess defence based on the right of free speech in a democratic society: As liberals, are we not undermining our own principles by denying to the EDL the same rights we champion for the minorities they attack?

Freedom of thought and speech is a precious commodity. We do well to fight for it, claim it, protect it and advocate it for those who in too many places around the world are denied a voice in the name of national development, religion or security. Voltaire was correct: ‘I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ But he was only partly correct, for those who campaign for a blanket freedom of speech as a universal right to say whatever one wants whenever one wants miss an important caveat: With freedom comes responsibility, especially for the welfare of one’s fellow men, and especially for your neighbours. Freedom of speech does not and never should be used as a licence for hate, abuse, intolerance or incitement which is precisely the agenda of the EDL.

Bradford was once a proud city. You can see it in the very architecture of the city, especially around Little Germany, Bank Street, the Wool Exchange and City Hall. Their Gothic texture reveals the stature that Bradford enjoyed as a 19th Century powerhouse – Worstedopolis – which rivalled both its near-neighbour Leeds and the cotton capital across the Pennines. Bradfordians born today are in illustrious company: J.B. Priestley, W.E. Forster, Titus Salt, Richard Oastler, Frederick Delius, David Hockney, Edward Appleton. We can also just about lay claim to the Bronte family, and as the birthplace of the Independent Labour Party. Radical politics are in the very fabric of the city.

Visiting the city today it is difficult to sense this pride or any awareness of ownership. The much discussed regeneration of Bradford is frustratingly sluggish, with large holes in the middle of the city irritating the locals on a daily basis. Talk of a reflecting pool near City Hall cannot compensate for the city’s erosion since the 1980s. The old Odeon Cinema, once a dominating display of grandeur and where I first queued to see Star Wars in 1978 is now the proverbial blot on the landscape, left to turn green in its retirement. The Odeon’s deliberate decline is a disgrace, as is the refusal to rescue it, and successive councils should look upon it with shame from the City Hall across the road.

Yet one source of continuing pride is Bradford’s multi-cultural and cosmopolitan character. Any journey through Manningham, Great Horton or Leeds Road will demonstrate the colour and vibrancy of a city which, although it has serious economic problems, has reason to celebrate its multi-ethnic character. By 2001 Bradford had the second largest Asian population in a UK city, and only 18.9% of the total population are from South Asia. Members of the EDL do not need to worry; the white population is still dominant, comprising almost 79% of the population. Contrary to Daily Mail-style horror stories, the ethnic minorities also work, pay their taxes, raise families and face the same problems as everyone else; while welfare dependence and social ills such as crime and drug abuse can be found in all communities. These problems do not care about the colour of your skin or the original home of your parents. And we must not forget that Bradford's textile industry, the foundation of its previous prosperity, was partly built on immigration - from the Germans who settled here in the 19th century to the South Asians who kept the mills working throughout the night in the 1960s and 1970s.

If Bradford cedes to racism, allows the thuggery of fascism to raise its ugly and violent head in the city, uses a minority population as a scapegoat for the plight that successive councils, governments and businesses have failed to deal with, the struggles that generations of working class men and women, including members of my own family, fought both in the streets of Bradford and in the killing fields of Europe and Asia will have been in vain. While it is no longer fashionable nor ideologically sound to profess that working classes of the world should unite, they should nevertheless understand, sympathise and tolerate the problems faced by their working class neighbours wherever they are from or the colour of their skin. Hiding behind the veil of free speech is not only moral cowardice, it is shameful and demeans those individuals and groups across the world who are denied the liberty to speak and publish freely.

Postscript

Bradford did not let me down; the ‘static demonstrations’ passed off relatively peaceful with the eruption of few incidents. Bradfordians came together in a peaceful manner to demonstrate their solidarity against both groups who wanted to march on Saturday 28th. It seems that the city of my birth still has fire in its belly and a commitment to peaceful living after all.