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Harry Patch |
A noble cause? Harry spoke of mud and misery
THE death of Harry Patch at 111 this week brought a gushing appreciation from Gordon Brown who described him as the “noblest of his generation”.
Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, thanked Harry and his comrades “for upholding the same values and freedom that we continue to cherish and fight for today”.
But the trenches in the First World War had turned Harry into a pacifist, imbuing him with a horror of all wars – and that would have included the war today in Afghanistan so extolled by the General.
Rose Foot, a researcher, who lives in West Hampstead, remembers visiting Harry at his nursing home in Somerset with Hampstead illustrator John Burningham for John’s book on old age, The Time of Your Life.
What he wanted to talk about was his experience of the First World War.
In a slow, soft Somerset burr he spoke of how it had made him lose his faith in religion. There was no God, no heaven or hell. War wasn’t worth one life, he said.
He went to France in June 1917 and stayed there until September. “In that time I never had a bath,” said Harry. “I never had any clean clothes. When we went over the top, we never knew from one moment to the next whether there was a bullet or a shell coming with our name on it.
“Right opposite us at Pilkin Ridge in Flanders was a shell hole. A man had either been blown or fallen into that. It was useless to try to get him out. He would have pulled you in with him. You either drowned or were stifled in liquid mud, those flies were feeding off him. A dog finds a rotten biscuit probably torn away from a tunic coat. In no time at all there’s a couple of dogs fighting him for that biscuit. They are fighting for their lives. What were we doing? Two civilised nations, British and German, fighting for our lives. In the parable, the Good Samaritan stopped to help the wounded man who was left half-dead by the robbers, when other men passed him by. You get German and you get British wounded calling to you for help. You haven’t the knowledge, the equipment, or the time to waste with them. No.”
Harry then looked at Rose and John and said: “I hope I have given you a thought for your book.”
Hello, is ‘Red’ Ken set for a white wedding?
DIARIES out, now, so that you can enter “Wedding of the Year” against September 27. Who’s the lucky couple? None other than our own Ken Livingstone and his long-time partner Emma Beal. I can’t say too much more at the moment, as we may want to get into negotiations for Hello! magazine-style exclusive coverage rights.
However, you’ve got a couple of months to sort out what you’re going to wear.
Personally, I may rummage in the back of my vast wardrobe to find that marvellous old safari suit of the sort favoured by Ken in the days when he valiantly presided stylishly (but to little effect) over Camden’s housing committee and when he tried to wrest the Hampstead parliamentary seat off Tory Geoffrey Finsberg (alas, to no avail). Happy days, they were, but clearly, the best are to come.
Dylan’s daughter School pal’s memories of Aeronwy
THE death of Aeronwy Thomas, the daughter of Welsh poet Dylan, brought back memories to her old school friend Fiona Green of their days together at the famous Dartington boarding school in Devon.
Fiona, who lives in Fitzrovia, met Aeronwy at the school when they were both 15, though the daughter of the hell-raising Welsh lyricist was taken away after just a year – as her parents thought the regime there too progressive.
Instead, she was packed off to Italy to be taught by nuns.
For a brief time, Dylan lived in a caravan at the bottom of a garden in Delancey Street, Camden Town, and Aeronwy, who passed away last week at 66, would sometimes visit.
Aeronwy was born in London during the war and spent her childhood between London, Oxford – where the Thomases would often stay with the historian AJP Taylor – and Laugharne, Wales.
Later in life she would tour America and lecture on her father’s work, as well as becoming involved in the Dylan Thomas Society and working to preserve his legacy. And I hear she was an accomplished poet herself – something I believe will become better known when her memoirs are published in the next few months.
Just what doctors ordered
DECISIONS by former health secretary Patricia Hewitt will be scrutinised by the High Court later this year following a remarkable decision by a judge on Monday.
Both Hewitt, who lives in Kentish Town, and chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson, authors of a disastrous training scheme for doctors introduced three years ago, are among the targets of a doctors’ pressure group, Remedy UK, who persuaded the High Court to give them leave to bring a full case later this year. The judge also awarded them costs. Unable to find jobs, hundreds of doctors went abroad leaving hospitals understaffed.
£200,000 a year of ‘Your’ taxes go on magazine
IF you have seen a copy of the council’s magazine Your Camden – it is claimed it is delivered to 105,000 letterboxes in the borough – have you spotted the boast on the inside cover? It costs 18 pence per copy to produce, says the magazine.
Isn’t this just spin, I wondered. How does the council arrive at this figure?
“£19,217.50p per issue for production, print and distribution = £0.18 pence a copy for 10 issues as year,” replied an official.
But isn’t it obvious that by cleverly emphasisng how much each magazine costs the council is indulging in a cover-up – that it is spending nearly £200,000 a year of our money to produce a publication of dubious worth.
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