War Is Not Normal

Yesterday, I was talking to a soldier. He was [and still is] a young marine; courteous, affable, genuine, a man who could only leave behind a good impression of British youth whenever he was abroad. He has just come back from six months in Afghanistan. I asked - as anyone would - what it was really like in that God forsaken country. As I expected, he had little that was positive to say about our involvement and, like many of us over here in Britain, he clearly had no idea why they were there. He came to work-out in our gym on a casual basis and as I watched him resting between sets, I got the impression that he was thinking about things far away from this gym.

Is morale among soldiers high? It was my impression that it probably is. Nothing unifies groups of people more than an impression that no one is on their side, that they must make their own objectives and that if they are to survive, they have to stick together. No soldier can believe that the politicians that have dumped them in Afghanistan are on their side and the expressed objectives of this military intervention change with the weather. I don't think that the PM wants these troops in Afghanistan any more than the rest of us but he has a problem with no solution that has been left him by Tony Blair. It should be clear to all our soldiers that Joe Public in the UK is 100% on their side but we do not want use up any more lives fighting a pointless war.

I think the worst thing for the soldiers in Afghanistan is the injuries. Death is one thing; every soldier knows that is a risk of the job. But seeing on a daily basis, comrades seriously injured, with missing limbs, brain and other organ damage, hit by snipers and improvised explosive devices [IEDs] can only begin to be bearable if the men believe that they are fighting for something important and important specifically to Britain. It must be soul-destroying to witness fit and healthy, very young men suddenly blown off their feet, suffering severe pain and trauma, their bodies crippled, their minds embraced by the real horror of war. These men will need every reserve of mental strength in their bodies to face up to the futures that lie before them. The sights these soldiers have witnessed will haunt them for the rest of their lives. We know that soldiers have difficulty adjusting to civilian life even if they appear to have returned uninjured. The mental scars may be hidden but we owe it to every man and woman leaving military service to ensure that they can return to normal lives. War is not normal. It is an aberration; the resort of megalomaniacs and the deranged. It is not acceptable to ask men and women to suffer the ravages of war and then to carry the burden for the rest of their lives.

Yesterday was also the on hundredth time that the town of Wootton Bassett has stopped work and the population lined the streets as more dead soldiers return from Afghanistan. And still no minister has deigned to attend any repatriation. I suppose that now they can no longer even acknowledge the shame of their absence.

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The Right Education

What is the value of a university education? In money terms it can be worth a great deal for those in certain professions - medicine, law - but for many the earning potential will only be marginally better than for someone who left school well qualified at 18. Our current government - back in the days of Blair - decided that 50% of the population should be sent to university. Why 50%? Why not 40% or 60% or any other percentage you care to name? Sending kids off to university was a good idea in the short term because it kept unemployment figures down but whether it is the right use of the country's resources is another matter. We rig exam results so that everybody passes - even if they can hardly read or write - and then send them off to do media studies. Universities are under-funded for proper subjects and we demand that students pay for their own education in a way that I never did. I am sure that many an old socialist would be appalled by what this government has done. And, unfortunately, a few years on there is increasing unemployment in the ranks of graduates. There aren't enough media studies jobs to go round.

We have had problems already with this government seeking to select candidates for a university education on the basis of sociology and we have had more mad suggestions from Mr Lord High Everything Else himself - Peter Mandelson. The best universities - Oxford, Cambridge, London - should select students taking into account their backgrounds. No they should not. They should be selected on the basis of academic achievements and qualifications and on their personalities and aptitudes. We have abandoned the 11+ exam which allowed me and many others to go to a grammar school and then to a university. I was the first and still the only individual from our family tree in 300 years to have obtained entry into a university. I achieved it on the basis of academic success; not via any system of social engineering. I came from a working class background and along with many other children, I was encouraged and helped by all the staff of my primary school and only after an interview did I fail to gain entry into one of the best direct grant grammar schools in the area. So I went to a state grammar school. I was a child of the 1944 education act; an act that gave opportunities for so many to go to a grammar school and a university. For many years grammar school boys and girls became prime minister - Harold Wilson, Ted Heath, Jim Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher and John Major. Now it looks like we will revert to Old Etonians - the natural school for those who expect to govern. Perhaps it is right that we select the best people from the right school to run the country when our democracy is under threat through apathy and abuse in a way that has never happened before in modern times.

Remembrance Day

Today has been a quite dreary November day. Over-night, temperatures were low and there was frost in the air. The low temperatures and the very soggy air made mists form in the early hours and, undispersed in the still air, hung clinging to the landscape. In the half- light of morning a lone transport aircraft was seen approaching RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire. Inside were more dead men, the latest victims of a possibly futile war.

Today, the small town of Wootton Bassett stopped again to honour the latest to die in the conflict in Afghanistan. On a dismal, grey day, driving slowly along the main street of this dignified, small town, came seven hearses carrying seven Union flags draped across seven coffins containing the bodies of seven brave young men, the latest to have paid the ultimate price while fighting a war that exacts an increasing toll. Today's repatriation was particularly tragic. This time five of the dead soldiers had been killed by a man described as a "rogue" recruit who was being trained by the British forces to be an effective member of the Afghanistan police force. Afghanistan is now a country where every man can be our enemy.

The cortege had only a narrow passageway available as it made its way slowly along the High Street. Crowds were standing ten deep, drawn from all over England and Wales, military flags held by many an ex-serviceman held low in honour of the dead and the town mourned. Flowers were placed on the hearses as they passed the solemn rows and the rain fell. A wreath of poppies lay on the roof of the leading vehicle.

The Prime Minister has already written his letters of condolence to the families of these dead men. Today, he will have to sit down again and try to find words to write two more letters to the families of those men who have died today and, no matter how he feels about the future prosecution of this war, he will find his task difficult.

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Arturo Toscanini

Last Friday the BBC put out on BBC3 a programme based on the words of Arturo Toscanini. This great orchestral conductor died more than 50 years ago but he was such a musical giant that his recordings and live performances are still much revered. This TV programme was presented as a theatrical performance set in Toscanini's home surrounded by a very sycophantic family. They praised and questioned the "maestro" to the point of nausea. Allegedly, the production was based on recorded interviews made with the conductor's son towards the end of his life. Many of the things he said were of interest but i would never have presented his words in this bowl of meringue pie. Toscanini was a great conductor with a fabulous memory for music, an incredible eye for detail and an obsession with perfection. He was particularly well-known for his performances of music by Verdi [of course], Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner. The last I still find surprising. Italian volatility and the glorious tunes of Italian opera - which were part of Toscanini's childhood - are not qualities that I associate with Wagner. The first 12in long playing record that I ever bought - or at least, I persuaded my dad to buy for me - was Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra with Beethoven's 6th Symphony. I still have the record, over 50 years later, and it still sounds glorious. Toscanini was born in the middle of the 19th century and he had direct connections with many of the great composers of the second half of the nineteenth century - as well as the early 20th century. Famously, if he had doubts about interpretations of Verdi, he would go and ask the somewhat prickly composer for advice.

I remember the day Toscanini died; in 1957, when he was 89 years old. On Wednesday 16th January, I went to the Victoria Hall in Bolton to listen to the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra - I think it was my first symphony concert - I was 16 years old. The conductor wasto be Efrem Kurtz. Here was another very distinguished conductor - perhaps not quite in the Toscanini class but a very experienced performer. He had been born in St Petersburg in 1900 and learned his trade in Leipzig, Berlin and Stuttgart. He first conducted the Liverpool Phil in 1954 and then in 1957, the orchestra lost its full-time conductor at short notice. Efrem Kurtz agreed to take over with the young John Pritchard as joint musical directors for two seasons. Thus he came to be in Bolton on the day that Toscanini died. This very tall gangling man stepped onto the rostrum at the start of the concert and told us that the great conductor had died that day and that he proposed to conduct Wagner's Siegried Idyll in memory of the conductor. It was a moving moment and the orchestra gave a heart felt rendering of this wonderful music.

All of this came back to me on Friday when the BBC reminded us of a rather tetchy man but a very great musician.

[the drawing of Toscanini is by Enrico Caruso]

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