Author Archives: Tim Lenton

I am reaching the age – or perhaps I’m past it –  where you start looking back and working out what you’ve achieved in life. Early on I was aiming to be a novelist, but it was easier not to be. I was never very career-orientated, maybe because I didn’t have a father to give me a push (he died when I was ten). I guess I never really knew what was going on, as my friends will no doubt confirm.

However, I was fortunate to marry a lovely girl who became a lovely woman – and still is. Between us, we produced a son of whom we are immensely proud for many reasons, and he – with a bit of help – came up with two exceptional grandchildren. Let me get back to the lovely woman, though. 

Despite giving some wrong answers in the 11-plus, she was head girl of her secondary school and, with the right encouragement at the right time, took a large number of O-levels (GCSEs). Eleven, I think it was. Best in her year at Norwich City College, she progressed to teacher training college, where she excelled at history and even more at teaching. She was a natural.

Like me, however, she did not push herself forward, and although she was a gifted deputy head fairly early on, it was some time before she became a head teacher. When she did, however, it became rapidly clear that she was brilliant at it. Her 19-pupil village school quickly grew to 80, and required building expansion. She adopted a pioneering method called Philosophy for Children which opened the door for less academic children while also encouraging the others. 

When she retired she turned this into a partnership with another teacher, and the two of them travelled across the country, introducing P4C, as it was called, to many other schools. 

Later she was recruited by the Norwich Diocesan Board of Education to act as a mentor to head teachers in church schools across Norfolk – or a Diocesan Schools Support Officer, to give her her proper title – and she proved a natural at this too. They loved her. I could understand that. I love her too. 

Earlier this month, having been one of the first DSSOs, she retired (again) after 15 years as the oldest. She received a lovely send-off, including large bouquet and Christmas meal at the Marlingford Bell, plus gift voucher and eulogy.

Now I have her to myself. Or I would do if she wasn’t so full of energy and keen to be involved in family, church, orchestra and community (as long as it’s not early in the morning).

Needless to say, while struggling to keep up, I am hugely proud of her. I hope that doesn’t sound patronising. I am honoured to be her partner. What did I achieve in life? I am married to Dot. Any questions?

When I was working as a junior clerk at the City Hall in the mid-1960s, paying council bills by using a room-sized prehistoric computer, I used to walk home, mostly. One day I was not feeling so well; so I called in at my doctor’s surgery on the way. He diagnosed an upper respiratory tract infection – and gave me something for it. 

Obviously I could not do anything like that now. For one thing, computers are much smaller, and anyway I can pay bills using my iPhone.

And I couldn’t call in to see my doctor, because the NHS has advanced so much that discussing something with a doctor is laughably old-hat. Or just impossible.

Over the past couple of months I have developed an illness which resulted in my going to A&E, staying in hospital a couple of nights, having a catheter fitted and after I went home, receiving appointments on different days in different parts of the hospital, which I dutifully attended.

Because of the catheter  – and the delay – i got two infections and had to take two courses of antibiotics. I am now taking five pills a day, at least three of which I suspect are unnecessary. But I can’t call in and talk to a doctor about it. I am scheduled for an operation: I know what it’s for, but I still don’t know why.

At least I found a nurse who would take my catheter out. That’s the thing about the NHS. Individuals are often very nice, but it’s all too specialised. It’s a jigsaw that nobody puts together, and so am I.

A lot of other things have gone downhill too. A large number of the streets round here have been closed to traffic; others have had speed bumps installed, which is idiotic on every level.

Back in the 1960s, when I wasn’t walking, I often rode a bike. If I rode it on the path I could expect a passing policeman to feel my collar and get me fined. Scooters were for children, and the bikes did not go very fast because they had three gears at the most and were heavy. No cycle helmets; no Lycra. There were no cycle paths – or as a friend of mine puts it, we always had cycle paths. We called them roads.

Was everything much slower then? I don’t think so. You could get quick answers to questions by something called a telephone, many of which were available in red boxes on most streets. There were much fewer regulations generally, which helped. If something went wrong, someone came and fixed it. Road works were completed at lightning speed. People worked in offices, and you could find them there. They generally responded to you quickly, because that was their job, and they took pride in it.

So what happened to progress? Shouldn’t things get better? Depends what you mean by progress, I suppose. I think we should have a few years – or decades – without it and see what happens. As Ogden Nash put it, progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on far too long.

When I visited Israel at the beginning of 2020, everything seemed fairly peaceful, although there was a rumour going round that a nasty new virus was becoming a threat. At the airport they asked us if we had been to China. We hadn’t.

We stayed in Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, from where we visited Caesarea Philippi. It was the furthest north we went, and according to the Bible, the furthest north Jesus took his disciples. From there we could see into Syria and Lebanon, and we were told that the area was closely monitored because of the latent threat from across the borders. 

Later we sailed on the Sea of Galilee. It was a moment of memorable calm and beauty. 

Eventually we travelled further south and stayed in Bethlehem, where we met – unsurprisingly – many Palestinians. If we had stayed in Bethlehem another couple of days, we would not have been able to leave easily, because it was locked down. Covid had arrived.

From then on we had our own problems, but the problem within Israel/Palestine was ongoing. And it will remain ongoing because men of violence want it to be. The history of the land is complicated, and no-one is completely innocent. It is undeniable that many Jews and Arabs would happily live side by side – and have done so over the years. Many would be happy with a two-state solution, but this is rejected by Arab leaders even though the projected Palestinian portion of the country has always been much larger. 

In the end this is a typical case of wanting it all, and in order to get it all, generating hate and violence, not caring whether your own people suffer in the process. Few people are happy with the current relationship between Israelis and Palestinians, but the military readiness and restrictions have been forced on the Israelis because they have been repeatedly under attack. Undoubtedly some Israelis have taken advantage of this, but most just want to live in peace. 

And how do you live in peace with someone who hates you? The obvious way is by showing strength in defence. Watch the usual spaces. 

But I suppose that as a Christian my answer – much, much easier said than done – is to show them love. Of course we know what happens then. Jesus was a Jew, after all. He was also a Palestinian. Someone could get crucified. The question is, do we believe in resurrection? 

I have short fingers, which is bad for a number of reasons. If you’ve met me, you may not have noticed, and so I’m taking a risk in pointing it out, because longer fingers are quite attractive, and I don’t want to put you off.

The real problem with short fingers – apart from the aesthetic element – is that you can’t reach as much as people with longer fingers. The same goes for arms, but that’s another issue. I’ve noticed that weather presenters quite often have long fingers, possibly so that they can reach more parts of the country, although that doesn’t seem to improve the weather. Still, you can’t have everything.

My particular problem with having shorter fingers (or should I say length-challenged fingers?) is that it’s more difficult to play the guitar. I was always sort of aware of this, because the guitarists I admired (like Albert Lee) have noticeably long fingers.

So I struggle with bar chords. It’s not the only thing I struggle with, but it does make a big difference. Which is why, a few years ago, when the question arose of making a little music together during a historical project, a friend of mine asked me the astute question: “Can you play bar chords?”

Reader, I couldn’t. So the idea of my playing guitar with her was abandoned. This doesn’t mean I can’t play the guitar – indeed I do, regularly. But not in a professional sort of way. Obviously.

The astute friend in question was none other than prize-winning poet and singer Caroline Gilfillan, who I have collaborated with on a number of poetic, largely guitarless projects, and all that stuff about fingers is really an excuse to mention her here, because she died recently of cancer.

She wrote beautiful poetry and had the knack of winning prizes in many competitions, not because she had long fingers but because her use of words was magical. She was amazingly creative – splitting her time most recently between Norfolk and the Lake District, though she was born in Sussex and sang in women’s bands in London. She also wrote detective fiction.

Others who know her better will be able to say more, but it was a pleasure to be her friend for a while and to enjoy her company. These words she wrote in one of her poems fit her quite well, and they are words that I love and often repeat; so I am going to leave you with them, with love:

Under her cloak of skin she, too, pulses like intercepted light.
She too is rock and rolling out of sight.

Consultations by public bodies have long been used as a rather obvious device to pretend that they are acting democratically. “Well, we did ask you,” they protest indignantly when questioned.

But of course we know the truth: consultations are presented in such a convoluted way that anyone wanting to protest just gives up trying, leaving the on-message working-from-home gangs – with time to kill and knowledge of the system – to pretend that they represent the majority.

Sometimes this blows up in the faces of the faceless bureaucrats (not easy, you have to admit). Recently low-emission zone schemes have provoked so much public anger and frustration that direct action has been taken – or plans have been reversed in the face of last-ditch anger from the normally silent majority. 

The Alliance of British Drivers is commendably alert to twisted bureaucratic behaviour. It points out that many CONsultations (get it?) are designed to produce the answers that councils want, citing a recent example, when people were asked  for their views on a council’s Climate Action Strategy. 

“Each question had four options to be rated in order of importance. Therefore anybody filling out the consultation had to rate one measure as the most important. If the participant thought all measures proposed were a waste of time and money (as many of our members would), they could not proceed to the next item. Therefore all completed surveys guaranteed full support for ‘climate action plans’.”

Councils are prominent in their use of such tricks of the trade, but “charity” pressure groups are similarly proficient and get very tetchy when they themselves are not consulted by the Government. But why should such single-issue groups get special treatment? We all know what they’re going to say. We also know that it may not be true, because they tend to confuse views with facts. In just the last few days it has been revealed that many of the “facts” presented to Parliament on wildlife trophy hunting were quite wrong; one prominent environmental group has been accused of twisting facts over the years, particularly over nuclear energy but also in other areas. Well, that’s all right. I’m sure we all do, because we have individual views, and facts are notoriously hard to establish. As individuals, though, we simply have a vote, and no special access to Government.

When the RSPB tweeted a particularly rabid rant at the Government, they attributed it to a junior employee “going rogue”. I’m not sure age is a factor, but Michael Deacon was right in the Daily Telegraph to zero in on the “insufferably self-righteous opinions” and “sanctimonious delusions” of many activists.

Most of us tolerate such things – but only up to a point. The point being roughly when the Government starts to believe them. Sadly, that point is reached more and more often.