Author Archives: Tim Lenton

We all have secrets. Obviously I can’t tell you most of mine, but one I can reveal is that I used to train journalists. This was in the days when people read newspapers in order to find out what was going on.

In order to ensure that the reader got a fair crack of the whip (apologies if this now comes under the heading of violent and therefore forbidden language), we used to have an ABC of news writing. Oh, yes. Cutting edge stuff. The A stood for Accuracy; the B stood for Balance; and the C stood for Clarity.

We were aiming in those far-off innocent days to tell the whole truth, and if there were two views on a subject, to give them both. If there were many views, we tried to say so. Another word for this was Objectivity.

There are still some journalists who try to do this. But nowadays objectivity has largely gone out of the window. There are several reasons for this, but the primary one is that there are certain things we cannot say. 

At one extreme, this borders on the absurd. In America recently five black police officers murdered a man, who was also black. This was frustrating for many people because it fell outside what they considered the norm: white people being violent towards black people. Sadly, there is a history of that kind of thing in America. One US journalist wrote that the policemen killed the black men because they had “internalised white supremacy”. Another claimed that the murderers were “carrying water” for whiteness. 

Obviously this is rubbish. Sorry: I can’t say that. 

Nearer home, there are other things we cannot say – because they are not regarded as “sensible”. The consensus is against them. 

I have always reacted against the word “consensus”. To me it means I am not allowed to hear or talk about certain views because most people, or certain “experts”, don’t hold them. To me, this seems a great way of covering things up. And, as Tolstoy said, “most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives”. And ours. Tolstoy didn’t say that last bit.

If you can get the Government behind you, or the BBC, You’re made. People never get to hear the opposite views. As Bertrand Russell said, “There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action”. Or by the BBC abrogating its responsibility. Russell didn’t say that bit either.

So now no-one can put forward different views on climate change, and no-one can suggest that covid vaccinations may have adverse effects. All this can conveniently be lumped under the heading of “conspiracy theory” – instead of being considered as alternative points of view that we can consider. If that kind of talk were allowed, pillars of the way we live would tumble: the applecart would be turned over in a momentous way. Net zero, carbon capture, wind farms and lockdowns would all be pointless. Among many other things.

OK, I’m getting on a bit. It’s a new way of life. But to me all this abandonment of the ABC of journalism eats away at our freedom, like data manipulation and hidden cameras. It must be very hard for someone with basic, revolutionary, lively ideas of freedom and openness to work in journalism nowadays. I said that. There may be other points of view.

I am in a minority. I always was, because there’s only one of me – a fact that most people find reassuring.

Most of us find comfort in being part of a group, which is why schoolchildren seek the approval of their peers as part of growing up. That is how gangs start, as well as friendlier social groups.

Teachers – well, good teachers – try to manage this process by reassuring individuals that they can be independent, that they have value as individuals with specific talents never exactly reproduced in others. This is a liberating concept. 

When we try to build communities, it is tempting to forget that they are made up of individuals. Some of the worst communities on the planet have demonstrated this. 

Unfortunately it is not always easy to tell whether the community you’re forming is good or bad. It may have what you think are excellent aims, but if this means that those who disagree with those aims are ostracised, disenfranchised, expelled or worse, then your community, whether large or small, is a bad one.

This is reflected in the current tendency to think there should be only one permissible opinion on each of a wide variety of issues that face us in the 21^st century. When it comes to gender, diversity, speed limits, climate change, covid, vaccinations, lockdowns, restrictions on movement, cycle paths etc etc, if there is only one acceptable view – whether it claims to be for the good of society or not – that is, in my minority view, dangerous for the society in which it occurs. 

Democracy works on the principle that the views of the majority get preference. This is fine, as long as the views of the minority are permitted, and heard – and not dismissed because the consensus is different. I like the observation of Michael Crichton, who said that “historically the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled”.

Not long ago a Tory MP with views on covid vaccinations that do not accord with those of most of us expressed these views in Parliament, as he is entitled to do. I am glad he did. I would like to hear as wide a variety of views on key issues as possible. But he was immediately dumped on from a great height by people determined he should not be heard, including the Prime Minister.

He was accused of being anti-Semitic because he said the covid vaccine was “the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust”. This may not have been a wise thing to say, but it is in no way anti-Semitic. He was not denying the Holocaust. He was not belittling the Holocaust. Quite the contrary. He was trying to emphasise what he believed to be an extreme danger to people in general.

We may or may not agree with him. But the fact that senior politicians and others felt they had to misrepresent him in this way is in fact quite worrying, and would make any independent-minded person think he might have been saying something that we weren’t supposed to hear. What better way to “gag” him than to denigrate him, present him as worthless and make people feel guilty for listening to him?

This particular MP is clearly no longer part of the gang. Should we be worried? Yes, I believe we should. We could be next. 

It has been the strangest of Christmases. My brother Andrew, who had a disrupted life and was never at peace, is at peace now. He died suddenly of choking, followed by cardiac arrest, on December 23.

He is in a much better place. This is not to say that the Coventry care home where has been for nearly ten years was a bad place: on the contrary, it was excellent, and the staff were lovely – distraught when he died at the age of 74. 

Over the years Andrew has been in many different places, some better than others. He was a “miracle” baby – the first to survive an after-birth operation to correct obstructions in the lower abdomen. But as a result he had many other difficulties – repeated bilious attacks as a child, general fearfulness and other mental and emotional problems. He was hard to live with. He undoubtedly found us had to live with.

He went to school and even had jobs for a while, but we believe he was assaulted on a couple of occasions. Our father had died when he was seven, and eventually he was too much for my mother to handle, and in his late teens he went to live with a psychologist friend in Coventry. 

He has been in Coventry ever since. When the friend died, in the  early 1990s, he moved into a series of different situations. He tried living in sheltered housing, but called the emergency service so often that he had to move to where he could be looked after. 

He had several encounters with the police, involving behaviour dangerous to himself or others. There was no intent: he simply did not make connections. On one occasion he was brought home after being found cycling on a motorway. 

He said he wanted to remain in Coventry after our mother died in 1994; so he did. Together with our other brother, Phil, I visited him quite often, and he stayed with us in Norwich on many occasions. I think he enjoyed this: it was quite hard to tell. 

I took him on holiday once, to Northumberland, but this was so out of his routine that he could not cope. I had to take him home halfway through, which left me with three days alone in Northumberland. It was May, and unseasonably warm. 

He has had several severe physical and mental relapses which landed him in hospital, either in Coventry or Warwick. Coming to Norwich gradually became impossible, though the care he received at Minster Lodge in Coventry stabilised him for a longish period up to his death.

In his happier moments he loved walking, watching construction workers and, for quite a long time, cycling. He believed in God, despite what some may consider a very raw deal in life. He was good-looking and had an infectious smile, as well as a genuine sense of humour. With some exceptions, he liked people. He was not stupid, but he forgot a lot.

We won’t forget him.

I am unlikely to be invited to upmarket functions. But if I were, and if, while minding my own business, I was approached by someone – a lady-in-waiting, say – who inquired about my name, background and family history, I should be delighted. 

The conversation would probably not last long, because none of the information likely to be gleaned would be very interesting. In fact, I might get annoyed at being treated in such a cursory manner and tweet about it afterwards. But probably not.

True, I was born in Earlham Hall, Norwich, but that’s only because it was being used as a maternity home just after the war. The second world war, since you ask. 

The rest of my family history its less impressive. The words “agricultural” and “labourer” appear often, and my paternal grandfather’s line comes down to us from just outside Peterborough – a hamlet called Norman Cross, which was largely swallowed up when the A1 in that area became a motorway.

His mother’s name was Archer, and she came from Harlestone, near Northampton and close to the Spencer pile at Althorp. In fact her parents’ gravestone at Harlestone is suspiciously swish: could there be a connection? You tell me. Please.

My father’s mother, on the other hand, came from Sheffield, which is obviously more exciting. Her name was Booth, and she claimed to be related to the founder of the Salvation Army, which I suppose is possible, though not traceable.

I could go on, but perhaps the lady-in-waiting would be more interested in my recent history. Between the ages of five and 11 I lived in Coventry, but we returned to Norwich after my father died. 

I can remember a great deal about what Norwich was like in those days – the livestock walking down Ber Street to the cattle market just below the Castle; the ships loading and unloading at the mills on King Street, where my brother worked for a while; the railway goods yard off Grove Road; the slums replaced by Rouen Road; and Prospect House, where I would later work on the Eastern Daily Press, now sadly in reduced circumstances.

What is the same? Certainly not St Stephen’s, which was a bustling street full of cars, cycles and pedestrians. But the Market, the Castle, the stunning Cathedral and the relatively new City Hall (where I also worked) look very similar. 

By now the lady-in-waiting is receding into the far reaches of the room, smiling in a distant sort of way.

Part of my childhood – and indeed a good chunk of my adulthood – has been wiped from the map of Norwich. Not, for once, by the council shutting yet another road, but by a simple name change. 

Surrey Chapel, the free church whose most recent location is within a stone’s throw of Anglia Square, has changed its name to CityGates Church, arguing that the old name doesn’t mean much to Norwich citizens nowadays.

Maybe. It means a lot to me, though. I was brought up there, was baptised there, and for a while as a teenager operated the rather stone-age sound system. My parents were married there. With my friend David Green I helped to found the football team which played twice yearly against Park Church and eventually mushroomed into the now vibrant Norwich Christian Football League.

I used to walk home my first girl friend from Surrey Chapel – quite a long walk, but worth it. Sadly she died a couple of weeks ago; she lived in North-East Norfolk, an even longer walk.

Why Surrey Chapel? Largely because it was situated just off Surrey Street near the centre of the city, and was accessible via Chapel Loke, along which it was just possible to drive a car. Maybe it still is. It was eventually crowded out, first by the ugly Norfolk Tower, which might have been built deliberately to obscure it, and then by the construction of the John Lewis car park, which necessitated its demolition.

As a result the church congregation moved to Botolph Street, where I preached on one occasion, just after my mother died. They didn’t ask me back.

Oddly my church is now St Augustine’s, within a couple of hundred yards of the CityGates building.  

Surrey Chapel was founded in 1854 by Robert Govett, an Anglican who had one or two problems with Church of England ideas at the time. He was a prolific evangelical author, as was his successor, D M Panton. Their graves can be found in the Rosary Cemetery off Rosary Road, as can that of their most famous successor, David Middleton, a basically shy man whose preaching from the 1960s onwards was compelling. He introduced me to Lord of the Rings, among other things.

It’s a strange experience to walk through the graves at the top of the Rosary and see that so many of them are former Surrey Chapel members – people I can picture very easily but who slipped away while my attention was distracted.

I guess I can understand the name change. But I wonder what they think.