Tam Dalyell 1932 - 2017

In the dedication of his autobiography The Importance of Being Awkward Tam Dalyell wrote:

"To the men and women of West Lothian – Labour, SNP, Conservative, Liberal, Communist – who, whatever their political opinions, were kind to me in all sorts of ways over 43 years as their representative in the House of Commons."

As one of those Liberals in West Lothian who in the latter years would have been included in that tribute I can know why the people of all political persuasions were kind to him. It was because he was always kind to them. In today's politics where pro-Independence and RemaIN Scots are at loggerheads and Brexiteers and Remainers similarly it says something that the MP for one area for 43 years was so universally respected.

That respect went well beyond just Tam and indeed before the recent rise of the SNP in the last decade and the call for independence it was still thus in West Lothian politics. Sometimes you would see three poster teams all at the same location and the ladders would stay put when the climbers moved between them. At counts and hustings there would be a camaraderie between all of those who were involved in politics of whatever hue.

Tam and I would have disagreed on a number of policy issues. But we both agreed on the importance of scientific evidence and factual evidence to base our policy on, even if the end results were different. It was something that I did write in a letter that I had in my pocket at my first Westminster count in 2005, the election that would for the first time in over 4 decades not see Tam Dalyell on the ballot. I wrote that while we disagreed on policy in a number of way I respected the way he had represented the people of West Lothian for all those years. I added that whoever filled his shoes would have a hard task, but if they put the people first as he had done they would earn the same respect that he himself had done.

His handwritten response (once I deciphered his scrawl) is still one of my greatest possessions. He wrote that he thought I had a bright future in politics, something that has been echoed by other Labour representatives in that area. But there are other comments in that that show why the people of West Lothian of all political hues respected him. He respected them, put them first and stood up for them whoever they may be, whoever they had voted for.

By all accounts he enjoyed his decade away from the daily hustle and bustle of Westminster of politics. The former Guardsman, hereditary Baronet with a famous ancestor of the same name, was first and foremost always just Tam to everyone whose life he impacted on.

Rest in Peace Tam.

Sir Terry and me

Wake up to Wogan news this morning. I'm not sure what his other listener will be doing to mark the sad passing of the great raconteur but my thoughts are with the current Lady Wogan and the rest of the family.

Sir Terry may well have been doing the Radio 2 Breakfast show for longer than even I could remember. I must apologise for in my rebellious youth listening to those young upstarts on Radio 1 or even Virgin (although that voice sounds awfully familiar with my Radio 2 wake up no).

When I was driving into Edinburgh for a decade of work it was always Sir Terry who accompanied me, up until the morning that he bade us, both me and the other listener, that emotional farewell. But of course he also twice a year formed two televisual highlights of the year.

The first of course was accompanied by a six foot teddy bear with a spotty bandana over his bad eye. The millions of pounds he raised as part of Children in Need over 35 years is his greatest legacy, so much so that when he reached the limit for years he could serve as a Trustee of the charity he was made a life President so he could still be involved in the board.

The second was the running commentary (as the wine flowed) of Eurovision and more and more proposterous voting led to a result that more often than not didn't reflect well on Royaume-Uni. Indeed so much was Terry an essential part of Eurovision that on the one year that my partner was in Berlin on the evening with me in Scotland we spent the whole show on the phone, just so that Terry's commentary could be shared.

He was also of course part of the revamp of the mid 80s BBC evening schedule hosting his chat show Wogan three days a week in the slot he shared with a certain little show called Eastenders, I wonder whatever became of that show. Also for a while Sir Terry held a sporting record for the longest televised putt in golf when he holed a whopper at Gleneagles on Pro Celebrity Golf.

This is it then. The day we've been dreading. When we will no longer be able to wake up to the knowledge that Sir Terry Wogan is in our world and will at some point make us smile again. Wogan Towers will be a little lot quieter in the future with his passing.

Sir Terry Wogan 3 Aug 1938 - 31 Jan 2016

Charles Kennedy 1959 - 2015

Just over 10 years ago on the 4th May 2005 I was standing in the ground of the Presontonfield House Hotel in Edinburgh in my suit and tie, just inside a fenced off area it was nearing 6:30pm. I wasn't alone so were all the other Liberal Democrat candidates in the Lothian region, although Marilyn McLaren the candidate for Edinburgh South was the sole one of us not wearing a tie.

Charles surrounded by those 2005 MPs

The reason was we were waiting for the leader of the party to finish his eve of poll press engagements before he, his wife Sarah and newly born son Donald boarded a helicopter to fly to Inverness ready for polling day the following day. We were saying amongst ourselves that as we walked the family to the helicopter that we should try our best not to look like that scene from Reservoir Dogs.
Sadly at about 7:15am the following morning I learnt from one of our supporters outside a polling station that her husband thought that is what we looked like anyway. Something I then had to explain to Fiona Hyslop MSP who was standing beside me at the time. But by the end of that day we had news MPs Tim Farron in Westmorland and Lonsdale, Mark Williams in Ceredigion and Greg Mulholland in Leeds North West; also Nick Clegg had taken over in Sheffield Hallam from Richard Allen. In other words half of the current parliamentary party was first elected into that total of 62 MPs ten years ago.

Me and Charles from 2005

When I joined the party in 1988 Charles had already been an MP for five years for the former sear of Ross, Cromarty and Skye. He had in 1983 been the shock winner for the SDP against the Conservative Hamish Gray who had held the seat of Ross and Cromarty since 1970, by 1,704 votes. The majority of the seat had been the former Conservatives with only a part of Russell Johnston's seat of Inverness coming into it. He became the baby of the house upon his election and never completed the PhD he was studying for at the time at Indiana University on a Fulbright Scholarship.

From 1997-2005 it would become Ross, Skye and Inverness West, before then becoming the seat of Ross, Skye and Lochaber which he was to hold through 7 Parliaments before losing it to Ian Blackford of the SNP earlier this month.

In the run up to the 2005 election he had led the party's opposition to the war in Iraq, challenging Tony Blair on his dodgy dossier numerous times during PMQs

From 1991-94 he served as President of the Liberal Democrats, before in 1999 taking over as leader when Paddy Ashdown stepped down. He led us through the 2001 and 2005 elections  but there was growing speculation that he had an alcohol problem from missing key speeches in the commons to looking considerably sweaty and confused at other speeches and public appearances. It came to a hear in early January 2006 when ITN told him they were going to report that he had been receiving treatment for alcoholism. On the Saturday evening a letter was circulating around his MPs calling for him to resign immediately and my initial support of the man and his problem led me to write this when I returned home in the small hours. Though this didn't stop BBC Scotland calling me on the Sunday morning to see if I would speak in support of Charles the following morning, but that was superseded by news that he himself would be holding a press conference. It was there that he announced his resignation and that, unlike he had said earlier in the week, he would not be seeking the support of the party in the leadership election he had called.

He returned to the back benches and apparently was the lone voice in the Parliamentary meeting in 2010 that voted against entering the Coalition. But made appearances on game shows including both as a regular guest and occasional guest host on Have I Got News for You.

It was already going to seem strange not seeing him on the Green Benches for the first time in my political life, but now that I will not even ever run into him around party conference or any other political event seems to be the cruellest, most final outcome from the collapse of Liberal Democrat support in last month's election.

My thoughts and prayers are with his young son Donald, who has lost his father and grandfather in the space of two months, as well as his and my wider Liberal Democrat family who have lost someone we all respected for the way he grew the strength of the party in those 7 years he was leader.

To conclude here he is at Lib Dem Conference two years ago on the subject of Europe, a speech where he was back at his best as I and many others who witnessed this in the hall agreed. We'll also like Duncan Brack did in the chair ignore the red light indicating his time was up.


Charles Peter Kennedy 25 November 1959 - 1 Jun 2015

We Will Remember Them: Dr John Joseph Esmonde 17 Apr 1915

Continuing to look at the lives of the MPs who died during the First World War

 

Dr John Joseph Esmonde was born into the Irish gentry. His father's elder brother also John was the 10th Baronet, who had initially been elected to Westminster for the Irish Liberal Party who later transferred his allegiance to the Independent Irish Party.

John was a Doctor by profession but followed the course of his uncle when he was elected as the Nationalist MP for North Tipperary in 1910. He was married firstly to Rose Magennis and they live in Pontesbury, England until her death in 1901. They had three sons John, Geoffrey and Anthony.

In 1904 he married again to Eily O'Sullivan they would have seven further children.

He was serving with the Royal Army Medical Corps as a Captain when he died of pneumonia and heart failure consequent on the strain of overwork.

He was succeeded in his seat by his 21-year-old son John Lymbrick Esmonde, who at the time of his election was serving as a Second Lieutenant with the Leinster Regiment. A younger son Geoffrey who was a Second Lieutenant in the Tyneside Irish died in Oct 1916 while serving with the Northumberland Fusiliers. A second son Eugene from his second marriage was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross in 1942 as a pilot in the Royal Navy as part of a torbedo bomber squadron. His youngest son Paddy was another decorated soldier receiving a Miltary Cross for his actions on the Rhine in 1944 like his father in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Dr John Joseph Esmonde 27 Jan 1862 - 17 Apr 1915 MP for North Tipperary 1910 -15

We Will Remember them: William Glynne Charles Gladstone d. 13 April 1915

Lieutenant W.G.C. Gladstone MP, of the Welsh Fusiliers

Continuing the occasional series looking at the MPs who were killed fighting in World War I we come across one of the most famous surnames in British politics. The last of four generations of Gladstone's to serve in the Houses of Commons the most famous of which being his Grandfather the four time Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.

William Glynne Charles Gladstone was the fourth and last generation of the Gladstones to sit in the House of Commons. He was born in  July 1885 into a political dynasty at the time his Grandfather had just been succeeded at the end of his second administration as Prime Minister by the Marquess of Salisbury and his father was still an MP.

His Great Grandfather John was MP for Lancaster (1818-20), Woodstock (1820-26) and  Berwick-Upon-Tweed (1826-27).

William Glynne Gladstone next to his Grandfather

 His Grandfather of course was the four time Prime Minister and Grand Old Man himself William Ewart Gladstone. Who in turn was MP for Newark (1832-45), Oxford University (1845-65), South Lancashire (1865-67), Greenwich (1867-1880) and Midlothian (1880-95). Whose brother Thomas was also an MP.

His father was William Henry Gladstone who had been MP for Chester (1865-68), Whitby (1868-80) and East Worcestershire (1880-85), who was also a member of the England squad in the first unofficial Rugby Union International against Scotland. His youngest brother Herbert John was another of the MPs in the family rising to the office of Home Secretary from 1905-10.

William himself inherited his father's estate, the long time Gladstone family home, Hawarden before his sixth birthday, though his grandfather was still alive for a further seven years. In 1911 he was elected to Parliament following a by-election for Kilmarnock district. It was the first time that Labour had stood in the constituency but it was his Conservative opponent John David Rees who had been the MP for Montgomery until the previous year's general election who had been seeking a return to Westminster who came in second. Rees was subsequently to sit across the chamber from Gladstone when he won a by election for Nottingham East, which he would hold until his death in 1922.

His first mention in Hansard actually occurs a few months before his election in Kilmarnock, upon his appointment as His Majesty's Lieutenant for Cheshire:

Mr Rupert Gwynne (Con - Eastborne) : asked the Prime Minister whether Mr. W. G. C. Gladstone, of Hawarden Castle, who has lately been appointed His Majesty's lieutenant for the county of Flintshire, is serving, or has served, in the Territorial Forces?

The Prime Minister (Mr Herbert Asquith) : I believe that Mr. Gladstone has done no military service. I may say that my Noble Friend the Secretary of State for War, whom I consulted, came to the conclusion that as military experience was very fully represented on the Flint Territorial Force Association, Mr. Gladstone, with his considerable territorial connection and influence, would be acceptable as president of the association.

Mr. R. Gwynne: Are we to assume, then, that he has been appointed on any other qualification than the hereditary one?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Member must assume nothing of the kind. Mr. Gladstone has been selected as the fittest person for the appointment.

It is therefore sad that less than 4 years later The Times carried the death notice (pictured right) of Lieutenant W.G.C. Gladstone M.P. the second Member of Parliament to die in this war. It reads:

"As announced in The Times on March 19, he left Wrexham on March 15 for the front, and so has been killed within a month of his going abroad."

It make mention of the exchange in the Commons mentioned above going on to say:

"He discharged the duties of the post [as H.M. Lieutenant of Cheshire], however, with zeal and earnestness, and when war broke out was active in promoting recruiting. Later he decided that it was his duty to offer himself for service and applied for and received a commission as second Lieutenant in the Welsh Fusiliers"

The article  goes on to mention Arthur O'Neill who fell in the service of his country the previous November plus lists the lengthening Commons Roll of Honour at the time, mention Aubrey Herbert (Con - South Somerset), Edward Fitzroy (Con - Northamptonshire South), George Sandys (Con - Wells) , Captain Duncan Campbell (Unionist - North Ayrshire), as among the wounded. Major Clive Morrison-Bell (Con - Honiton) and the 12th Earl of Stair (before 2 Dec 1914 John Dalrymple, Viscount Dalrymple Conservative MP for Wigtonshire) as mentioned as prisoners of war.

Gladstone had been President of the Oxford Union in 1907 a notice in The Times on 18th May 1915 mentions that a portrait of the past President (see top), a gift from his mother, was to he hung without any ceremony close to the bust of his grandfather in the Oxford Union Society's Debating Hall. His sister writing on behalf of their mother said:

Would you kindly convey to the Union Society her most sincere thanks for their sympathy for her. We are sending you one of his latest photographs taken shortly before he left for the front. His loss is to us an overwhelming one, but there is a real consolation for so great and righteous a cause. As you say, one can only feel proud of him.

The portrait bore the line published in The Times:

Consillo ille senex, stetit hic juvenlibus armis.
Pro patria; palmas dividat ipse Deus.  

At the suggestion of the old man, he was early to arms
For the country; He divides the palms of God.

There is a memorial stone in Hawarden churchyard which includes a quotation from his last letter to his mother.

It is not the length of existence that counts, but what is achieved during that existence, however short.

We will remember him


Lt. William Glynne Charles Gladstone MP for Kilmarnock 14 July 1885 - 13 April 1915

MR PRATCHETT

In his writer's layer in Somerset a bearded fellow was leaning over his keyboard.

"What next?" he thought as he imagined the characters of his creation in his head. "Maybe a little more of Death." He thought.

YOU CALLED?

"No dear, it wasn't me," he said still staring at the screen not looking round.

TERRY PRATCHETT.

"Oh," he said, this time turning his head to look behind him. As he did so there was a thud as his body's head fell unto to the letter "a" and filled the screen with the letter. "Is it that time already?"

I'M AFRAID SO, said Death.

And as the two of the them walked off into the endless light out in space the giant space turtle Great A'Tuin reached her final destination to the time of mating and the massive elephants on her back Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon and Jerakeen stood still for the first time in history. The Disc that lay upon their shoulders stopped turning.

Only in the history books will life on the Discworld now be remembered and in the imaginations of millions of readers will the characters live on.

Terry Pratchett 28 April 1948 - 12 March 2015

The only man who for the last 25 years has continually made me laugh out loud in too many public spaces, walk into too many lamp posts and had me still reading when the sun came up the day after release date. All while largely not physically present.

James Molyneaux, Baron Molyneaux of Killead 1920 -2015

Along side Ian Paisley one of the earliest politicians I knew about was James Molyneaux who from 1979 until 1995 served as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. Indeed the two were the ever presents in my formative years of political awareness.

He had been a teenager at the outbreak of World War II and growing up near Aldergrove, which is now the location of Belfast International Airport he joined the Royal Air Force in 1941, and served through the war as was one of those involved in the liberation of Belsen concentration camp. 

He was first elected to a seat on Antrim County Council in the 1960s and in the 1970 General Election he entered Westminster succeeding his party colleague Knox Cunningham, who had served as a PPS to Harold Macmillan while PM, in the South Antrim seat.

After his second defence of his seat in the October 1974 election he became leader of the Ulster Unionists in the Commons, because the party leader Harry West had lost his Fermanagh and South Tyrone seat. However, after West failed to get elected to the European Parliament in 1979 and resigned as leader Molyneaux took over as leader of the party. His tenure as leader of the party of 16 years and 1 day is only exceeded in length by those of Viscount Craigavon and Viscount Brookeborough (the first and third Prime Ministers of Northern Ireland).

In the 1983 election with his seat split in two he became the MP for Lagan Valley, a seat he would hold until he retired in 1997. Through his leadership he was seen as someone who wasn't in favour of really reintroducing a new Northern Irish Assembly or Parliament but a supporter of direct rule with more powers devolved to the councils. However, he also started to see the loss of ground to the DUP. Although it appears his time as leader he was not doing much to advance Northern Ireland, he was using his diplomatic skills to keep the party together with factions wanting to head towards devolution and others for maintaining direct rule, something that soon came to the fore under his successor.

In 1995 he was challenged for the party leadership by a 21-year-old student from Coleraine, Lee Reynolds. Although he won successfully 15% of the party voted for the challenger with no experience and this was seen as a significant protest against his leadership. Two days after the result was announced the death of Jim Kilfedder, the one time Ulster Unionist but then Popular Unionist Party MP for North Down, on a train in from Gatwick.

The subsequent by election saw Molyneaux's party facing a tough challenge to return this seat to the Ulster Unionist fold from another former Ulster Unionist Bob McCartney standing and UK Unionist Party candidate. Possibly as a result of not challenging Kilfedder since 1983 or maybe as a sign of discontent with Ulster Unionism their candidate came a distant second with 26.4% only just beating the former Alliance Party leader Oliver Napier. This poor show lead to Molyneaux's resignation as leader, ironically being replaced by a North Down native, David Trimble.

Upon his retirement as leader he was created a Knight, and when he stepped down from the House of Commons in the 1997 election he was elevated to the House of Lords.

Molyneaus was vociferous in his opposition to the Good Friday Agreement and supported the three UUP MPs Jeffrey Donaldson, David Burnside and Martin Smyth when they resigned the party whip over the parties support of the Agreement.  In 2005 he along with Smyth backed the DUP's Jimmy Spratt over the UUP's candidate Michael McGimpsey in South Belfast, as well as his successor in Lagan Valley, Donaldson who had by then defected to the DUP, but he also supported some UUP anti-agreement candidates such as Burnside in South Antrim. Of these only Donaldson was successful and the South Belfast seat fell to the SDLP's Alisdair McDonnell but Trimble was no happy with his predecessor's interference though he reigned after losing not only his own seat, but every other incumbent Ulster Unionist MP or held seat, ironically the only Ulster Unionist returned for Sylvia, Lady Hermon in the same North Down seat that had played a part in the downfall of Molyneaux

Molyneaux never married, and as well as his role in politics was Sovereign Grand Master of the Royal Black Preceptory from 1971 -1995. Although seen as the leader of unionist for most of his career he was for a short while educated in the local Catholic primary school and helped to raise money when a Catholic Church near his home was burnt down by loyalist arsonists.

James Henry Molyneaux, Baron Molyneaux of Killead 27 August 1920 - 8 March 2015

BREAKING - Former Liberal Party Leader Jeremy Thorpe died this morning

Jeremy Thorpe the leader of the Liberal Party from 1967-1976 passed away this morning according to the Breaking News header on the BBC website.

John Jeremy Thorpe was born  in 1929 the son of  John Henry Thorpe who had been Conservative MP for Manchester Rusholme and Ursula Norton-Griffiths, whose father Sir John Norton-Giffiths was the Conservative MP for Wednesbury until the end of WWI and then Wandsworth Central. However, while he was reading law at Trinity College, Oxford he broke with family tradition and became President of the Liberal Club.

He first stood for Parliament in 1952 for North Devon but failed to unseat the Conservative MP Christopher Peto. he stood again in the 1955 General Election when Peto stood down and halved the majority Peto's successor James Lindsey held. It was in 1959 that Jeremy finally won the seat with a whooping majority of 362. It was a seat he would win 5 more times before losing it in 1979 back to the Conservatives and Tony Speller, his biggest majority being the 11, 072 of the February 1974 election when he was leader of the Liberals.

But considering he was due to have faced trial for conspiracy to murder Norman Scott the week before the 1979 election, although he got a 2 week delay until after the poll, the chances of success must have been slim. Scott had claimed that he and Thorpe had had a homosexual affair from 1961- 63 when such acts were still illegal under UK law. An investigation into this was held by the party in 1971 which exonerated Thorpe. However, when he was being vetted as the possible best man for Anthony Armstrong-Jones wedding to Princess Margaret he was turned down due to homosexual tendencies. The accusations from Scott carried on even after his second marriage in 1973 to Marion, Countess of Harewood, whose first husband was a cousin of the Queen.

In October 1975 Scott's dog was shot by Andrew Newton while the two and the dog were out on the moors before turning to Scott and saying "It's your turn now". The heat was on Thorpe because of a history of allegations and threats with relation to Scott which culminated on his resignation as leader 10 May 1976. He was replaced by Jo Grimond whom he succeeded as caretaker before the election of David Steel as the new leader. On the 22 June 1979 six weeks after Margaret Thatcher had won the General Election that saw Thorpe not returned by the people of North Devon the jury ruled he and his co-accused not guilty of conspiracy.

The then Liberal leader David Steel commented on the verdict hoped Thorpe "after a suitable period of rest and recuperation ... find many avenues where his great talents may be used". Although acquitted the party felt he had not behaved well during the whole affair and refused to allow him to return to party politics. In 1982 he was appointed to Amnesty International as director of their British Section, but soon after he started to show signs of Parkinson's Disease that led to his eventual dropping out of public life in the mid 1980s.

After the merger of the Liberals and Social Democratic Party in 1988 he was made an Honourary President of the newly formed North Devon Liberal Democrat Association. In 1997 his appearance at the Liberal democrat conference led to a standing ovation and in 1999 he finally opened up about the trail in his political memoir In My Own Time.

Ursula his wife and companion for the last 40 years passed away in March this year. His son Rupert from his first marriage to Caroline Allpass, who died in a car crash in 1970, and his step-sons David Lascelles, 8th Earl of Harewood, James and Jeremy all survive him.


John Jeremy Thorpe Politician, former Liberal Party leader  29 April 1929 - 4 December 2014

Phillip Hughes 1988-2014

The sad news to wake up to this morning is that Australian batsman Phillip Hughes who was hit on the head by a bouncer while playing for South Australia against New South Wales has died as a result of the damage he sustained to a major artery as a result. He had been in an induced coma since an operation after he was rushed to a Sydney hospital following the incident.

Although he was only 25 he made his test debut on 26 February 2009 against South Africa. Although in his first innings he was dismissed for a duck, he took a half century in the second innings. But in the second match in that series scored the first of what were to become 3 test centuries in the first innings with 115 to be followed up with he record test score 160 in the second. He was the youngest man in test history to take a century in both innings of a Test Match.

In total he appeared in 26 Tests:

2009 v South Africa 
1st Test Johannesburg 0 and 75
2nd Test Durban 115 and 160
3rd Test Cape Town 33 and 32
2009 v England
1st Test Cardiff 36
2nd Test Lord's 4 and 17
2009/10 v Pakistan
2nd Test Sydney 0 and 37
2010 v New Zealand
1st Test Wellington 20 and 86no
2010/11 v England
3rd Test Perth 2 and 14
4th Test Melbourne 16 and 23
5th Test Sydney 31 and 13
2011 v Sri Lanka
1st Test Galle 12 and 28
2nd Test Pallekele 36
3rd Test Colombo 0 and 126
2011 v South Africa
1st Test Cape Town 9 and 9
2nd Test Johannesburg 88 and 11
2011 v New Zealand
1st Test Brisbane 10 and 7
2nd Test Hobart 4 and 20
2012/13 v Sri Lanka
1st Test Hobart 86 and 16
2nd Test Melbourne 10
3rd Test Sydney 87 and 34
2013 v India
1st Test Chennai 6 and 0
2nd Test Hydrabad 19 and 0
3rd Test Mohali 2 and 69
4th Test Dehli 45 and 6
2013 v England
1st Test Nottingham 81no and 0
2nd Test Lord's 1 and 1

It is a shame now in hindsight that his last outing in the baggy green cap of Australia was at headquarters and saw him only scoring a single in both innings.

Phil was born in Macksville in New South Wales, for whom he made his senior debut in 2007 before moving to South Australia in 2013. He has also appeared for Middlesex, Hampshire and Worcestershire in England, Mumbai Indians in the IPL and for Sydney Thunder and Adelaide Strikers in the Australian Twenty20 Big Bash League.

He was three days short of his 26th Birthday and had been scheduled to play in next week's test match against India. The current round of Sydney Cup matched have been cancelled and next week's test is now in doubt as it is suspected that very few of his international colleagues may be prepared to return to the field so soon.

Here is the coverage of his greatest test performance that second test against South Africa in 2009.


Phillip Joel Hughes - Cricketer 30 November 1988 - 27 November 2014

My thoughts are also going out to Sean Abbott the young New South Wales bowler who in playing the way he was taught to play bowled a delivery that changed many lives, but especially the two men at either end of the crease. There are pictures of him holding his mates head in the immediate aftermath of the incident, but it was not his fault, though he is grieving just as the Hughes family are. Our thoughts go to both families and it is clear that many in the cricketing family are on hand to support Abbott though these tough days too.

We'll always have Stroke City

Today I awoke to the news that Northern Ireland lost one of our greatest broadcasters. Hot on the heels of the tragic loss of Robin Williams, our own radio presenter who, had the same sharp wit which was part of who we all wear.

As someone whose father, was only two years older, but from the same working class roots in Derry/Londonderry I grew up with that North West sense of humour. Of course with a time slot starting at 10:30am I didn't get to listen to Gerry every morning, nor did I get to listen to his handover from Stephen Nolan regularly. However, when I did or when he had his appearances in TV they would almost always lighten up the morning, especially if I'd been screaming at some caller on the Stephen Nolan show.

It was only Gerry, who broadcast from the BBC Radio Foyle studio, that could come up with the solution to the Derry or Londonderry dilemma. After a while of calling it Derry Stroke Londonderry he shortened it to Stroke City. Those of us in the know knew it had a double meaning to the general health of the populous but was also a comedic answer to the political correctness of what to call the City of his birth (that of my fore fathers).

He tried to make it on Radio 4 but without success, but his humour was always at home in Northern Ireland and we got where he was at. But he did win the Gold Sony Award for best regional radio presenter in 1990 and Royal Television Society Regional Presenter of the Year in 2004.

He hadn't been on the air since November 2012 as the illness that finally claimed him took hold (he'd been a regular part of the Radio Foyle/Radio Ulster schedule since 1985). Our airwaves have been the lacking as a result. But there was always the hope that he would some day return, this morning that hope was taking away.

Bout ye Gerry/Londongerry, rest well puppet chin. We'll always have Stroke City.

Gerry Anderson 28 October 1944 - 21 August 2014

A few years back there was an animated series using real clips from Gerry's shows so I thought I would share a few of them here.

Sue Townsend RIP

Here are some of the Obituaries from the Ashby-de-la-Zouch Echo today.

TOWNSEND, Sue 10th April 2014. Dearly loved literary mother of Adrian Albert Mole chef, antiquarian book dealer and author of Offally Good formerly of Ashby-de-la-Zouch but now resident in London. Departed too soon, just over a week, after my forty seventh birthday. I don't know what I, my darling wife Daisy or my sons Glenn Bott-Mole, William Mole and daughter Gracie Pauline Mole will do without you.

TOWNSEND, Sue 10th April 2014. Deeply missed by Dr Pandora L.E. Braithwaite M.P. for Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Thank you for introducing me to the love of my life Prof. Jack Cavendish, not so sure about Nigel Hetherington, Adrian Mole and Julian Twyselton-Fife not that as New Labourite I have anything against gay men, but two of them, where was my perception. До тех пор, замечательный рассказчик

TOWNSEND, Sue 10th April 2010. Sadly missed inspiration of your fellow author Baz Kent. The way you constructed words helped to inspire my masterpiece Dork's Diary which although there are accusations of similarities to other members of Neil Armstrong Comprehensive are purely coincidental.

TOWNSEND, Sue 10th April 2010. Missed by Pauline Hilda Mole. Thank you for helping me through the breaks up of my marriages to George Mole. Also the tough times with my second husband Martin Muffet and the sad passing of my husband Ivan Braithwaite. You will be sorely missed by me, my husband again George and Animal. Although you did seem to know about my son that I did which is highly uncomfortable.

TOWNEND, Sue 10th April 2010. Sadly departed literary mother of Rosie Germaine Mole. Although you seemed more infatuated with my brother you gave me a sense of how women can stand up to the misogyny we see around us in the world dominated by men, including my birth father. Now that you are gone I might have regretted aborting Aaron and mine's baby but as he wasn't ready for me I wasn't ready for it.

TOWNSEND, Sue 10th April 2010. Not since I lost my best mate Robert Staniforth on active service in Iraq have I missed someone as much as you, Sue. With deep regret and much love Glenn Bott-Mole.


Here is the real one from The Independent.

Nelson Mandela's long walk on earth is over

***Breaking*** Former South African President Nelson Mandela has passed on this evening.

The former South African President was born in the last year of the First World War and almost survived to the centenary year of it's beginning. Many will no doubt write full biographical remembrances of his life but I'm going to go through the points that his life bisected with my consciousness. 

One of the first international politicians to grab my attention was Nelson Mandela. of course at the time he was still in prison. His image and presence touched my life in many ways along the way.

In 1984 of course there was the Special A.K.A. song Free Nelson Mandela which was one of the first protest songs that I actually purchased.

When I went on a tour of my first university my introduction to student politics probably came from an induction meeting in the Mandela Hall at QUB. Even though I didn't go there the fact that students in Belfast and as I later learnt up and down the country had gone to such length to make a statement of support for such a great man meant that I had to get involved in student politics and speak in Union meetings.

My first job after graduation saw me walking from Waterloo across the Hungerford Bridge and on to Piccadilly Circus. At that time it meant that every day I passed the statue to Nelson Mandela outside the National Gallery.

Of course before that on 2 February 1990 I watched as he walked to his freedom and the birth of a new South Africa, one of reconciliation. It gave me hope that possibly the same could happen in my own Northern Ireland. Together with F.W. de Klerk who had decided to unban the ANC and allow Mandela to be released he went on the win the Nobel Peace Prize, a echo of John Hume and David Trimble doing the same later for the similar peace established in Northern Ireland. Indeed  the Northern Ireland conflict was something he took an interest in and he helped leaders here to learn reconciliation towards each other.

After graduation I came the closest I ever came to the man in person. When I played for Surbiton Chess Club there was a man across the board from me at time with a South African accent. There was one week that he said he would not be available for the low rating league match that week. It was later that night when I got home from the chess match that I saw Donald Woods, who live is portrayed in the movie Cry Freedom greeting the then South African President.

I bought my first TV on the morning of the first match of the 1995 World Cup match, when I came home to watch the recording of the first match of course there was Mandela in that colourful shirt. For the final he was wearing a Springbok shirt, once a shirt of oppression of the black population of his nation, but by then embraced by the rainbow nation.

Of course I have also read his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. And his walk was indeed long indeed he married his third wife Graça Machel aged 80 after his marriage to Winnie, who was famous for her support of him while he was incarcerated, had broken down. He died today aged 95 having enjoyed a family life denied him due to incarceration and then the political change and presidential period with her children and his own grandchildren and great grandchildren. But of course as with his own children, one daughter died at 9 months and his first born son at the age of 23, there was tragedy when one of them died returning from the opening of the 2010 World Cup died in a car crash returning to the Mandela compound.

It was a long walk for Madiba and now it has run its course.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela OM AC CC OJ GCStJ QC GCH BR RSO NPK 18 July 1918 - 5 December 2013

Eddie McGrady 1935-2013

Eddie McGrady was the man who finally confined Enoch Powell to a life outside Westminster at the 1987 General Election. But had come close to unseated the controversial former Conservative later Ulster Unionist MP in the previous two contests for the Westminster seat of South Down.The Downpatrick born man had been on 1,842 votes away from the unseating of a second unionist in the 1986 unionism all out by elections but he'd been only 548 behind at the previous General Election.

But Eddie had served almost 50 years as an elected representative by the time he retired at the last General Election. he was first elected as an independent nationalist serving on Downpatrick Urban Council, before it was displaced by Down District Council in 1973. In the late 60s he joined the National Democrats and in 1969 stood in East Down for the last Northern Ireland Parliament but lost out by a mere 1,709 votes to the future and last Northern Ireland Prime Minister Brian Faulkner who served in that role from 1971 until direct rule was restored in 1972.

In 1970 Eddie became a founding member of the SDLP and under all of the first three attempts to devolve power again in 1973, 1975 and 1982 Eddie was elected as a representative for them for South Down. It saw him becoming Head of the Department of Executive Planning and Co-ordination from Jan-May 1974 at the end of that first attempt. He first stood for Westminster in 1979 taking on Enoch Powell as he was first seek re-election for his Northern Irish seat.

He was a strong spokesperson for devolution asking questions about devolving policing and justice in some of his last actions in Westminster and he was elected to the first term of the new Northern Ireland Assembly post the Good Friday agreement. He stepped aside as he later would do in Westminster for Margaret Ritchie after his first term. He would also serve on the Northern Ireland policing board.

I didn't always agree with Eddie, most particularly on LGBT rights, for the majority of his time in Westminster in the latter years he absented himself when any vote was to be taken. But in 1994 on the votes to lower the age of consent for homosexual men he voted to retain it at 21 both against Edwina Currie's failed equalising Clause and Anthony Durrant's clause which lowered it to 18, but then every Northern Irish MP of the time voted in the same way. He didn't vote in the subsequent 2000 vote which equalised the age of consent.

The SDLP these days of course talk up that they have always been for all civil rights yet historically they failed the LGBT community in Northern Ireland just as the unionists still do today. Although people like Eddie may have been conservative on some social issues they did lay the ground work for equality to be debated and discussed in Northern Ireland. They were a voice for the oppressed minority of the time who had to find their feet under the table of democracy and he was respected on all sides.

Seamus Heaney Tribute 4: Keeping Going

My final poem is one that sums up my Ulster Scots roots and the fact that I have spent over 10 years of my life living and working in Scotland.

Keeping Going

The piper coming from far away is you

With a whitewash brush for a sporran

Wobbling round you, a kitchen chair

Upside down on your shoulder, your right arm

Pretending to tuck the bag beneath your elbow,

Your pop-eyes and big cheeks nearly bursting

With laughter, but keeping the drone going on

Interminably, between catches of breath.

The whitewash brush. An old blanched skirted thing
On the back of the byre door, biding its time
Until spring airs spelled lime in a work-bucket
And a potstick to mix it in with water.
Those smells brought tears to the eyes, we inhaled
A kind of greeny burning and thought of brimstone.
But the slop of the actual job
Of brushing walls, the watery grey
Being lashed on in broad swatches, then drying out
Whiter and whiter, all that worked like magic.
Where had we come from, what was this kingdom
We knew we'd been restored to? Our shadows
Moved on the wall and a tar border glittered
The full length of the house, a black divide
Like a freshly opened, pungent, reeking trench.

Piss at the gable, the dead will congregate.

But separately. The women after dark,

Hunkering there a moment before bedtime,

The only time the soul was let alone,

The only time that face and body calmed

In the eye of heaven.

Buttermilk and urine,

The pantry, the housed beasts, the listening bedroom.

We were all together there in a foretime,

In a knowledge that might not translate beyond

Those wind-heaved midnights we still cannot be sure

Happened or not. It smelled of hill-fort clay

And cattle dung. When the thorn tree was cut down

You broke your arm. I shared the dread

When a strange bird perched for days on the byre roof.

That scene, with Macbeth helpless and desperate
In his nightmare--when he meets the hags agains
And sees the apparitions in the pot--
I felt at home with that one all right. Hearth,
Steam and ululation, the smoky hair
Curtaining a cheek. 'Don't go near bad boys
In that college that you're bound for. Do you hear me?
Do you hear me speaking to you? Don't forget!'
And then the postick quickening the gruel,
The steam crown swirled, everything intimate
And fear-swathed brightening for a moment,
Then going dull and fatal and away.

Grey matter like gruel flecked with blood

In spatters on the whitewash. A clean spot

Where his head had been, other stains subsumed

In the parched wall he leant his back against

That morning like any other morning,

Part-time reservist, toting his lunch-box.

A car came slow down Castle Street, made the halt,

Crossed the Diamond, slowed again and stopped

Level with him, although it was not his lift.

And then he saw an ordinary face

For what it was and a gun in his own face.

His right leg was hooked back, his sole and heel

Against the wall, his right knee propped up steady,

So he never moved, just pushed with all his might

Against himself, then fell past the tarred strip,

Feeding the gutter with his copious blood.

*

My dear brother, you have good stamina.

You stay on where it happens. Your big tractor

Pulls up at the Diamond, you wave at people,

You shout and laugh about the revs, you keep

old roads open by driving on the new ones.

You called the piper's sporrans whitewash brushes

And then dressed up and marched us through the kitchen,

But you cannot make the dead walk or right wrong.

I see you at the end of your tether sometimes,

In the milking parlour, holding yourself up

Between two cows until your turn goes past,

Then coming to in the smell of dung again

And wondering, is this all? As it was

In the beginning, is now and shall be?

Then rubbing your eyes and seeing our old brush

Up on the byre door, and keeping going.

Tribute to Seamus Heaney 3: Digging

Today marks the death of Ulster's most world renowned poet Seamus Heaney as I said earlier I will be sharing some of his work that has touched me through the years for different reasons.

This next one is another experience we both shared, my father had a sizable vegetable patch out the back of the house I spent my formative years in. Planting seeds and harvesting the various vegetables and fruits became a family endeavour. I was too young then to have homeworks over the weekends but later on when we moved house I would on occasion be working away in my room and hear my parents at work in the garden somewhere below me.

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pin rest; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner's bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I'll dig with it.

Postscript there is something of a irony about this poem inspiring this poet. As someone said to be near the end of my A'Levels I was probably the most widely read poet in the sixth form. The reason being that some of mine would circulate the sixth form centre when we were supposed to be studying and there were more people there than took English Literature.

Tribute to Seamus Heaney 2: Blackberry-Picking

As I said earlier today marks the sad passing of Seamus Heaney and I shall be marking today with some of his poems. This next one reminds me of an activity that I enjoyed around this time of year with my grandfather as we walked along the hedgerow of a farmer friend's fields, him reaching high and me lower.

Blackberry-Picking 

 Late August, given heavy rain and sun

For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.

At first, just one, a glossy purple clot

Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.

You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet

Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it

Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for

Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger

Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots

Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.

Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills

We trekked and picked until the cans were full

Until the tinkling bottom had been covered

With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned

Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered

With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.

But when the bath was filled we found a fur,

A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.

The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush

The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.

I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair

That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.

Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

Tribute to Seamus Heaney 1: Death of a Naturalist

Growing up in Northern Ireland part of of English Literature course was to study the works of Irish posts. Even then we had a living luminary that the world recognised who wrote sometimes about things so quintessentially about Ulster and in language that was so us (or our grandparents as some of us were urban youth) that it made us hunger for more.

Today we have learnt that the Nobel Laureate (1995) poet has passed away. As a tribute today I'll be publishing some of his works, some are the ones I learnt about in school, some are ones I came to love later. All are the essence of the man and his rural upbringing in Ulster.

Death of a Naturalist (1966)

All year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
Specks to range on window-sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.
Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.

It's Friday...it's farewell to Sharpe, Williams and Walker

It's Friday, it's five o'clock and it's been a while since I did one of these but we have lost a variety of artistic people this week so it felt right.

First on Thursday it was announced that novelist Tom Sharpe had died. He work black comedic novels such as Blott on the Landscape and Wilt. Both were adapted for TV the first as a series the second as a film. But another Sharpe adaptation was the one whose theme tune sprang to my mind when the news came to me that was Porterhouse Blue. Here is a brief glimpse of what sort of dark humour Sharpe could produce.


This morning we heard that Esther Williams had died. In the era of the big Holywood musical she had her own niche in that she was the one that brought synchronised swimming into the mix. Here is a glimpse of
some of her work.

 

Finally earlier in the week Graham Walker who was one of the original members of The Grumbleweeds. A comedy musical group that also had an impact during the 70s and 80s as I was growing up.

Even then he was the bald one with the long hair, a style I have not subsequently followed with my own receding hairline.

Here are the Grumbleweeds doing a very good parody of another iconic 70s/80s band ELO.

Andrew Simpson Olympic Yachtsman 1976-2013

Simpson on the right with Iain Percy

Andrew Simpson was the crewman who along with Iain Percy won gold in the Star class at the Beijing Olympics and silver in the same class last summer.

He was a competitive sailor in the Finn class before teaming up with Percy, winning silver in the 2001 European Championships and bronze in the 2003 worlds. But of course that was a class where fellow Brit Ben Ainslie ruled supreme so the chance to crew for Percy allowed him to take part in two Olympics.

With the Star class cut from the 2016 Olympic regatta Simpson's eyes turned towards the America's Cup, like those of his teenage training partner and rival Ben Ainslie. Yesterday he was training with the Swedish crew Artemis Racing in San Francisco Bay for who he was the strategist. The catamaran flipped over and he was trapped underneath for 10 minutes and efforts from doctors out in the bay and onshore were unable to revive him.

Speaking after missing out on gold only in the medal race last summer when the wind shifted Simpson said,

"It's a lottery at times. That last run proved it. We didn't get it right. Sorry for everyone who's watching. We tried our hardest." 

Sadly that lottery of water, wind and men trying to control both claimed his life yesterday.

Thoughts are with his wife Leah, their young son Freddie, the rest of the Artemis crew and all his friends and family.

Andrew Simpson 17 December 1976 - 9 May 2013

Thoughts of the death of Margaret Thatcher

There are some of us who owe our political existence to the recently deceased Margaret Thatcher. As with all political opponents I do not think she is the incarnation of all things evil, there were indeed somethings that she did which should be applauded. But it is in the areas that we disagree Poll Tax, student finance, sacrificing jobs for low inflation, some illiberal social attitudes etc that I learnt to fight my first political campaigns.

Whatever your view of the Falklands conflict, her decisive action 31 years ago this month was to liberate those who self identify as being British. She along with Ronald Reagan did a great deal to bring to an end the Cold War. Also she stood up to terrorism in Northern Ireland, signed into being the first all-Ireland agreement (which of course the Unionists objected to by resigning on mass) but it was a step forward toward the peace that Northern Ireland witnesses today. In fact on that last point she almost paid for her involvement in dealing with the Northern Ireland situation with her own life in the Brighton Bombing.

But going to University in a Conservative held seat and council it was natural that my first Lib Dem battles were to replace Thatcherism with social liberalism, making sure that nobody was enslaved by poverty which she seemed to want to create while letter the richest get more and more out of her. There were also many social issues on which the Conservatives took the conservative approach which I just could not and wound not agree.

So I took my stand and signed up to student politics, yes there was Militant Labour activists on campus but you also had to learn to deal with politics in the real world and on the doorsteps around me that meant telling those who lent their vote to Thatcher of the worse excesses of what the Conservative party were doing.

She has some amazing achievements and no matter how you look at her these can never be taken away. She will always be known as the first female Prime Minster of the UK. She will always along with a selct bacd of others won three General elections in a row.

So the Rt. Hon. Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS has passed away. There is going to be a state funeral, the necessity and merits of which are going to be debated long and hard over the coming days.

But whatever you think of her policies she overcame the misogyny of the 1950s to be selected then elected as the mother of two young children to the safe seat of Finchley. That was on her third attempt to be elected to Westminster she'd stood for Dartford in 1950 and 51 reducing the Labour majority on both occasions, did stand in 1955 having only just before given birth to the twins and narrowly missed out on selection for the 1955 Orpington by-election. She then became for many the surprise candidate who not only challenged Edward Heath in 1975 but out polled him though short of the two thirds of MPs required to win on the first ballot, then beat Willie Whitelaw in the second round.

So she most definitely was a shrewd political operator. Praising her for being such does not necessarily mean I applaud her method, nor execution, nor policies. But she was of her time, of her party able to push back so much of the glass ceiling that before her had precluded too many women from actively being involved in research, science, politics or business. She wasn't so much a feminist as a female who wanted equality because she was the best person for the job, knowing the costs involved for her and being prepared to pay them.

She may have inspired many to get involved in politics (though not all of us on the side she may have wanted).

Baroness Thatcher (Margaret Hilda Thatcher née Roberts) 1925-2013