The Borgias Season 2

 My impression is that the Neil Jordan two season series on the life of the Borgias family uses some facts and then explores the characters according to what makes good TV. This is a high performance production with a top level cast headed by Jeremy (Brideshead Revisited) Irons as the first Borgia Pope. Joanne Whalley plays his former mistress and mother of his two sons and daughter, the infamous Lucrezia played by the comparatively unknown but gorgeous Hollie Granger. Learning that she is also in recently released Anna Karennia may make me change my mind about seeing the picture after a less than flattering review by Dr Kermode. The French Canadian Francois Arnaud plays the Machiavellian Cesare Borgia and David Oaks the weak other son, Juan. Sean Harris plays Cesare’s hitman and Colm Feore as the Cardinal Guiliano dela Rovere whose mission is get rid of the Pope and his family. Steven Berkoff plays Savonarola with the fabulous Our Friends in the North Gina Mckee as the clever and determined Caterina Sforza. Derek Jacobi played a cameo role in the first series as a fictitious Cardinal, who plotted against Alexander Borgia and is poisoned by Cesare.

The second season commenced with Alexander in full power with his daughter and her child home after the disastrous arranged marriage with the Sforza’s. Against his will Cesare, a warrior at heart, is forced to play the devoted son and Cardinal, and a kind of consigliore to the Pope who manages his role better than most Mafia bosses. In the Borgial Bull Alexander is tempted by a young artist who has disguised herself as a boy while his mistress is way and he decides to gain popular support by hold a pagan celebration in the city. While hunting he has found a horde of art dedicates to pleasure which he places on show in the Vatican thus alienating genuine Christians among the church hierarchy further.

The father of Lucrezia’s child has made his way to Rome in Paolo He is allowed to spend one night with her and to see her child with the help of her mother and Cesare on condition that he then leaves Rome after which he is killed by Juan. The opening two episodes set the scene for the first of the two main stores of the series. In The Beautiful Deception, King Charles of France has been held in Naples caught up in the plague that wracks the city and determined to destroy Alexander support by the Sforza’s and set on the sack of Rome with their superior cannons. It is here that Cesare perpetrates he great bluff in which he creates look alike Cannon which he arms the walls of the city and then rides out to parley with the King and Sforza to persuade them to by pass the city which they do. Relations between Lucrezia and her father reach a new low when she learns of her death of her lover and persuades her father to give the young man a Christian burial which he performs.

In Stray Dogs

the celebrations of the retreat of the French are marred when Cesare discovers nuns raped and slaughters by a group of front line fighters led by Giovanni Sforza and ruthless revenge becomes his main objective. Cardinal Sforza petitions the Pope to unite Italy against the French so the Pope and his son with the Cardinal go North leaving Lucrezia in charge of Rome. A foretaste of what is to come. She uses the opportunity to find out about the city and its poor and the way the Cardinals misusing their position, using brothels and directs funds to enhance their positions and families. With the help of Court ladies she plots to tackle the abuses of power blackmailing the Cardinals into providing funds.

With the defeat of the French the series then moves to deal with he threat posed by Savonarola and Caterina Sforza with the Borgia family unaware of the plot developing to poison the Pope by replacing his food and drink taster. The role of Girolamo Savonarola 1452 to 1498 is faithfully recorded although from portraits he was a lean man compared to the plump performance of Fiore. Savonarola could be described as a Christian fundamentalist and or puritan who set about preaching against the excess of the Medici family and Florence and persuaded the citizens to drive them out, with the mob killing those who refused conform to the new order with his longer term and easy target the Borgias. Florence was to become the new Jerusalem and centre for Christian renewal and rebirth. He refused to join or support Pope Alexander’s Holy league against he French.

As a young man he had taken the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience of the Dominican order and almost as soon as he was educated he commenced to teach ethics, logic, philosophy and government and from this he became a travelling preacher seeking reform until in 1490 he was brought back to Florence where he commenced to make his criticisms of the of powerful ruling classes in Italy, particular the Papacy. He had his critics and in the series Cesare Borgia joins forces with Machiavelli in attempting to expose the limitation of man described as incompetent, ill prepared and an unarmed prophet in his great work of the black art of powers, The Prince, which I have a copy as well as a biography on its author. In the series the Pope visits Florence and discusses the threat poses by Savaronola with the Medici Family and Machiavelli, who subsequently assist Cesare with info and advice.

The suggestion is that the Pope first used Savonarola as a means of getting rid of the power of the Medici and their banking success and then developing a plan to get rid of the prophet when he refused to accept the overall authority of his Holiness. He denounces him and then excommunicates and eventually the man is brought to Rome tried, and burned. With the help of Machiavelli Cesare persuades the cleric to accept a test of fire himself after witnessing the burning of a woman as witch because she dared to disagree with the orthodoxy being enforced by the mob. Convinced of his righteousness Savonarola agrees but when he is forced to back from the flame the mob realises he is human and not a God and turn away from him enabling the Borgias to deal with him without an insurrection.

It is in the fifth episode of the 10 The Choice that the series gathers a momentum with Cesare sent to persuade the Sforza to also yield their allegiance to him. He tells Caterina she must come to Rome and kneel to his father or she will be brought in chains to him. When she refuses he seizes the opportunity to kill her brother the husband of Lucrezia, carrying out his promise to bring the heart of the man to her for the way he treated her. He also has a brief affair with Caterina although after killing her brother he has to take flight. This episode also shows Savonarola giving his support to those planning to assassinate the Pope although I do not think this is based on fact.

In Day of Ashes we learn how Alexander is to be assassinated as a pure boy is chosen to be trained. He is persuaded to take the very poison, cantarella which Della Rovere had survived and he persuades the young man to take repeated doses to establish immunity. It also at this point that the rivalry between the two sons begins to change into open resentment and conflict. From the outset Cesare was the warrior with brains who never wanted to be a priest, assassin or diplomat. His brother on the other wanted to be the warrior, to exploit the position and power gained from his father and to seek pleasure wherever it could found.

He had been sent off to Spain and on the return is again put in charge of the Papal army and using some of the money stolen from the Medici who tried to take abroad to hide the Pope agreed he should take the city of Caterina Sforza in the 7^th episode the Siege of Forli. he captures her son, tortures the boy and threatens to the kill the young man if she does not yield. She proclaims that she will produce more sons but will not yield. She also has arranged for assistance and in the subsequent battle Juan is wounded and runs off believing that his hostage has been killed and there is no one to reveal the truth of what happened.

Cesare gains knowledge of what happens and also the boy who survives. He releases the boy to his mother as a gesture seeking peace and then ensures that his father learns he truth of his other sons attempt deception. Juan is wracked with pain from his injury and has been diagnosed with syphilis

When Cesare admitted to his father that he had killed Lucrezia’s former husband, Alexander determined that he would marry his daughter once more to achieve a new alliance. This time he would leave his daughter to make the choice guided by her mother ands a succession of suitors arrived in Rome and in Truth and Lies her mother advises that she should marry one suitor because of his position and use to the family while taking his artist brother as her lover who is her preference. In World of Wonders having slept with the brother before any wedding the betrothed announces to the Pope that he cannot go ahead with the marriage because his brother wants to marry the girl. Both leave Rome. Juan takes opium to relieve his pain. Faced with the deteriorating behaviour of the brother who insist on clinging to his position as head of the Papal army Cesare and his aide track him to the opium den and lure him to a bridge where he is killed and dumped into the river

In the final episode of series Savonarola is tortured into a confession which he refuses so one is forged and he is then burned at the stake. When Juan body is discovered the Pope refuses to sanction his burial until the killer is found and this prompts Cesare into confessing his guilt and pleads for forgiveness. Alexander is full of remorse at he way he treated both his son and buries Juan in the grounds with his bare hands saying mass over him. Meanwhile Cesare is hold a dance party to mark the decision of Lucrezia who has accepted a suitor but makes he comments about dancing on the grave her brother. As father and his remaining son talk over what has happened they take wine which has been poisoned and the carefully planted new taster, after the trusted Cardinal with the task has been murdered, appears to die along with the Pope but we are left with the uncertainty and I was struck with the similarity between this series ending and that of George Gently covered yesterday.

Gorge Gently episodes 2 to 4 2012 season

I was more impressed by The Lost Child, the third of he four George Gently’s which deals with adoption and parenthood and where I have knowledge of the position of Adoption Agencies at this time, dominated in the North East by those managed for the Church of England and the Catholic Church in the North East, both locked in tradition but nevertheless providing a high quality service.

In this episode a child is snatched from its home while cared for by the father turns out to have been adopted thus focussing on a society which appears to have run by one woman (Mrs Dunwoody played by the excellent Alison Steadman) without the usual committee and other controlling influences although in fairness the organising sector/ director could be a powerful person if they were long standing and respected member of the community. The child is eventually recovered but returned to its single parent mother and not the couple.

For a time suspicion about the fate of the baby had focussed on the adopting father because he had not wanted a child so late in their married lives and had insisted on the girl rather than a twin brother because a girl would mean his role would less than that with a son. Suspicion then rightly falls on the young man who had been meeting his wife in secret but he turns out to be the first child of the woman, a son who she had placed for adoption when the father, the subsequent husband had gone to war and it appeared would not be returning. The odd aspect here is how the young man was able to trace his mother because it was not until 1975 that adopted people when aged 18 years could commence to locate their natural parents.

The young man had wanted to be introduced to his father but the mother played by the brilliant actress Helen Baxendale had been worried at the implications of her decision. The young man is accidentally killed from a blow struck by the Sergeant when attempting to arrest him and rescue the baby.

The episode provides the opportunity to explore Bacchus the parent now that his wife had divorced him and living with a new partner and the relationship that he has with his father, with the brutal and telling sentence (You were never much of as a son, but you are a spectacularly useless dad). However after the death he is able to turn to his father for solace.

For Gently his attention is on the adoption society and the way it is run forcing the mothers to agree to adoption and taking sums from prospective couples as voluntary charitable donations. An earlier sub story is that the husband had an affair and nearly, left his wife at one point and the role of an assistant at the hone who had been a young mother forced to give up a child and now lives with the mother of the twins placed for adoption and who blows the whistle on her employer.

The fourth and possible the last of Gently series, although having moved the filming to Northumbria it is difficult to accept this is so. In Gently in the Cathedral his history within the Metropolitan Police comes back to haunt him when he left having accused several colleagues of being career criminals. This is now well documented and covered particularly in the series Our Friends in the North. I became aware of the situation through a young former constable I knew who moved to the North East because of the situation in London. However it is the fact that he has put away a Northern based criminal for ten years that is the catalyst which leads to a young policeman being murdered and dressed as suicide because of alleged corruption because he came across the getting rid of a London based detective who had come north to investigate a criminal racket with ties between London and the North East.

The imprisoned man gains his freedom when evidence is first provided that Gently had falsified evidence to convict and that he is corrupt and then implicated in the death of the London detective when a weapon found at his home is that used to kill the undercover man and there is also a link between the constable who is said to have committed suicide and Gently. The case is so strong that Gently is placed in prison and then an attempt made on his life after his release achieved by the female Defence Counsel who got the villain released who then provides a refuge for Gently after he is wounded and it is her factotum who perishes to the assassins bullet. There is the suggestion of a serious relationship between her and Gently if he survives the challenges facing him

What of Sergeant Bacchus in all this? He is already on his way to the Met as he thinks when he is invited to attend an interview. He is told that Gently stopped his previous efforts by a reference which said he was too impressionable, fearing he would become corrupted by the evil forces there.

When he goes to London he finds that there is no job yet and that they wanted him to be the inside man on the team to get Gently. The episode provides an opportunity for the former Morse Detective Sergeant Lewis, now Inspector Lewes, and Kevin Whately to have an important role as a man forced out of the Met into retirement because of his alleged concerns about corruption and who now also lives in the North in retirement. He calls on Gently to give support and leave him a gun for self protection. He is therefore the man to fit him for the murder and for corruption Gently realises he has misjudged the man when he visits and finds that he is living in a palatial home with staff. Later he learns it is Wheatley who the man pulling all the strings once he realised the London detective is on to him.

Gently goes on the run and the London team press Bacchus who although begins to have doubts about the situation into revealing where Gently could be hiding out. This is with his former wife and her family and his suspicion and that that of the London team appears confirmed when they find she is leaving her home with lots of food and other supplies. The family are in fact going on holiday to rented property. The second idea is the widow of the framed policeman who had discovered the disposing of the body of the London detective. Gently has been camping rough nearby and coming to her home in Northumberland for supplies.

It is here there the first of two confrontations when Bacchus and one of the London team realise that their leader and another are the villains and responsible for the murder of their colleagues as well as framing George. There is a shoot out in which the London men are all killed and Gently leaves Bacchus unarmed to clear up the mess while he goes off after the villain who framed him, still concerned at the loyalty and potential behaviour of his sergeant.

Calling at the hotel where the man he is staying who he believes is in charge of developments he is given a message to meet in the Cathedral in Durham City. Bacchus also arrives at the hotel unarmed and both his arrival alone and unarmed is a possible flaw in the storyline although another view is that he wants to make amends for his previous doubts and giving assistance to villains within the police force. He checks the room and finds the villain shot in the end. We the audience know that the real villain, the boss, is the former Detective who posed as his friend and ally, something I suspected early on, especially when having said he would walk all the way with George he was immediately absent when his trap was sprung.

　

There is an extraordinary finale in which Whately uses a high power riffle to shoot at George in the Cathedral with bullets sprayed into objects of art and religious icons. The episodes and series ends with all three appearing mortally wounded with Bacchus telling George he was on his side and George apologising for leaving him without a gun.

　

Who Do You Think You are Alex Kingston September 2012

I also enjoyed last nights Who you think you are with Alex Kingston. Just about to celebrate her 50^th birthday she remains a sexually attractive woman who divided herself as going through a period of instability in her life diving time between the UK and the USA. She is separated from her second husband with whom they have a daughter who lives in the US and she was previously married to Ralph Fiennes the classical actor with whom they lives for ten years since student fays before marriage. He left her for the Francesca Annis another heavenly creature who I would say is similar to Kingston in terms of her physical appearance and performance persona. She is reported to have taken the break up of their marriage badly.

She has never made the top as a film actress and is mostly known for TV roles with ER in the States and twelve Dr Who appearances and counting here with a long range of other TV series including the remake of Upstairs and Downstairs this years Marchlands 2011, Law and Order and Hope Springs 2009, The Knock in 1996 and 4 episodes of the Bill in 1988. We were back to World War and Passechendaele for the first investigation for a great grandfather a photographer who started as a magic lantern slide maker, She did not know what a magic lantern was which I found extraordinary given her age. There was a moving moment when she was able first read a brief account of the death of the relative in a book about the role of Engineers in relation to detecting the location of enemy guns by recording the sound waves on film and later identifying the death in the official record of the engagement although his individual military papers is one of the hundreds of thousands lost through World War II bombing

However it was the second investigation which as she admitted established both the Jewishness of part of her background and also the whore. Her words I emphasise. An early relative was widowed young in the early 1900 around 1824 with four children under 10 years and was found in a census running a lodging house in a row of lodging houses all run by single woman as owner occupiers in an era where all the property of a married woman belonged to her husband. The suggestions was therefore these lodging houses were of ill repute. There were two newsprint items which indicated this was so when early on she was brought to magistrates and found guilty for keep a lewd house and then there was suicide by poisoning which referred to a property owned by her but where she was not mentioned.

Her Will revealed that she owned a large number of properties which she left in trust to her grand daughter thus preventing them going to her son who sounds a wastrel or to any future husband of the daughter. That she grown from being a widow without pension to owning the property suggests the success of her occupation and that by also moving up in terms of location she may have achieved protect via her clients and which accounted that she was not referred to in the later incident. This tickled Kingston pink rather than the red of her golden red curls

　

Romanzo Criminale Series 2 episodes 1 and 2

I made the mistake of watching the first episodes of the second series of Romanzo Criminale without refreshing my memory about the first which was developed after the successful 2005 film.

The fictitious crime drama series does follow actual events in Rome

’s crime history and the role of corrupt politicians. The Crime gang whose history is featured in the two series was in fact a combination of two gangs of young men who dreamed of becoming big time and eventually controlled drug distribution throughout Rome, leading the high life of fast cars and gambling but also attempt to establish themselves through financial investments.

The first series ended with the leader of the combined group known as Lebanese who was rejected by his mother because of his criminality and is gunned down by two brothers, why I cannot remember. The first two episodes deal with the aftermath of the killing. Towards the end of series Lebanese had become wild and unstable and with the second in command attempting to go straight because of a serious relationship with a young woman who had previously been the girl friend of his brother who he had worked hard to keep in college and out of trouble. The impact of the girl turning to Freddo led the brother to dropping out of higher education and taking drugs.

The death of Leban and the instinctive need for revenge results in Freddo abandoning plans to leave Rome with Roberta and to become unofficial leader. The gang are not members of the Mafia but have an arrangement as they have with right wing political gigues and their placed men in position of power in the police and judiciary. They want to give authority to Dandi, a young man with a liking for fine things especially Patrizia originally a high class beautiful whore but now runs a whore house for him with the help of her male gay companion

The complication is that the young police detective Commissario Scialoja has a grand passion for her and she had shown interest in him. His hands are not clean and is regarded as a Communist sympathizer because his sister was part of a communist action group and who arranged to leave Italy when she was about to be arrested.

In these two second series episodes the vultures gather over what appears the breaking up if the gang, They kill one man for boasting he was responsible for the Libanese’s death and then one of the two brothers thought to be responsible.

The Commissioner then picks up Freddo’s brother and holds him in jail knowing that there will be an attempt to get to him by enemies of the Freddo and that Freddo will be forced into action. Freddo’s attempts to protect his brother in jail while he gets his lawyer to seek the release fails and the young man is beaten up and susceptible to pressure from the Commissioner and agrees to wear a wire and attempt to trap his brother. This does not work and Freddo sends his brother packing.

Freddo is also at sixes and sevens with Roberto infuriating her when he abandon the trip away but she then gives him alibi for the killing of one of the brother thought responsible for Libanese. Later when she appears to waiver he sends her away knowing what he has to and the likely implications, especially with the Commissioner hot on his trail.

The second series opened with a flash back to how Libanese and two other formed the nucleus of their gang as boys. There is anger when they discovers that Libanese’s cars have gone and when they discover they have been taken by his father he is given the opportunity to save himself not by getting back the expensive ones but the Mini which they used in the early days. This is then pushed down a mountainside so that no one else can use the vehicle.

They also insist on the immediate liquidation of his assets in order to provide a funeral fit for a king but his mother rejects the money and one of his closest friends steals the coffin which he places in the best available so he and the other have a wake. They do this with special food and drink before returning the coffin to the mother and attending the formal funeral where the Commissioner also attends.

The police take the other brother to stop him being killed by the group and to test for evidence of his guilt but the secret power group delay returning the findings but let Freddo see a copy in order to enable the group to get their revenge and settle things. Freddo then agrees that Dandi as the driver and two other should undertake the assassination of the other brother once he is released from custody. When this starts to go wrong Dandi freezes from putting himself in the firing line to pick up the under fire other two one of whom is wounded. Dandi returns to Patrizia to lick his wounds having been approached to take over the gang by other interests. However he may not have bargained that one of the two others getting away by taking a hostage.

Freddo also tracks down to person who sold the brother the drugs and finds that she is a feisty female who points out the brother was an established addict in need and that she is best local distributor than all the others. Freddo’s makes enquiries and puts her in charge of the area previously managed by the Libanese much to the anger of another of the hangs with whom the Roman group had previous problems.

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

Hillsborough the Truth, September 2012

Channel Five Live special on Hillsborough the Truth.

This was the powerful and emotional rendering case against the police and ambulance service over the failure to deal with the situation which emerged leading to 41 individuals who could have survived with the proper attention dying. There was also the organised cover up by senior officers of the police action on the day involving the altering of police statements wither by threats or without their knowledge. The calls for a new Inquest and criminal proceedings grows louder. There were scenes of the present Liverpool away supporters visiting Sunderland where the crowd response was disappointing. I guess the hone side without wins for nearly a dozen games did not want too much sympathy for the visitors although sharing in their anger and concern about what had been revealed. A major contributor was the doctor who was present with his sons now Professor John Ashton and who clearly is one of the important behind the scenes figures pressing for truth and justice over the past two decades.

The killing of two police women becomes more and more murky as the man being hidden at the house was wanted re murders and on police bail because the evidence was not available to hold him in custody to be charged, so why did they initiate the call which led to two unarmed policewomen attending. This has brought sympathy to the police again after Hillsborough revelations and the way the policeman who killed the news vendors has been let pensioned off after the criminal trial jury appears to have been fixed in the way the prosecution service handled the case.

Who do you think you are? 2012 series part one

Having thought I had listed all there was to experience, remember and write about before the London trip last Friday I had forgotten about one of the most engaging series on the BBC which commenced a month ago Who do you think you are? I find this oversight extraordinary given the amount of work undertaken since 1999 to discover the background of the family of my mother who lived for 100 years and of my father, both born in Gibraltar, one of a Wiltshire, Spanish and Italian ancestry and the other Maltese. The other aspect is that when the series was an advertised I noted that the majority of the personalities involved were people I knew about and admired.

This was very true Wednesday week when the programme Annie Lennox took precedence over the Paralympics. Annie is known first for her work as a singer with the Eurhythmics a duo with Dave Stewart from Sunderland and then as an International humanitarian particularly concerned with AIDS becoming a UNESCO ambassador and with poverty and human rights in general.

Annie set out to discover about the grandfather she knew only as a little girl but where she had established a good connection remembering all her life to date that he had caught and cooked for her a fresh salmon. There was an associated issue that he had been illegitimate. Annie comes from Aberdeen and the first surprise was that her grandfather had worked as a game keeper/Gillie on the Balmoral estate and because of this the BBC arranged for her to visit to the castle and speak with a specialist with access to the castle and its grounds. She discovered that there is a record of his employment on the estate as there is of his wife who also worked in the house. There is record that as a young man he was one of those chosen to dance with the Queen’s mother at the Gillies’ ball when she was in residence.

　

The grand father was legitimate but it was his father who had been brought up with his single parent mother. While I thought I had paid close attention I am now confused about the two branches of the family she explored although I remember the details of one instance.

This was of a young woman who grew up in the town of Banff on the coast and who was summoned before the elders of the Kirk to explain her immorality in giving birth to a child outside of marriage. Eight years later she had appeared before the same group of men again, although on this occasion she volunteered the appearance to try an obtain justice from a man who had promised marriage disclosed to other members of the family but had gone off when the pregnancy was realised. She had later lived on her own in an isolated cottage with a beautiful Grampian vista keeping poultry until her eighties and becoming eligible for a state pension when it was introduced a couple of years before her death.

I believe the other single parent situation involved the grandmother’s branch of the family and was brought up in a town close to Aberdeen. The story begins with a young woman who has a child by a local solicitor who appears to have become engaged a short while before her child was born. This is where my memory is hazy but my present understanding is that when the mother died the child was placed in care and with the sister of the solicitor. The child appears to have stayed for a few years but when she was 10 years the woman returned the girl to the parish because she was no longer of use and the girl was then placed in lodgings working at large flax making factory the ruins of the building still in existence and was visited by Annie in the programme.

The programme provided insights into Victorian rural and town poverty with Annie concluding that both were horrible but which perhaps explains aspect of her own approach to life and interests.

There was a similar connecting link between present day and past personalities in the programme on the life of Patrick Stewart, now Sir Patrick, who became internationally known from his work at Captain Piccard in the follow up TV series to the original Star Trek and subsequent films and then the X Men series of films. In fact Patrick has remained a major classical actor.

It was evident from the outset that Patrick and his older brother had found their father very difficult with Patrick meeting him effectively on this return from World War II having before this had wonderful memories of his relationship with his mother and older brother. The importance of the programme was the level of the depth into his father’s character and the cause of his behaviour which changed his perception regretting that this knowledge had come to him and to his brother after the death of their father and mother.

His father had run off and joined the army when his brother was born and his mother had to summon his father to court to obtain maintenance being awarded ten shillings a week. His father had joined the military police and only later married his mother. When World War II was declared he had been called up as a reservist and attached to a support regiment of men who were given the minimum of training, so as an experienced soldier he was given responsibility for helping and organising other men. He was sent to France with expeditionary force to provide manual work support behind the front lines but was caught in the German advance into France when the Panzer division came from the south and attacked Abbeville raising the town to the ground with aerial as well as tank bombardment. The train which they been travelling in was stopped and they moved into nearby fields where they witnessed the attack on the town and they then had experienced the plight of the refugees and the way German planes had slaughtered men women and children as they attempted to escape the fighting. Patrick is shown a newspaper article revealing that his father had suffered shell shock on returning home. Patrick had worked as a cub reporter for the same newspaper without previous knowledge of the article.

At the age of 38 his father has volunteered for the new Para 2 regiment and had dropped in the South of France in advance of the allied assault from the sea. His role had been to defend the HQ team and also to take charge of surrendering German prisoners. What was considered unusual and commendable is that he had volunteered at age when most would have looked for role which did not involve such danger. Para 2 was also involved in the ill fated Anaheim drop when a large number were killed, injured or captured. His father had been promoted to the rank of Sergeant Major and was asked to take responsibility for rebuilding the regiment with men as well as equipment where it is reported he was regarded as a father figure with pastoral responsibilities.

The background previously unknown to Stewart enabled him to reappraise his father. He then relayed the information to his brother who indicated he would need time to reflect on what had been learned.

George Wallace

was only known to me through being a judge in the Master Chef programmes and from this I knew he had been greengrocer who now runs his own restaurant. His interest was his great grandfather who had abandoned his wife and children including his grandfather and therefore his impression of the man was not favourable so he wanted to find out the circumstances. What he discovered significantly changed his understanding and feelings. He found that the mans wife had been guilty of infidelity and that the man experienced a series of tragedies in his life. There was a similar story relating to his great grand mother which involved a placement in an institution. I was interested by the aspect that the three times married celebrity had such an interest in the impact of a man who was alleged to have left his wife and child.

Samantha Womack

featured in the first episode, a minor actress in the great history of actressing, famed for her role Ronnie Mitchell in Eastenders. I was put off by her girlish wonderment which meant that I paid less attention although the subjects were of interest although no longer remembered.

This brings me to someone else who again I regarded as a minor personality Hugh Dennis and although the subject of last night’s programme was a well trodden track along the reality of the First World War, the story of his great grandparents experience was of interest.

I am struck by the reported comment of Hugh’s first wife that he was boring, restrained and unexciting. I see what she meant although this will be viewed by many people as responsible maturity.

He followed the lives of two grant parents, possibly great grandparents. The first on the paternal side was the more interesting in the son of a miner, gained a place at a grammar school and went on to Officer training for six months at Cambridge University before landing in France a couple of months before the war ended before being wounded out. His maternal relative had entered the Great War early on with the first tasks burying the dead at what is now a memorial cemetery, followed by involvement in Ypres and Passechendaele and then in remaining in control of hill on the basis of the order of no retreat in which he was one of nine who survived and where from the regiment three quarters had perished or become badly injured. Neither man had talked of their experiences with latter never happier working in the garden.

George Gently

I have written about the first episode of the George Gently new series recently, an episode which engaged and was well constructed. Last night I looked forward to viewing the subsequent episode on the BBCi player and was disappointed at the time although on the reflection this was not justified. The subject was well worn, the ability of the aristocracy and those with power to protect themselves. In this instance it was Northumbrian aristos where the Lady of the manor insisted on being addressed as her Ladyship but was an over protective slut prepared to do anything to protect her son and the family good name. She demonstrated contempt for everyone else including her husband and the dead young woman who had drowned in one of the eight or was it nine cars on the estate and used by those who worked there with keys left in the ignition. The car had gone off the road and the girl had been trapped by a leg unable to get out of the vehicle as the water rose. The main plot issue concerned who had been in the car with the girl and then walked away.

However from my viewpoint the issue was the behaviour of the Sergeant who spouted all the anti aristo prejudices of the post war period, in this instance with justification as twice before he had arrested the son for drunk driving and the case had never got to court because of the influence of the family with the authorities. In this instance an assistant Chief Constable intervened insisting on being in attendance while the son with his mother was interviewed and refusing to allow the Sergeant to participate in the questioning. However the Sergeant later placed a smear of the special blood type of the young man on the vehicle which led to the death of the girl in order to get justice. He was wrong of course both in his actions and in the facts although at first the son appeared the prime suspect because of nasty knock on his forehead.

The anti aristos theme was reinforced by the father of the dead girl who has a job on the estate after losing his job as a pitman and who was full of invective with a background of supporting Eileen Wilkinson and the Jarrow march the one time pride of Jarrow but where local politicians have worked hard to bring the community into the contemporary world in terms of jobs and living standards. There is a great work of art about the march outside the large supermarket although I suspect the nasty smell from the local chemical works still affects residents from time to time as it did when I lived there for a short period after arriving on Tyneside.

The dead girl sang folk protest songs and played the violin, now lived in London where it emerged she had a new boyfriend thus eliminating the young man of the house and another young man on the estate who was being groomed for political stardoom in the Tory Party through a liaison with her ladyship. The girl was left of the left and it when the writer attempts to enter the world of the revolutionaries and politicos that scripts never ring quite true although they come close.

And the truth in this instance? First the son of the house is gay and the product of mother’s tendency to take her pleasure where it can be found. She smothered and controlled the boy who had been persuaded to go to London with the girl to break free from the woman leading to the row after he had said he would drive her in his own car. When her Ladyship stopped the boy leaving it was his Lordship who had followed to drive the girl to catch a coach and they had stopped to talk and he had discovered that he had never recovered from the loss of his first wife, having little in common with his second other than protecting the family interest. He had the driven too fast and after the accident but he had held her hand when unable to free the girl until she drowned. There was a lot more of twists and red herrings and although the Lordship ended in a police cell and son died committing suicide and Sergeant got a reprimand I still feel that the episode failed to measure up and remained a fabrication rather than an honest portrayal of the people and their predicaments.

There was one great truth which came from the lines of Martin Shaw who told the Sergeant with all the benefits of hindsight that the Aristocrats would not longer directly exert the power they once had but they would equip a new generation to carry forward their values. Even in this respect I believe things have not changed to the extent suggested. I had one experience of assessing an application for a grant where it was arranged for me to meet the Committee at a country hotel and where while I waited there was great excitement expressed by hotel staff about who was at the meeting. It was a member of one of the great families of England, someone in tune with the times a million miles from the image presented in the programme; it was the people who maintained the sense of awe, respect and deference. It is the curious aspect about the old and the new English, more than the Scots, the Irish and the Welsh, I believe, which is demonstrated by the support not just for the Queen and her Jubilee, or the patriotic flag waving at the Olympic and Paralympic games but by the resistance to abolishing the House of Lords as we now know it, or renaming the Order of the British Empire something else. If this happens such as the Order of Excellence as proposed by one Commons Committee then the issue of Precedence involved will have to be tackled including the use of Sir and Lady etc. I do not expect to see fundamental change during my lifetime.