1275 The Road to Guantanamo and Mexican artists Freda and Diego

Tuesday morning February 5th was devoted to writing about the experience of the Atom and about other aspects of the previous day. I very much wanted to begin the research and learning but resisted, so that after a lunch of rolls with lettuce and tomato, I concentrated on writing the seventeen pages of text to accompany the 116 photographs of my mother during her period in residential care. I defiantly left the TV, the radio and Gib radio turned off throughout the day. The work was completed just after six pm and I was ready for an early evening meal although I had made a butterscotch whip which was eaten over period of an hour at tea time, too much and too sweet. The latest DVDs had arrived belatedly but I first checked what was on TV and Bingo and at six thirty there was a Spanish language film about the life and loves of Freda Kathlo and her relationship with Diego Rivera and I switched into another state of WOW, rushing for a glass of red, a full one to finish the decanter as I had messed up and the cork had gone within the bottle, some olives and lots of dry crackers, and which failed to prevent me becoming quite heady on one full glass of wine.

Although I had and read the biography of Kathlo, looked at a books of photos of the pictures, watched the film in theatre and on DVD, and a subsequent documentary, and undertake a mini work project in which I insert my feet and an index finger upon some of her work in a way I believed she would have appreciated, it was only after watching this Spanish language documentary that I felt I had experienced the real person, partly because of contemporary footage and partly because of contributions from family and friends, and with extracts from her diary. The film's was also matter of fact about the politics and sexual interests of couple and the contradictions in which, she had relationships with more men than women with Diego Ok about the women, but not the men, and then she found it difficult to accept when he had a relationship with her sister. All her paintings reflect sadness, which may have just arisen because of the accident and the subsequent pain she experienced through the rest of her comparatively short life or it may have been something deeper in terms of what she felt about her life and the world she experienced. The film also used extracts from her diary which may provide the answers. I wish I was able to read in the Spanish. The film also reminded something I had forgotten is that she died quickly after she attended her first public exhibition of work and the contrast between her size and that of Diego. Putting to one side their politics and involvement with Trotsky the couple remain remarkable Mexicans as well as creative artists of significance and my affinity with her was reinforced. I must begin to work in oils before this months ends.
After an excellent fluffy omelette with prawns I decided to view the first of two DVDs that had arrived in the post. The Road to Guantanamo was not a film about which I had read anything before or viewed when it was shown on TV in a simultaneous release with in theatre and on DVD, I decided to view before doing any internet searching. That it partly shot in Iran underlines the propaganda intentions of the film, at the end of which I had come to two firm conclusions

The first issue is whether the portrayal of the treatment in Afghanistan after the three young men from Birmingham were captured by special forces among armed Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces and then at the initial and subsequent detention centre at Guantanamo in Cuba was an accurate and balanced picture of how they were treated? Everything I know about what happens in such situations from my own experience of prison in the early 1960's when we were unofficially regarded as political prisoners and treated with understandable suspicion and some hostility because it became known that we could leave at any time just by agreeing not to participate in further illegal activity, from what happened in Vietnam, especially to the captured USA service men and what has been revealed about the treatment of prisoners and some non combatants in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars against Terrorism confirms that although the film is biased it is also accurate. I subsequently learnt that the three who young men issued a report about their experience upon which the film is based.

However my reaction to this aspect of the film is very different from what its authors and promoters would like. When I went to prison, I chose to do so and I expected to have a difficult time from some prisoner officers and some prisoners. And I have never complained or made an issue about that. It was prison and the only way to avoid the experience is not to do anything which could result in being in prison. I was and remain concerned about situation where despite a judicial system in a democracy, innocent people of specific crimes, and sometimes of any crimes, are convicted and are sent to prison, and there is evidence that this happens more frequently in the USA than the UK. I was also concerned in the 1960's and chaired a group of ex prisoners who produced 100 suggestions for improvements to the system which some sections of the media were sympathetic, as was the Home Office, who implemented many of the individual recommendations, because our purpose was to make the system more effective. Because of the approach I took as an activist, and how I behaved in and immediately after prison, that the Home assisted me to become a qualified child care officer, and which probably also contributed to the social service Minister approving my appointment as a local authority chief officer. I have never been squeamish about the physical and mental torturing of prisoners, after all war is horrific and bloody and the dropping of a bomb which indiscriminately mutilates, or mutilating someone with a rocket or hand grenade, an explosive bullet or sticking a bayonet into their guts is horrific and bloody and more people die than survive which is not what happened to those taken to Guantanamo. My objection is two fold. Torturing removes any moral superiority and worse still it is not usually effective in terms of gaining reliable information, in achieving a conviction in courts of law, in maintain public support for the war involvement and in persuading the enemy to surrender. As with capital punishment, and conventional imprisonment it will be disastrous if it used on those who are not guilty of what they are being accused of.

The film attempts to show that the four young men went to Pakistan for a wedding of one of them, went into Afghanistan as voluntary helpers, not realising that the war was imminent and then found themselves among armed Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters. Before reading the film reviews and finding out what else was known about the three from the internet who were captured, nothing is known about the fourth after it is alleged the bus left him behind when he went to the toilet at a stop in the journey, I found their explanation preposterous. They claim in the film that they decided to visit Taliban controlled Afghanistan where it was known Al Qaeda and Bin Laden were operating to give help to the people because no one with whom who they had spoken in Pakistan expected the allies to bomb or invade. At least one was petty criminal with a police record and there is no evidence that they had been involved in voluntary work before and the purpose of the their trip was for one to get married. They were at one of end of the country when the bombing started so instead of making their way immediately out they went to the other and their claim that when they accept a lift, it was to get out of the country rather than be taken into the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighting heartland was ludicrous and I am astonished that so many of the USA internet reviewers were taken in. For once I was pleased to see that my suspicions and reactions were subsequently confirmed as one fo the three has admitted, following his release and the making of the film that the information given by the USA government at their release is accurate. He admits that while in Afghanistan he was taken to a terrorist training camp and he learnt how to handle weapons and to use an AK47. What is probably true that in the absence of any admission or supporting evidence the investigating and interrogating authorities attempting to find that evidence the mistake was to accuse them of being in a photograph of young men addressed by Bin laden at a time where there was evidence they were in England. It is also likely that they were previously trained or part of an activist network in the UK and that they got carried away when visiting Pakistan and went off to see what the situation was for themselves without the intention of becoming fighters or terrorists. This is all speculation by the standards which I set before taking firm positions and that the common sense approach should have been for the British subjects whp were captured in Afghanistan to have been handed over to the British forces and held as prisoners of war until their position could be established under British law in wartime conditions, taking account of what happened when we interned in Northern Island. The complicated nature of the situation and that the law of unintended consequences always applies is demonstrated by the fact that one of the three has a common first and second name, the same name as Pakistani international cricketer, It is also the same name held by a USA citizen and business and used to travelling by air within the USA and who then found that he was on the list o named individuals banned from air travel. Time and time again he was not allowed to board his first choice flight and held for questioning until his identity could be confirmed. It could be argued that there ought to have some system to enable him to be immediately checked and cleared, but then when thought is given I cannot work out how this could not be done without time being taken to check out the appearance and particulars of the individual on each occasion.

1273 55 Days in Peking, Cottage to let, Alive Johnny Cash, Paula Abdul and Boy George

Juggling experiences is a confessed weakness in which there is the risk of missing much in the attempt not to miss anything. This afternoon, after watching a good Derby game between Newcastle and Middlesbrough, ending for the fourth time in succession as a draw, and following a disappointing and losing performance by Sunderland at Liverpool yesterday evening, I was not in the mood to also watch the interesting game between Fulham, with a new manager and a number of new signings deep in relegation, against Aston Villa whose renaissance has enabled them to complete for a place in the Champions League. Although I watched what was happening for a minutes or so from time to time, I gave greater attention to three other programmes overlapping. This was a mistake because I missed a splendid end of game fight back by Fulham to win by 2 goals to 1. I have always had soft spot for Fulham from the days Jimmy Hill, to Kevin Keegan and the ongoing commitment of its owner. However I wanted Aston Villa to win and bring another force to the Top Table, having great admiration of Martin O'Neill and concern that the more Fulham progress, the more Sunderland is at risk of relegation with the others. It was also not a mistake because I also enjoyed the other programmes watched and which overlapped each other. Life is often like this, for me.


The first programme was a war time spy adventure which I have seen before and remembered the plot, the chief villain played by John Mills of all people, as if to reinforce the point that in war, the devil wears many guises, a point which can also be made for the peace. The film marked the debut of George Cole as a worldly child just in his teens whose interest and knowledge of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes proves invaluable in this 1940 play made into a film to get over the message that careless talk costs lives. The goodies included Alistair Sim, Michael Wilding and Leslie Banks.

The Title was Cottage to Let, and theoretically located in Scotland. For two hours and thirty minutes plus advertising breaks an alterative viewing was another showing of 55 days in Peking, based on a true event when the foreign powers in the then named capital of China, Peking, held out against an attempt to free China from their involvement for fifty five days until a relief forces of some 20000 arrived in the city, The film stared Charlton Heston as the heroic lead soldier m who misses out on love but has a good heart when he adopts the orphaned Chinese daughter of a comrade at the end of the film after David Niven as the British Ambassador and organising leaders of the foreign delegations and refused to flee the city and defended the compound against the Boxer hoards led by a Prince against the alleged opposition of the military leader, persuading the Dowager Empress of China, played by Flora Robson that fighting and defeat would be better than continuation domination by outsiders. Ava Gardener, a Russian Baroness provides the femme fatal interest who sells her jewels to provide medical supplies for the injured and fresh produce for the children during the 55 days of siege before an allied force reaches the city. The film was shot near Madrid and employed most of the Chinese living in Spain plus others from other parts of Europe.


The Boxers were an anti imperialist and ant foreign peasant based movement in Northern China, who are said to have slaughtered thousands of Chinese who had become Catholics as well as some two hundred missionaries, predominantly Protestant, and another two hundred other non Chinese in the city. The defeat of the rebellion led to the end of Qing dynasty and became the catalyst for events which led to development of Communism. The rebellion was put down by the combined force of eight nations using 51 warships some 55000 troop and marines with Japan supplying 20000, Russia 12000, and Britain 10000, France and the USA just over 3000 each a differential overlooked by this Hollywood production. The toll was considerable on both sides, with Wikipedia giving precise figures of 48 Catholic Missionaries and 18000 Chinese Catholics and 182 Protestant Missionaries and 500 Chinese Protestants. 50000 Chinese citizens were accused of being Boxers and killed by the foreign powers. Over the past century the Boxers have become a mythological force in which whoever is in power in China has ensured that the history books provide one version of the events. The power and role of the internet has provided a challenge as well as the gradual opening of China to capitalist influences. It is reported that in 2006, a supplement to the China Youth Daily ran into problems with the authorities because an article claimed that history textbooks were not giving appropriate attention to the atrocities committed by the Boxers. Of course the slanting of history books, especially those taught in schools, to one perspective, is something that has never happened in Western democracies nor has the burning of books which gave a different perspective, has it? The holding of the Olympic games could prove a catalyst for world capitalism and that would be such a good thing, eliminating poverty and, disease?


If one does not believe any more in fairy tales a film in a survival series, called Alive, appears to have faithfully reported a true event. In December 1992 a young soldier and his teenage wife and baby set off to drive the 800 miles in one day from their home in California to a family funeral in Idaho, despite concern expressed by parents, and warnings of bad weather. Even when the inter state highway was closed they decided to continue their journey using other routes, confident because their vehicle was fitted with snow chains they would be able to cope with the conditions. They did not have a mobile phone and could not find a pay phone to let their relatives know what they were doing and because it appeared that the snow was clearing they took off the chains to make better time. Because of increasing poor visibility and the coming of night they found themselves stuck in a few feet of snow and unable to move the vehicle they decided to spend the night in the vehicle. They attempted to go forward on foot but concerned about the impact on their child they decided to return to the vehicle only 12 miles from a highway. A shelter was found for his wife and child while the father reversed tracks involving 50 mile journey trek. The couple and their child survived although the parents lost their toes from frostbite. In one the programmes about the event viewers were explained how to be better prepared for similar journeys which could have ended in tragedy, or as constantly warned by homeland media, you do not travel out in such condition unless of necessity, however well prepared.


Another reality test comprised this week's episode of Lark Rise to Candleford which could have been sub titled. Leopards cannot change their spots.


But the event of the evening, was the supernatural phantasm first episode of series 4, number 70 overall of Lost which hit the ground running as we learn that there were only some survivors, or do we, and that six make it a..way from the island with golden passes from the airline company, and that these appear to be, Jack and Kate, from the last episodes of series three and Hurley, this time, who readmits himself into the asylum when he sees Charlie who says that he died but has a physical presence but then disappears as quickly as he arrives. In the future an airline representative appears to Hurley, but who is he really, and then Jack appears looking like the airline representative so what is he meaning of this?
Tings are more clear back on the Island, or are they? Locke re-emerges to give the same warning as Charlie that those on the ship have not been sent as rescuers by Penelope in search of Desmond, and Locke then divides the survivors between those who accept his warning that they should hide in a defensive location while the others join Jack who cannot wait to get off the Island. So from being divided into two groups of humans on the island there are now with Hurley, and Sawyer, Clare and child, Danielle Rousseau, her long lost daughter and boy friend joining Locke who also takes responsibility for Ben, Jack's prisoner who pleads to go with Locke while, Kate stays with Jack as does Sayid, Desmond, and Juliet, Unfortunately one has to wait a whole week for the next episode or does one?


So what does one do then after watching Lost and not feeling ready for bed? Well I overdosed on more TV first watching a definitive documentary about the life of Johnny Cash which I enjoyed more that the film of his life in theatre. Among those contributing was Judy Collins seen live at the Sage during 2007. Wikipedia summoned up his music as full of sorrow, moral tribulation and redemption, He sold 90 million albums in his fifty year career. From the film I had learnt of the importance of the Prison concerts and Fulsom recording, but the significance of wearing black had not registered until listening to the full version of the song Man in Black and his capturing of the feelings of those who served in Vietnam. Or the impact he had with native American where he created the song, The Ballard of Ira Hayes who was involved in the raising of the flag on Iwa Jima , or his involvement with Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson as the Highwayman, but the main revelation was his 90's albums for Rick Rubin in which he went back to his roots as a singer, who had struggled to play the guitar, known as the American recordings, especially those after he developed neurodegenerative disease Shy-Drager syndrome. The excepts showed a man who was able to put to music and words the feelings of being an old man facing his physical mortality. I did not gain the impression that Cash was a great advocate of social and political causes, more than he had the gift of communicating what ordinary flawed human beings felt about things and themselves across cultures, ages and interests in a direct, simple and truthful story telling way. At one stage in his life is reported to have felt he needed 100 pills day of this and that to keep going but he survived until age of 71 years.


The programme was immediately followed by a study of the adorable Paula Abdul, who was a highly thought of award winning choreographer, then dancer and singer, before joining the number one American TV Show American Idol. I learnt that she had married one of Martin Sheen's sons for two years although they parted and remains at friends. This reminds that during the past week I also watched Cadence the 1990 film in which Martin played a role in a film which stared his son Charlie, set in a small stockade as the only white prisoner with half a dozen African Americans, including Laurence Fishbourne. Paula is a creative being with projects of different kinds always on the go and now has her own staff who attempt to keep up with her work and consequential needs. She had an eating disorder and spoke movingly of the difficulty she faced when placing herself in a care centre and having to leave when the media found out but also showing her determination and spirit, returning there again when the fuss had died down.


The final programme was on Life of Boy George who I had planed to see when he appeared recently at the Sage and is a much better singer and song writer than the 1980's image portrays, although more recently his reputation has dived and dived when first he nose dived into substance abuse following the break up of his well publicised relationship with the Culture Club drummer, the high profile made to clean New York Street after the musical show was taken off after 100 days and a reported loss of ten million dollars, such is the nature of Broadway. Whereas the career of Cash spread over five decades, worldwide success came to Boy George instantly in his early twenties, with 45 million albums being sold. As the evening progressed into night I thought of Amy Winehouse and decided not to switch into the Superbowl where I managed to catch a winner of American Idol singing the Star Spangled Banner in a very moving way. I slept soundly with only one waking between one am and eight.


I went with my mood of the day rather than staying up for Superbowl. I also thought of Amy Winehouse.

1776 Wallander and who guards the guardians?

On Tuesday evening I discovered that the BBC has been showing the original Wallender series with subtitles which Kenneth Branagh created several important episodes last year and which was to have continues with further series over coming years.

The books upon which the series is faithfully based have a world wide following and people take holidays to visits some of the key places mentioned in or near the Swedish coastal town in which they are set. Branagh won considerable praise for his work in the first series of British recreations shot in Sweden and I did see one of the original programmes at the time.

It is unfortunate that I missed the start of the Channel Four showing because the BBC appears to showing the originals series from the first programme and I was only able to view episodes 4 and 5 on the i player. While the first programme, The African was excellent and made me want to see more, The Overdose was a brilliant, if at times harrowing account that without in depth scrutiny it is often those entrusted by the community with power over young people who are the greatest threat to them.

In the programme Wallander and his team are called in to investigate the disappearance of a father who appears to have left his son alone in a car at a bus stop. The team find out that the mother is in a psychiatric establishment unable to communicate, self destructive and hostile to help following the suicide of her teenage daughter. Wallander’s daughter also had a history of self destructive behaviour and psychiatric/counselling help which was very important to her. She now works with her father as a police detective and by fictional coincidence is giving advice to school teenagers about the risks to them from the use of drug substances. The talks have been arranged by the school counsellor and during a talk a girl collapses from having taken an overdose and it later appears she had been earning significant sums of money for sex organised by a local small time drug pedlar, or so it begins to appear. When she and her father discover that the daughter of the missing father also attended the same school they begin to consider the wider implications. A third girl, new to the school and having problems of relationships becomes the target of what we the viewers come to appreciate as an organised gang who drug, take obscene photos and then blackmail the girl into have sex, providing with drugs to get her through the experience. At first the gang appears to consist of the young man peddling drugs to school children and another man who drives a blue van in which the sex assaults take place at isolated spots and involving a number of older men who use the girl of the moment on a regular basis.

The only questioning of the reality, true to life aspects of this episode occurred when the new girl target accepts a lift home from the ring organiser instead of waiting for her father, a lorry driver to collect her. He has given her a mobile phone for her 14th birthday and it is surprising that on this day of days she accepts the lift, and then agrees to drink a substance, told it is vitamin C, which drugs her enabling her to be photographed. When she recovers she is told she has to go with men or the pictures of her will be circulated on the internet. She grabs the laptop and jumps out of the vehicle to be knocked down by a passing vehicle. Fortunately she survives and the police are already on the trail of the gang which leads to discovery of the remain of missing parent.

Wallander’s daughter already has come to have suspicions about a school master who appears a disciplinarian always finding fault with the girl who has taken the overdose and then the new girl. There is also the link that all three girls, the original suicide, the near suicide and the new girl are under the supervision of the school counsellor. Towards the end of the film, Wallander’s daughter discovers the attempted suicide girl is not in her hospital room and finds that the counsellor had entered the hospital wearing a white coat and has taken the girl onto the roof and is talking her into jumping. Again there is a query about the ability of people to find access to the roofs of buildings with which they were not previously familiar and the amazing coincidental great timing of her arrival to discover that the girl is missing.

Not withstanding these obvious dramatic creations upon real life, the episode has several fundamental truths. The obvious first one is the general vulnerability of school age teenage girls left unsupervised, especially if they have difficult home situations or are having problems with their personal appearance and body, and, or relationships with their peer group.

This was brought home to me in spectacular fashion on my way home from Newcastle yesterday evening. After the struggle with my case travelling across London and then the homeward trek up the hill on return from the capital, I decide to investigate the present cost of cases, especially the those with retractable handles.

While in Newcastle I had taken the Metro to Haymarket station to view the developments above and below ground and certainly it is a vast improvement although I do not understand why it has taken a couple of years and is several months still from completion. I then crossed over the main road to look at the new University of Newcastle Building which looks completed had has taken up the University Car park which was used by those visiting the Playhouse Theatre. The Playhouse building cannot be seen now from the roadway street entrance to the University Union, and this and other university buildings cannot be reached as before because the approach is being remodelled. I assume it is possible to reach the Theatre from a passageway closer to the Haymarket Station. From the traffic lights and pedestrian crossing there is a passage way used by supporters to Newcastle Football club on match days. This was adjacent to University buildings. I cannot remember what was on the roadside from here to buildings before the entrance to the Playhouse Theatre and Union Buildings. This is now partly a new building site as the University brings onto the main road not one but two major buildings developments. It is obviously threatened by the dramatic growth of Northumberland University with its iconic new building and pedestrian bridge built on the former Warner cinema site. The pub next to the university centred bookshop is offering main meals for £3 from lunchtime until eight in the evenings and where I have visited in the past to view live sport

Still this is all a digression from the luggage search and what happened on the return journey. I had taken the trip because I could not find any seller of luggage in South Shields, except Argos. The problem with Argos that you cannot see items beforehand especially their weight and suitability for the required task. My first call was to John Lewis and this was a shock because the cheapest and smallest of the cases cost £80 going upwards to £140 for the larger items. This was twice what I had expected or wanted to pay. Perhaps it was to be Argos after all. Where Argos has been in the shopping centre is part of developments to improve the central shopping facility in Newcastle, given that the largest indoor and out door retail park in Europe is located on the outskirts of Gateshead, a couple of miles up river. I decided to look in at Fenwicks, Newcastle’s premier departmental store where I expected the price range to be same. What a master stroke because Fenwicks was having a luggage sale with prices marked down by 50%. I was able to but the case I had seen at John Lewis for £40. Back home I checked out the Argos catalogue and I could have got a luggage set for the same price, such is life. Later when I visited Asda they also did a three piece luggage set but not of the quality of my purchase/

Now to what happened on the Metro train and the link with the Wallander episode.

he Metro train was crowded out but I was given a seat by the door as the journey commenced and which provide a view down the carriage. At Pelaw, I think, the station between Heworth and Hebburn a crowd of boisterous young people got on the train. There were five boys within the age range fourteen to sixteen, reasonably dressed in casual clothes which did not draw special attention to themselves whereas the four girls were extraordinary, heavily made up and wearing brief hot pants or the shortest of skirts They appeared to be very excited with everyone talking at the same time and possible drunk. They were passing bottles around which had the appearance of soft drinks but the behaviour suggested otherwise.

I do not know what happened but it looked as if a middle age couple spoke to the driver, on leaving the carriage at Hebburn about the behaviour of the young people and one young man, a boy, wearing glasses a looking academic, pounced onto the platform and hurled foul mouth abuse towards the couple who had left the train. It is the worst such outburst I have heard for many a day. My impression is that the driver invited the young people to leave the train or he would arrange for them to be taken off. The train moved on but later another group of young people similarly dressed got on the train and got off at South Shields.

I used to see a large gathering of school age young people attend an early evening disco at a nightclub venue on my way to visiting my mother when she was in residential care. The venue which is outside the area where the establishments are now located has been closed for a couple of years and the building is up or sale.
Apart from the size of the queue the young did not attract attention because of the appearance or behaviour. The event seemed to be a good idea although it was obviously a way of getting the youngsters into wanting to attend the adult evening events in the future. One wondered about the scrutiny to ensure that alcohol and drugs were not brought in.

I take the first compartment of the metro trains because it enables me to get out close to the access past the former railway station which leads to my part of the Law Top and which cuts out the first part of the hill. I come out adjacent to Station Taxis where I noticed a police car and then across the street next to Wetherspoon’s pub there were more of young people in terms of dress who had been encountered on the Metro train. They were making their way to Dusk at night club set back next to Wetherspoon’s and a former Working Men’s club. There was also a mobile police CCTV unit vehicle. The clothing of some of those was fluorescent which seems sensible in a darkened dark club atmosphere. I was also surprise at the number of security men who were outside vetting everyone as they entered. This was Ibiza South Shield’s style and using the language of my youth it was way out man, really way out!

The first Wallander episode viewed is called the African and follows the discovering of a body on a goods train which is sent back from somewhere in Europe when discovered and the investigators are able to determine the time of death as before departure of the train. Wallander is on leave checking out a weekend holiday stay and the owners of the property are found to be an old school friend who has become a leading politician with the prospect of a government position if the his party win the coming General Election. This tale is comparatively simple although the solving of the mystery interesting, The politician used to work in Africa where it emerges he unintentionally kills a black mother with whom he was having a relationship. The son and a friend come to Sweden where they blackmail the politician. However the two black men fall out over the money with both shooting and wounding each other, one fatally. The twist in the tale is that the surviving African man has established a relationship with a wife and mother who harbours him at the family holiday home where she moves to after being ejected from the marital home by her husband. The situation is resolved and the children reunited with their father, but the series always draw attention that there are s victims who pay a high price for the behaviour of others.

As a secondary story is the relationship between Wallander and his boss and their relationships, he with his boss and she with a work colleague. While daughter and work colleague share a home the relationship is more one of close friends than lovers with a future together. There are problems when the male colleague has other relationships however casual. Father is unhappy about their relationship because of the implications for their careers given the prevailing rules about such situations. However he has more to worry about as during his annual health check up following heart attack the possibility of prostate cancer arises with further investigations and a period of waiting for the results of the tests.

Father meets up with his daughter after she has been single handed sailing and she gives him a letter which she has carried around all day, and which unknown to her gives information that the tests have proved negative and he is clear. On reflection I think this story line takes place during the Overdose episode although aspects are included in both stories.

I did try and find out more about Dusk and the school age rave. Dusk is a comparatively new night club in South Shields of which has two floors providing different kinds of scenes and music and appears to be one that is surviving along with the twin clubs of Roxanne and Vogue and the 70’s and 80’s Glitter Ball. The Cayote has closed although appears to function as a bar. The clubs appear to only open at weekends for or two nights a week. There was no web site for Dusk although someone had a Myspace page, someone else photographs and various reviews. The Shields Gazette runs a competition offering a taxi, pre club drinks at a bar and then free entry and sparkling wine on arrival said to be worth £100. Reviews and comments from some young participants match the clothing and languages experience on the Metro train, only less comprehensible. The main complaints are about the music and rivalry between different clubs including the Hanger in Sunderland

This brings me back to the vulnerability of young people especially teenage girls and the main message from The Overdose. The greatest threat to the young women came from the School Councillor and a master because they were paedophiles who not only used the girls but were in a position of authority to identify victims to those who organised the ring. There is always need to ask Who guards the Guardians?

1772 Kate Humble and her ancestors

I should, given the quantity and nature of things to do, put writing aside but I was greatly affected by Who do you think you last night which featured a TV presenter Kate Humble whose programmes I do not recall watching. It was revealed that Kate has not one but three remarkable ancestors, all men, two of them grand parents and one a great great grand parent. This seems an unfair distribution. But then the distributions of life experience are unfair and not random

Kate presented herself in this programme as self assured, vivacious, open, lovable and adventurous devoted to nature and to animals. Before being introduced to her mother and father I assumed she was privately educated and with a comfortable to wealthy middle class background. She met her father in the garden of the local pub and her mother in home to discuss their respective ancestors and both confirmed my first assumption. They were both interesting people in their own right about whom I wished to know more about.

Kate admits she was part of a family who did not discuss their emotions and personal experiences and that although she knew something about her two male grand parents in fact she knew little of them and was concerned less she discovered they had done remarkable things and would spend the rest of her life wishing she could live up to them. That this was signalled at the commencement of the programme suggested what was to follow rather than something different.

The first remarkable individual was her paternal grandfather who was a distinguished second World War Test pilot and before then a flamboyant air show performer who owned his own aircraft and whose work both as a performer and Test Pilot is well recorded and admired. There several hints of his being something of a ladies man and photographs indicated a Hollywood appearance and personality. It was another example of grandchildren finding admirers and fans of their ancestors among the specialist public while they were unaware of their the fame of the individual.

He had trained as a mining engineer whose father had been the major owner of a Northumberland coalfield and this led to an interest in his background and to the discovery that his grandfather/father had been a mine viewer, originally put down and hewer although the two roles could not be further apart. The hewer is the individual who goes into the bowels of the earth to bring out the coal and which in the era of the ancestor involved families including children as young as 11 years. The Viewer and Assistant Viewer of which her ancestors was one were the managers and assistant managers of the pit employed by the owners. It is assumed that whereas the mine owners need not have direct mining experience or technical knowledge the Viewers would. I would like to know more but cannot devote the time.

Moreover her relative had been one of those in charge of the New Hartley pit in Northumberland which suffered the most terrible of disasters and which changed the way mines were established thereafter.

The New Hartley mine is South of Blythe and I had seen the village signposted on my recent trip to the area but had no knowledge of the shocking history. The village is now part of North Tyneside with North Shields regarded the principal town of the area outside of Newcastle at the time. 204 men and boys, nine in one family, with some 600 dependents died because the pumping mechanism broke and fell down the main shaft sealing it for several days until sufficient of the fallen mental could be raised for the bodies to be brought to the surface. Only 25 men remained in the surrounding villages. The inquest found that it had been an accident and that the managers had acted courageously. He ancestor had left the industry and opened a drapery store in County Durham at Seaham. One wonders to day if the management would have been so regarded, The disaster led to Parliament deciding that all pits had to have two shafts in future.

Although the ancestor left mining, although as his son or one of his grand son became a coal field owner confirms that the family had wealth and position. As with the Test pilot one felt considerable editing about the men had been undertaken by the programme and their legal and other advisers to the families involved. More on this later.

Attention was then directed to her maternal grandfather who she knew as a quiet man sitting in a corner with a pint and tobacco. He was known to have been World War Two air crew in bombers and to have been shot down a few months after he met and married her grandmother. He made several escapes before the family believed he had been moved to Colditz when in fact he was sent to Stalag Luff Three, as famous as Colditz because of the Great Escape and the Wooden Horse. The Great Escape film with Steve McQueen and a host of others actors masks the story of 50 men executed because they escaped at the same time from a camp designed to prevent escapes, with only three reaching freedom and the rest some 23 were returned or sent to other camps including three to Colditz. Some 600 men were involved in the construction of three tunnels with 200 planning to escape in Harry, the tunnel which was not discovered. From the journal record book of her grandfather it is established that he had a role in planning the escape and may have been one of those waiting to depart when the escape was discovered. This is because at the back of the book there was a brief note of significance in that it is known that the valuables of the executed men were auctioned among the prisoner so that they would not fall into the hands of the Germans and the money raised set aside to be given to the dependents after the war. There were ten thousand officers in the camp and of those executed 21 were from the UK, 16 from the Commonwealth and the rest other Europeans. The three who successfully escaped were Norwegian and Dutch.

This morning I looked up Kate Humble on the Internet (born 1968 and therefore 41, she comes across as younger) and discovered that her site has been withdrawn for updating. Wikipedia is both revealing and secretive. The site says nothing about her parents and if she has brothers and sisters for example.

After leaving school where she describes herself as a poor student she travelled through Africa from cape Town to Cairo working her way. She then established herself as an explorer and writer. For the past ten years she become an A list TV presenter involved in some 40 programmes. The article mentioned that she is married having moved from Chiswick to Wales, that she has not had the inclination to have children and that she is a private nudist all which make a colourful and interesting character in her own right.

There are vast blanks in the story of her ancestors and herself which the new website or website changes might address or possibly information is being removed which is no longer wished to retained now that the extent of public attention on her life has increased. This is an excellent example of the point I have had made several times that it is possible to individuals to lead public lives but to retain degrees of privacy and to control the extent to which examination of aspects of their history does not adversely affect the lives of relatives who wish to retain their privacy.
On one hand people like me would love to know lots more about Kate and family because of the completer finisher instincts which require the fullest possible information picture before coming to conclusions. On the hand there are others only too willing to exploit any negative or dark aspects for their own interest, often occupational and financial without regard for the potential impact on individuals and their families. It is a difficult balance, more difficult for someone naturally open and honest. The broadsheet media has an important role to play in holding the balance.

The programme is one of the best of all the series to-date because it generated viewer interest in the lives of three men and in particular the wider role of test pilots during World War 2 with one in four losing their lives, in the nature of coal mining in Victoria times through to the creation of the National Coal Board, and in the ingenuity and bravery of those who became prisoners of war.

As the war came to an end the Germans moved the prisoners from their camps as they retreated from the advancing enemy, using the prisoner as Shields from air attacks. Kate travelled by car the 800 kilometres from the Stalag to Lubeck where they were held until the town was surrendered to the allies. They were expected to march 30 kilometres a day in freezing weather conditions with no food until possible something in the evenings. They became like automatons. At one stop Kate was joined by a survivor from the camp and march who found the return difficult as it reminded of the darkest moment of his life. They had tried to do their best he said with genuine modesty a living reminder of the great debt present generations have, Kate mother mentioned that when her father returned her parents were strangers who did not recognise each other. She was four and half years old when they met for the first time. There is one good family biography, an autobiography, and films to come within the story of he Humbles and Carters.

I realised I needed a blood test for my health check appointment next week and this involved a 12 hour fast. The Hospital now charge £1.20 for the privilege of parking. This meant I did not have the change for the car parking at Asda. I left a note at the window and bought the rolls and pastries for the cricket changing a £20 note at the DIY check out and then after getting the car park cricket went tot he bank to pay in the cheque from Northern electric, now N power before calling in at Marks and Spencer’s for cherries, three packs of chicken pieces for £5 and two packs of crispy bacon with a pack of salmon pieces again for £5. The crispy bacon was delicious with a lunchtime salad and I could not resist eating the rest later in the afternoon. It became something of a bad food day as I had a soup and roll with the salad followed by the rest of the sweet melon and later anchovies with crackers for afternoon tea. Calling in at Wilkinson they not only had more of the blue display folders but a new supply of black. They are nearly giving away the 20 page variety at half price or two for 1 more accurately. I had gone for the washing up pads where a large packs costs under £1 so I used each only for a couple of days before discarding. It was then back to the supermarket where I completed the purchase with a fresh supply of the prawns in shell, salami and Greek olives with feta cheese. I forgot to reclaim the £1 parking charge so had to go back up to the customer services counter. The assistant was upset because previously she had been shouted out.

Back home after the meal I rang regarding the camera and it was ready on the 15th which surprising because it could have been returned before the London trip and would be released now after I had asked it to be held until the 28th. I am still convinced the hold up was because I had he renewed subscription as this seemed pointless until it was confirmed the charger could be replaced.

Rain held up the Test match and everything pointed to no play to day but everything was being done to start the match so that the spectators had something for their time and money, although one felt the authorities were anxious because of the loss of revenue if there was no play and refunds made. Play commenced around five and Australia after winning the toss and with a new opening pair and much pride to salvage scored freely on the notorious Warwickshire wicket made more lifeless but the latest lake creating downpour of the endless torrents this summer.

Durham have been awarded an Ashes Test for 2013, the year after the Olympics. Newcastle Managed a home draw in their friendly against Leeds after being thrashed 6.0 at Spurs, There is talk of Ashley having to rake the club into administration. There is also the story of those making a bid withdrawing it after hearing nothing further from the club. What a scandal? What a disgrace?

I watched the last Question Time of the political season with the sensible and ration Shirley Women’s possible the best Prime Minister we never had alongside the positively wicket George Galloway who formed his own party Respect, both refugees from the hierarchical infrastructure of the Labour Party. Geoff Hoon was then embarrassed and doing his best to dig himself and his Party of the ever increasing political Black hole they have dug for themselves. There was also Clive James representing us who have reached the end of our lives, possibly, so we look at things differently from you young folk brigade. There was also the young Conservative Asian Member of the House of Lords trying to put a good spin on a Conservative Front bench full of old Etonians and Oxbridge. I don’t mind this aspect of our government. I have never believed that because a large chunk of the population are political morons, they should therefore be represented in government, no more than criminals, anti monarchists, atheists and non democrats. What I do object to is that people with ability and contributions to the development of British society and prevented because of their parental and family circumstances while others gain footholds because of family and who the family knows. Apparently the latest method is for families to sponsor internships which is a fancy name for young people with the right education and background gaining practical experience in the professions and government for a year or two working for free. They then have a substantial edge when it comes to applying for vacancies which have to be advertised. Shirley Williams made the point that apart from Tony Blair recent Prime Ministers have not gone to public schools and John Major for examples was brought up in a small flat in Brixton.

I also enjoyed the latest New Tricks, the series about aging policemen resurrected to examine long standing unsolved serious crimes. Although the main story usually has flaws sometimes significant ones such as in this episode where a bullied wife uses the opportunity of someone who takes her car and possibly commits suicide to enable her daughter to stay in the UK, to fake her own death and live with the man she loves, bringing up the child of the husband as their own and then goes into a public place in the area of where the husband works and lives. People can do stupid things like that but the majority would take every step to prevent discovery. On touch I liked was that a vicar having disclosed that he knew that a character was running a sweat shop with illegal’s migrants, he was given the opportunity to warn them that the Home Office was being informed so hey were able to disappear. Another was the Albanian migrant worker who pretend to be Polish to fit into the present popular belief that the overwhelming majority of Polish workers are all dedicated and efficient, which they are, while Albanians have in their midst gangsters who are providing girls for Europeans Brothels, organising illegal migrations and the supply of illegal substances

1272 Lost The Facts and the Fiction

On February 2nd 2003 I received a telephone call to say that my aunt Harriet had died. I had stayed several hours with her the previous evening in the side room where she had been moved so the news was not unexpected and I was already up dressed, breakfasted and ready to recommence the vigil. She was the tenth of seven sisters and four brothers to die and the only one where the circumstances were such as to merit personal investigation and official enquiries that continue to this day. At the time the thought of such enquiries or that they would continue for so long were further from my mind. There were two considerations. The first was what to say to my mother who was at the stage in the illness of severe memory loss with psychosis that she could be upset by what was said to her, only to forget what was said the following instant. From that date until her death, Harriet was always with her friends in other parts of the same building in which my mother had become resident, and was then subsequently moved to, so that I could visit more regularly. She was never satisfied with this explanation and constantly asked staff the whereabouts of her sister, although during the last years or so, she mentioned her less and staff said that although her speech became more and more indistinct, it was sometimes evident to them that she was asking about me.
　
She may not have known who I was, sometimes I was her father, one her brothers, sometimes I was the child of one of her sisters, but as a consequence of the admission of my aunt to hospital and my mother to residential care on the previous January 9th, for the first time in over six decades my mother introduced to me as her son when she spoke to members of staff. It was part of her attempt to cling to memory and for days, weeks and months after admission she would recite the names of her brothers and sisters as a way of trying not to forget them.
　
The second cause for thought that morning as I sat with her was to make a mental list of the things which would need to be done, from advising her relatives in Gibraltar, the USA and various parts of England, to issues such as burial and cremation, services and locations. It was while I was sitting there thinking about her life and these things that what medical and nursing staff said to me filled me with unemotional anger, as what they said, was contradictory, and brought into sharp focus concerns which had mounted over the past three weeks about the circumstances which led to the hospital admission against her expressed wishes. Medical and nursing staff in hospital in the community at best were making things up, although it quickly became evident that some lied. Proving this was so would be difficult and one had to ask if doing so would be worth the price which would have to be paid. As time elapsed the question of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice became an additional concern and remains so to this day.
　
The rest of my Saturday, five years later, was a mixture of activity, some productive, but I went to bed dissatisfied because of other matters. The circumstances of the death of my aunt is always with me, as is everything else that has happened in my life, including my knowledge of family and general history and what has happened and is happening to others, who lives have been and are less fortunate and more fortunate, or similar I have stopped everything else and given what happened to my aunt undivided attention during February through to May 2003 when her ashes were taken to Gibraltar for a mass and burial services, when the casket was placed in the tomb where her parents were once buried, in a cemetery immediately under the great Rock, close to the sea, by the airport. Then again when I received the two reports from the second level complaints system later that year and then prepared, with help, to attend separate meetings with the Community and Hospital Health Trust and the Social Services Local Authority. Then again when I made submissions to the Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman and the Local Authority Ombudsman for advice, following which I appealed the findings of the second level complaints procedure and agreed to participate in a second level Local Authority complaint investigation. It was following the result of the second level local authority investigation, the moving of my mother to a residential home in this area, and the consequential need to close her home and sort out her possessions, that the decision was taken to abandon the formal complaint procedure because I believed the truth would not emerge, and tried to concentrate instead on getting the appropriate authorities to ensure that the matters where it had been agreed changes needed to me made were appropriate, were implemented and that their effectiveness was monitored. It was only at this point at the end of 2004 and the early part of 2005 that I was made aware that the Health service complaint system has been radically changed and that the new system would enable one enquiry to be made covering all health authorities and individuals involved, and that from the autumn of 2005 it would be possible for a joint investigation involving the new Social Services Inspection and complaints agency as well as the new Health Services Commission. The problem was that my complaints had commenced under the old system and included formal reference to the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman, who indicated that my referral had moved from the queue awaiting consideration to allocation to a preliminary investigation officer and I was unclear to me how the new system would in relation to the rest of the system, because in addition to the Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman and their system and the new Health Commission replacing the old complaints system, there were continuing separate inspection units and monitory bodies for the health service and the separate Local authority Ombudsman system. It was not until the summer of 2005 that the Health Ombudsman announced the appointment of an investigator and suggested how my overall complaint that the death of my aunt had been premature and preventable and that the response of Community and Hospital medical and nursing officers was contradictory, incompatible should be broken down into issues. It was unfortunate that the decision to proceed arrived at the point when I was moving from my ten roomed house on a quarter acre site when I had lived for close on thirty years to a similar sized house, but without the grounds, and doing so on my own, and that the move included the completed parts and outstanding materials for my contemporary art work installation, and involved over 400 boxes.
　
It was not until a year later that I received the draft reports for comment on matters of fact and devoted several weeks to going through the draft line by line to ensure that I could not subsequently be accused of not having raised issues, however trivial, as well as the substantial matters. It was just before Christmas 2006 that the reports to the Government Health Minister arrived and I was confronted with reports which failed to deal with the substantive issues, failed to include significant and available evidence, and had drawn conclusions which were questionable and where other findings could and should have been drawn. It took a couple of months to work out the best way forward and to submit an appeal against the methodology and the findings. It took time for the Ombudsman to agree that a valid case had been made and for the appeal to be allocated and investigated. For at time I received monthly notifications advising why the appeal was taking so long to consider and then as Winter approached was advised that the decision had been taken to move the appeal from the first level to the second and higher level, and I received the first of the apologies letters for continuing delay as further investigations continued. Another such letter is anticipated in the coming week. A four draw filing cabinet is now full with the papers. However it is only one of ten such cabinets to put into perspectives this matter among the many others where the details are confidential, and may well remain so.
　
In the morning I concentrated on some writing and some correspondence, enjoying two tolls with lettuce, a red salad pepper and salami filling and then enjoyed the last three episodes of series three Lost. In addition to the substantive questions such as are the castaways dead, because according to one newcomer who parachuted on the island when her helicopter crashed into the sea, their plane had been discovered with all the passengers dead, there is the question, has Charlie died to bring rescue to the others?
　
The parachuted lass comes from Manchester England, the same city as Charlie, the former band member and, heroin addict who learns to kick the habit on the Island despite finding a crashed plane filled with the stuff hidden in statues of the Madonna. Charlie has established a relationship with Clare and her child born on the island where the other inhabitant are childless because all pregnant women die before giving birth. Unlike the film Children of Men, where everyone woman becomes sterile, except, despite the best efforts of a fertility doctor, only those who reach the island already pregnant. Hence the success of Clare and the interest the older Islanders have taken in her. Charlie learns that there was a memorial service for him and a best selling record produced In Memoriam. However this does not mean that they are in fact dead and could mean a government/organisational cover story to hide the existence of the island from the general public.
　
As series three progressed the new development is the ability of some individuals to see the future as well as reliving their past. Three years ago about the same time as the fertility doctor is brought to the island by submarine, Desmond is shipwrecked on his Yacht race to impress the father of Penelope. He spends he greater part of that time as does Locke subsequently entering a code every 108 minutes which prevents polarity reversing and ending not just the island but the continuation of planet earth. However he recovers his yacht, joins the survivors, attempts to leave the island, fails rejoin the survivors, and begins to have flashes in which he sees the death of Charlie. At first he takes action to prevent the death, but then he leads Charlie into one situation only changing his mind at the last minute, because he believes the venture will lead him to have contact with Penelope who unbeknown to him has used her wealth to mount an ongoing search to find what had happened to him. Then he experiences another future in which the death of Charlie enables the other survivors to be rescued, including Clare and her baby. Desmond attempts to take the place of Charlie in a mission to enable contact to be made with a ship from which the parachuted lass from Manchester has originated and provide them with the information to penetrated the Island's visibility and communication shield, We have previously learnt in the series there is one route which enabled the submarine to leave and return to the Island and which is also the course which one survivor, Michael and his son are told to take as a reward for tricking four leading characters into the hands of those who appear to control the Island and live protected on the other side and with the ability to also move to an adjacent Island.
　
In addition to the ability of Desmond to experience future flashes, the series concludes with the leader of the survivors having flashes of a future in which we know that he and Kate escape, that they are given golden travel passes by the airline and that he has been spending his weekends taking flights over the area where the Island was located in the hope of another crash as he believes they should never have left.
　
This is what the leader of the Others, Ben has been tying to explain, that they should not make contact with the ship because far from coming to rescue the survivors they will come to kill everyone on the island. However because he has proven himself to be a liar and killer, Ben is not listened to and contact has been made. However we also know that although the impression is given that this is a rescue mission organised by Penelope in search of Desmond, it is not.
　
We have also learnt that Ben answers to someone else, a non human being representing the interests of the island and those living there. The series had developed into a power struggle between Locke who does not want to leave the Island one of two survivors who have come to this position, one has cured cancer, previously incurable, and Locke was in a wheel chair bring thrown out of window by his alleged conman father. Locke has a significance to the Island because he seems to have great power, and in the first series we know that he has director contact with a supernatural being on the island, and whereas he has been cured and the apart from the fertility issue the other islands appear to be free of major illnesses and recovery abilities, Ben does not recover quickly from the surgery to save his life. In the series we learn that Ben was also brought to Island as a child with his father by the organisation conducting research, after his mother dies in premature childbirth and where his father blames his son as part of his disappointment and frustration that the job on the Island is only a general factotum workman. Because of this Ben makes contacts with the other inhabitants of the island and plots with them to take over, which involves killing his father and the other through the use of gas. All the bodies are placed in a open grave, Locke realising that his condition could revert to be a mental and physical cripple, destroy the submarine and presses Ben to know more about the Island and the controlling force. Ben sensing his power over the Others is slipping away accepts the demand of Locke to take him to meet the force, only to find that that Locke is able to communicate directly an consequently leads Locke to show him the open burial grave and to shoot him. But is Locke dead, we learn in the last episode of the series that he is not, and he appears to kill the parachutist in an attempt to stop her making contact with her ship. However the leader of the survivors Jack does so, because Locke is unable to kill him, or anyone, and it is this aspect which is part of the way in which the third series has commenced to link the main survivors together, past as well as present. Sawyer who represents the baddies, a conman who has mistakenly killed another man believing him to be the conman who tricked his mother out of money, and caused his father to kill her and then himself believing she has been unfaithful. Sawyer represents the tendency for human beings to become the thing, the person we hate most, the attraction of opposites and the more extreme we are in out lives the most likely we are to become the opposite, extreme right extreme left and vice versa, atheist advocate for a deity, abused the abuser, military man pacifist, wealthy woman a pauper.
　
Ben introduces Locke to the man, he believes is his father who conned him out of a kidney and then through him out of the window, who is on the Island as a prisoner, knowing that Ben will not be able to kill him and therefore he will be discredited in the eyes of the Others. This proves to be so but Locke discovers from the detailed files kept on all survivors that this man is also the same conman responsible for the deaths of Sawyers mother and father. Sawyer has no problem in killing this man whose body Locke takes to Ben to demonstrate his power and influence which in turn forces Bed to take Locke t meet the force and the unsuccessful attempt to kill him. The conclusion of the series also sees Ben explaining to his alleged adopted daughter that the mysterious Frenchwoman who lives alone on the island but helps the survivors from time is her mother, Juliet was aware that her daughter was alive and being raised Ben but delayed introducing herself until this moment. Ben had been trying to prevent a relationship between the girl and boy fearing she would become pregnant and die, but the boy has survived attempts to imprison and to kill him and the girls persuades him to contact and warn the survivors that her father has sent early a group to capture the pregnant survivors, if necessary killing the men and also capturing the other women, Although the survivors had advance warning of the raid through the fertility doctor who has joined Jack and they had a scheme to trap and kill the raiding party, the bringing forwards creates problems and three survivors remain behind to trigger an amended version of the trap. This only partially works and they in turn are captured by the remaining raiders and Ben pretends to have them shot in a desperate attempt to persuades Jack not to use the communication device to the ship. Just when the remaining raiders decide to kill the survivors anyway, one of the other survivors intervenes and with the help other main characters the raiders are killed and he survivors saved for the rescue. Thus all the remaining main characters are involved and survive with the exception of the fate of Charlie.
　
Whereas as Locke appears indestructible as a man who cannot kill directly, there is one agent/disciple of Ben, who we first encounter living alone having direct contact with the outside world who also appears to be indestructible as first he survives the
device preventing entry to the established village where the Others and the former Research organisation personnel lived, then he survives not one but two other situation in which he appears to have been killed, as a consequence of which he is able to ruthlessly kill, including members of his own community.
　
It is this interlinking past and present which is the main clue to unravelling the mystery of Lost, and to remember my opening words to one work on my history and that of my mother, in the beginning there was Adam and there was Eve, and then there was you and me and we are all connected through the past the present and into eternity. To which I will add and nothing is unrelated or unknown, or random and those who argue or say so are wrong.
　
Before going to bed I watched an absurd film which nevertheless reinforced my point about casual linking, A wife hires a detective to discovered why her husband has disappeared and where the first indications are that he has run off with another women, However in part because the detective is attracted to the wife and in part because he too like the survivors in Lost has flashes of things past things future he pursues the matter, first discovering that the husband did not officially exist having adopted the identity of someone else who dies as a child, He is able to piece together that the husband had parents where it appeared the father had murdered the mother and committed suicide and their two children had been taken into care one of whom became the missing husband and the other the detective. The film is otherwise rubbish with stupid detectives believing that the first of two men fount battered to death is the missing husband and probably killed in a joint operation by the wife and the detective who has become her lover, and then is responsible for the death of the husband after attempts to kill the detective and possibly his wife and falls out of the window as seen in the flashes.
　
The day was also productive in completing 11 sets of work related to Mabel, her life, birthday and death, but where the photographing will be undertaken later today, as well as further work and to enjoying the BBC programme in which tribute acts compete to gain public support in order to perform in Las Vegas. The remaining acts are brilliant with one exception which made the public decision to eliminate two difficult. Kylie Minogue obtained the lowest votes leaving the six successful participants, Dusty Springfield, Frank Sinatra, Diana Ross, Tom Jones, Lionel Ritchie and Robbie Williams to chose between Elton John and Cher. Elton gave the better performance but Cher was closer to the original and carried the vote 4 .2. Any of the seven will be worthy winners. I was also able to watch the second of Ross Kemp's active involvement reporting of the work of his father's former regiment in Afghanistan. This is a remarkable series in which Ross is moving to a higher level from all his previous wok on Eastenders, in the special ops drama and reporting on gangs and other documentary work. The programmes on Sky one repeated on Sky two which can be seen by those with digital free view. It merits showing on the BBC channels. one or two or one of the main commercial

1757 The reality of the Swinging sixties and psychedelic rock and roll

I decided to put pen to paper, on more accurately fingers to keyboard, as I waited for the Sussex box office to open in the hope of getting ticket for the Friends Provident Trophy Final at Lords on Saturday July 25th, and my mind went blank about the whole of yesterday. Then I remembered another day of solid work in which I increased the number of completed and registered sets from 33 to 58. There is another batch of completed cards to place into sets later to day. The main area of activity has been in development work, the MySpace and Google writing, the visit to the Isle of Wight which produced two volumes and in personal communications. There is further work required in relation to adding another fifty Blog titles to the MySpace profile and on transferring completed writing to disk from the hard drive. It is slow work requiring method to ensure accuracy, or at least accuracy within my dyslexic limitations.

What else happens has already dimmed. There was an interesting programme in the evening on the Arts Channel about an all night concert at Alexandra Palace in North London in the 1967 which marked the zenith of the 1960’s culture of drugs, sex and rock and roll. The event was called the 14 Hour Technicolor Dream. The programme concerned the rock and roll and the drugs and the place of the Pink Floyd at the leaders of a London self styled scene called the Underground.

The programme premise is flawed and worse significantly misrepresents the 1960’s CND and non violent Direct Action movement. The basic assumption of the programme is that it is possible to argue that there were significant links between the response of young people to the CND movement, anti authority behaviour, the development of rock and roll, the use of drugs, sexual behaviour outside of marriage and the development of an underground movement personified by the publication The International Times. I suggest that at no time in the 1960 could young people be described as homogenous in behaviour or attitudes. It makes for tabloid headlines but not a serious documentary about the lifestyles of a generation

There were individuals, a tiny minority who were into serious drug taking, who were musicians, who supported CND, who wore fashionable clothes and had lots of sex - About a 100 at the most, possible 200. The majority of young people worked, lived at home, went out at the weekend had one or two boy and girlfriends, were unhappy about living in a world dominated by the cold war and nuclear weaponry but were not engaged in demonstrations or conventional politics.

Let’s look at the reality in more depth. Young people who had jobs and a different perspective from those who were in further education of some kind. I was fortunate to be able to attend further education in perhaps the greatest university city in the world Oxford and to participate in life of undergraduates and post graduates and well has gain insight into the mind set of some new thinkers who taught and did undertake research in the university. The majority of students at Ruskin College were not revolutionary and more interested in sex, beer and most of all advancing their prospects in the world. A minority supported the CND and I was the only one with direct action interest or experience.

I had a good friend at St Hilda’s and got to know a few other undergraduates through the university societies and clubs being a college rep re the CND, and also a college rep on a Labour club committee to stop the Party supporting membership of the EEC. There were big audiences for visiting speakers when Labour came to the city although the biggest crowd came for a working class trade unionist who had hit the headlines for a time. I was also a member of a Christian based society promoting multi racialism. All the other participants attending the Criminology seminars and my tutorial partner were post graduates with first or second class honour degrees in subjects other than the social sciences. They were all serious young people working hard in academic studies and practical work placements for their chosen careers. I also had several articles published in the University term time weekly Isis and this led to contact at one upper class contact who knew the then Home Secretary who eh said he spoken with over the Christmas Holiday. Because I was working hard myself and had little time for socializing I accept that most of my experience was only snap shots. I only got a place on the post graduate diploma course because the person who had the place for the first year was asked to leave the college because of psychological problems and the suggestion of some drug use although I can confidently say there was no drug use in the college in general and even drinking was limited to a stretched pint or two at weekends.

I had come across those attending art schools from three different interests. Many of those attending Soho Jazz clubs, especially Cy Laurie attended art schools in the capital and also some of those actively participating in the CND movement and in Direct Action were either attending art schools or had been to art schools, just as some were musicians who became rock and rollers and some who experimented and some became addicted to LSD, Acid and Amphetamines. I also had a friend who attended art school who was not political and married a doctor, who was not promiscuous and who did not take drugs although I also had another friend who became promiscuous and took drugs when at university in Paris. There were all individuals, some with pronounced personal problems, but most did not. They were just caring and thinking people who enjoyed a good time, One good friend who supported but did not participated in Direct Action, completed an honours degree in art, went sailing at weekends, lived in one of the best house in Hampstead and took me to see Beyond the Fringe as well as introduced to writings of Lawrence Durrell and his Alexandrian Quartet.

With a couple of exceptions all the people I knew were part of or seeking serious relationships with the opposite or same sex partners rather than promiscuity I had a couple of friends who were bisexual females who took me to a gay club one evening so I could see their normality. It has to be remembered that the contraceptive pill was only first prescribed by a General Practitioner to married patients and was not generally available in the 1960’s, I was aware of some young people sleeping together, that is sharing sleeping bags in communal areas on CND marches but this did not mean sexual activity after a day of marching. I did know two young women who had a child before marriage. One worked at the Home Office and the other dropped out of an Oxford College. One was happy with her situation while the other was not.

The programme attempted to portray the CND and Direct Action movement at homogenous with ninety percent young people, anti establishment, anti authority and anti police, showing several violent clashes between the police and demonstrators which I thought came from the anti Vietnam war protests where the violence was organised by the CIA and British intelligence services using rent a mob.

I have as good a knowledge of all facets of the CND, anti weapons of destruction movement as anyone still living, having member a member of the Wallington CND which had about half a dozen activity members who were all married adults with families except for me. There were teachers, one who had written an unpublished novel then laying in a drawer and one who had dropped from a balloon over Moscow before the Second World War, I saw the photograph. However we were all nervous about handing out leaflets in the Wallington High Street, but we did it. I formed the Wallington Branch of the Youth CND mainly members of the Young Socialists from council estates in Beddington, although the daughter of the Labour Member of Parliament for Morpeth in Northumberland lived in Wallington as did the daughter of a World War conscientious objector who ran a show shop close to where I lived for the first 15 years of my life. The sons of Ritchie Calder were also involved and we had a meeting at their house the other side of Sutton in one instance

I went on two marches organised by the Youth CND from Liverpool to Hull and got to know many of those involved exceptionally well, including the one friend who went to St Hilda’s and had spent six months in India on her own before going to Oxford. Another young teacher in training became a Professor of Education, while the parent of two others became Attorney General in Labour Government. The daughter of a left wing clergyman who came because she insisted on participating later was reported to have joined a revue in Paris.

I was also the second youngest participant in the Harrington Direct Action Committee where the 80 individuals arrested and who refused police bail were held for the weekend on remand, including the daughter of a Judge and the men taken to Bedford Prison had a great time in sleeping on the floor of the prison Library but the two of us under twenty one had to be kept in apart in single cells for the whole time with only two half hour periods of exercise during which we were not allowed to speak to each other. I was also then the second youngest of the thirteen Foulness prisoners who spent six months in various establishments as guests of her Majesty, We were a very mixed group including a long time Member of the Society of Friends who had been a World War Two conscientious objector, the illegitimate offspring of the upper classes who was intended for the church but became an Anglo catholic vegan anarchist who with his wife is still protesting into their seventies, a potter who wrote a cult novel and who now gives living history talks to school children and another young man who failed as potter because he could not bear to sell his creations. One other was the most normal, Christian motivated and went on being normal afterwards.

The CND movement grew and grew so that by the 1961 Aldermaston March there were large contingents from the Universities, the Cooperative movement, trade unions, and the Young Communist League although the official Communist party was torn between natural inclinations and Moscow orders. The factional supporters of Trotsky fully supported the abolition of British weapons of mass destruction but wanted to keep the worker’s bomb much the same as Muslim fundamentalists and other religious fanatics and political extremists today who continue to be in favour of undermining democratic government while defending the development of fascist dictatorships and abolition of individual human rights, which is a problem for the present day Labour Government faced with a right wing police force and military establishment, such is the nature of both institutions since their development into professionally organised and trained bodies. The Church of England and the Catholic Church in the UK did not support the CND although several clergymen and many parishioners did, much in the same way that the Peace Pledge Union remained justifiably sceptical although the War Resistors did support. The anarchists were fully on board but have you ever attended a meeting of 100 individualists, some prominent culturally and tried to reach a consensus about the size of a poster let alone on what it should say but which reminds of meeting of a dozen senior local government executives in a corporate meeting about the provision of sites for Gypsies and where I was the lead representative of the proposed managing department in which we discussed he merits of ordinary taps or limited flow taps with a leader of the gypsy council.

Nor is my knowledge restricted to England as for a month I was the advance fieldworker for the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War in Scotland organising the first major Holy Loch demonstration which was subsequently supported by the Committee of 100 but not the Scottish CND. The experience arranged from being interviewed on behalf of a national newspaper who warned of the prior editorial instructions on how the story was to be written, to meeting the communist fixer on one bank of the Clyde, to a conversation with the police chief for Clydebank who asked how many men I wanted to protect the march and insisted that the roadway should be closed for the passage of the support demonstration; and a meeting with three chief officers of one local authority who had been asked by the local politicians to provide accommodation and food in schools to accommodate marchers overnight. The Communist Moffat brothers who ran the Scottish Miner’s union had paid the fine for Pat Arrowsmith and the others on the march from London after they had been arrested for marching down Prince’s Street in Edinburgh in contravention to police orders and I had to take the draft for several thousand pounds to the Mine workers Headquarters to repay the sum where the marchers were drinking whisky and being made honorary member of the union. I for my part received a warning letter from the Commander of the Flagship Scotland. Several decades later I came across an article written by a naval historian who claimed that the authorities had been able to prepare and contain the coordinated water and land demonstrations because the plan had come into their possession by luck. There was no luck involved. I had arranged an appointment with the Police Chief at Dunoon and agreed to a secretary to make a hand written note of the details of march and demonstrations from the ferry to the landings for the base as well as the canoe operation based from the grounds of the Youth Hostel on the other side of the Loch. The meeting had been arranged by the Chairman of the local CND who was also a member of the Scottish CND executive. I had attended a meeting of the Executive in Edinburgh after which I was taken to a gentleman’s club where we sampled some fine single malt whisky. This openness at the end of the six week activity matched that beforehand when I went with the London organiser of the Aldermaston March to Scotland Yard to meet police and Home office representatives to discuss the arrangements for the March into London and Trafalgar Square Rally followed by the departure of the mini march of the Holy Loch campaign walkers complete with two canoes and where I was the Marshall for the first week before travelling to Scotland. A time was agreed for when the Holy Loch march would leave the Square and where it was agreed we would do a circuit of the square to allow supporters to joining in. The police however insisted that we leave quickly without doing a circuit and their tactics prevented too many supporters from joining in. Afterwards we found out that in addition to managing the hundred of thousands people who had marched the last stage from Turnham Green in West London and where Hyde Park had been the place where coaches had brought people from all over the UK and to where they returned, the police had to deal with an unofficial sit down organised by members of the Committee of 100. This was typical of the behaviour of Ralph Scheonman who had become the spokesperson for Lord Bertrand Russell after becoming his personal secretary and then controlling his Peace Foundation. I had caught Ralph telling people to sign demonstration pledges at the Two I’s Coffee Bar, even if they had no intention of participating as I was clearing tables. The executive committee of the Committee 100 had decided that a minimum number of participation pledges had to be obtained before the demonstration went ahead. I wrote to Lord Russell complaining about this approach and his wife replied saying my letter had upset her husband and that he had full confidence in Mr Schoenman. I resigned from the Committee as a consequence, as I did as Scottish Field Organiser for the Direct Action Committee when I learnt that Pat had organised different activities from those which I had notified the police and that people would be allowed to join in the water demonstration and sit downs without briefing about non violent behaviour or about the risks involved and the potential legal consequences.

The idea that there was any connection let alone significant connection between these activities and those involved in the so called Underground, the Albert Hall Beat poet readings, the Alexandra Palace all night event to raise money for the International Times court case and the psychedelic drug taking world of some members of the Pink Floyd, is rubbish.

Another feature of the late fifties and early 1960’s was the development of the Teddy Boy suits and the Mods and Rockers conflicts which hit the headlines with confrontations on the south coast especially Britain. I am not denying that there was conflicts which took place in the glare of the media of the day, but the whole situation was reported out of proportion to the reality. I had a work colleague who introduced me to the Jazz clubs of central London and to the record Library of the American Embassy in London where I borrowed records which included the modern opera the Telephone by Menotti as well as those on the history of the blues and traditional jazz. He also had a Teddy Boy suit which he worse only to go with his mates once a week to the local Palais to drink and pick up girls although he was not much of a dancer. Another friend, whose parents ran a newsagent in Croydon, had a Lambretta Scooter which was the hall mark means of personal transport for the Mods and he did have a friend who lived in Brighton who we visited but he not only wore a crash helmet which in those days was not compulsory but had one for me and I was introduced to his parents who wanted to meet his friends.

During my involvement with Jazz clubs and then the London Peace movements I was never offered drugs or was aware of anyone taking drugs although there were suggestion that some of the jazz musicians were. I attended the Saturday night showing of the Bill Haley Film Rock around the Clock at the Davis Cinema in Croydon one the of the largest in the UK with several thousand seats and true there was some dancing in aisle which was considered news worthy but not revolutionary with everyone going back to school and work after the weekend. Going to work at sixteen I was taken into the local pub not by other teenagers but by adult colleagues for a drink at Christmas and got drunk as a kind of initiation ceremony. Between the ages of sixteen and eighteen I did learnt to drink a couple of pints of brown and mild before and during the intervals in jazz club visits in nearby Soho pubs but I never saw anyone intoxicated or getting into fights or other trouble.

The main hard drug of use in London was heroine where there were several hundred addicts and in the later 1960’s the police had a purge on addicts who traded to feed their habit and many went off to the provinces, with a couple ending up in South Shields where they were able to negotiate drugs via the port and thus a cell of hard drug users and minor traders developed so that by 1974 half the residents at the NHS treatment clinic in Newcastle, referred from throughout the Northern Region, came from South Shields. In fact the spread of hard drug use in the UK is linked with the development of the motorway system, to the location of ports and airports. While this again will seem an individual snapshot knowledge later I served on a national Home Office Committee and became a temporary Social Services Inspector for the Department of Health in relation to making assessments about the nature and the extent of drug use in specific areas (visits to areas in London, Yorkshire, Suffolk and Oxfordshire) as well as being responsible for the creation of the Local Government Forum which was the first body to represent all local authority interests in the UK. I therefore gained a very broad view, historical information as well detailed information on problems, numbers and services as well as what was happening and what was not
It is true that the development of LSD, Acid and amphetamines uppers and downers became associated with rock bands and some writers and poets and that the International Times became a voice for the psychedelic culture. Peace News part of the non violence direct action movement was strictly concerned with international peace issues which included opposition to race and other forms of bigotry but did not see itself as Party Political or the voice of new youth movement.

The big change of the 1960‘s was that young people had money to spend on clothes, records, attending gigs and they also had the time from work to enjoy their leisure interests. People did dress up as Mods, Rockers, in flares and glam. The skirts got short shorter and some young women went braless until the feminists worked out this made them greater sex objects than previously. Very few individuals dressed one way all the time or associated in gangs which tended to be the feature of some council estates and which tended to involve issues of territory, religion and race than overt criminality, although the activities did sometimes lead to criminality. There was a long standing link between gangs of football hooligans and extreme right wing groups who were also strongly against a multiracial society. There was then as now an underclass of criminals, starting as delinquents, first time offenders and graduating to old lags. There were criminal gangs who controlled certain activities, major thieving, protection rackets, illegal gambling and prostitution before illegal drugs came to the fore but these were small in number, known to the police who took money as long as the activities were kept within reason, no murder outside the fraternity for example. The greater majority of those who went to prison either as criminals or civil offenders were ordinary people from a range of backgrounds. The recidivist was often uneducated and had been in care or institutions for the those with mental health problems

The programme attempted to link the various and diverse groups and interests into a 1960’s revolt against the establishment by a whole generation and to make Pink Floyd its voice. It is true that individual members of the band did encompass some of the characteristics Its creative leader was heavily into the new drugs but had had significant underlying mental health problems. One member candidly admitted that he was not aware or interested in any movement underground or political. There was a major performances at the Royal Albert Hall which brought over USA Beat poets many of whom were high and as the all night show at Alexander Palace. many of those participating were also on high and a few spent several years in a haze and a daze of sex, drugs and rock and roll but they were always a disconnected minority. More people ruined their lives and those of others through drink and becoming alcoholic, through moving from petty crimes into major, by dangerous and careless driving and most of all by smoking cigarettes. The gloss and glow of the memory of past experience tends to distort recollections and always question those who assert generalizations with academic or moral conviction