Lord Bonkers' Diary: Corbyn sends for Christopher Robin Milne

The old boy turns out to have known Labour's new Executive Director of Strategy and Communications since he was so high.

Jeremy Corbyn sends for Christopher Robin Milne

There is only one area of our national life where the hereditary principle holds greater sway than it does here in the aristocracy. I refer, of course, to the press and broadcasting. There are whole neighbourhoods of London where it is impossible to toss a brick without hitting a Coren or a Dimbleby – not that one would try too hard to avoid doing so. Thus I was not surprised when the son of my old friend Milne went into journalism nor when he became director of communications for the new leader of the Labour Party.

I remember him as a golden-haired little fellow in the Nursery astride his rocking horse in a sailor suit or kneeling at the foot of his bed saying his prayers. Less happily, I remember him down from Winchester or Oxford talking the most awful rot about the need for Socialism. Why, he even spoke up for Stalin! I don’t think he would have been so keen on him if he had met the fellow as I did. Then came the Guardian and endless articles with titles like ‘Did 20 Million Really die?’ Now he sits at Corbyn’s right hand recommending purges every second day.

No, I cannot pretend to care for Christopher Robin Milne.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers' Diary

A shadow cabinet maker

Giving Isis one up the snoot

Andrew Neil's press gang

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Six of the Best 571

Andrew Hickey is not impressed by the Stronger In campaign.

"Orwell was far more interested, as Corbyn has been far more interested, in speaking truth to power than in holding office. His loyalty was to the movement, or at least the idea of the movement, not to MPs or the front bench, which he rarely mentioned." Robert Colls (who taught me on my Masters course many years ago) on what Jeremy Corbyn can learn from George Orwell.

David Hencke explains how Chris Grayling's attempt to sell prison expertise to regimes with appalling judicial systems like Saudi Arabia and Oman cost the taxpayer over £1m. If he were a councillor he would be surcharged.

Mad to be Normal is a film on the radical psychiatrist R.D. Laing currently in production. Caron Lindsay finds a Lib Dem connection.

Peter Bebergal is interviewed by Dangerous Minds about his new book Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll.

"“And Ukraine just wanted to be absolutely sure that the oil and the electricity rolls through." BuzzFeed remembers 19 Eurovision moments from Terry Wogan.

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Lord Bonkers' Diary: Andrew Neil's press gang

It seems all those Labour tweeters were right to detect foul play behind the resignation of Stephen Doughty as shadow Foreign Office minister live on air.

Andrew Neil's press gang

To Westminster for a round of meetings. In the evening I repair to a quaint back-street hostelry with exposed beams, dimpled window glass and exposed, dimpled barmaids. The atmosphere is tense: word has got about that the press gang is on the prowl. Sure enough, the door bursts open and a group of men with lanterns and tricorn hats hurries in. The Shadow Minister for Fish cowers under the table, but they see him, drag him out and bear him away.

“What will become of him?” I ask the landlady. “Mark my words,” she says, “they’ll take him to the dungeons beneath Broadcasting House, put the frighteners on him and ply him with Blue Nun. The next thing you know he’ll be on Daily Politics resigning from the Labour front bench.”

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers' Diary

A shadow cabinet maker

Giving Isis one up the snoot

Read More

The 11-year-old who swam the English Channel

At the end of last year I blogged about five news stories you don't get any more.

One of them was ever younger children swimming the channel:

Once skinny little figures shivering in goose grease appeared regularly in the news. Today you never see them. 

It turns out that the Channel Swimming Association imposed a minimum age of 16 years in 2000, which means that the record is likely to stay with Thomas Gregory, who made the crossing in 1988 aged 11 years and 336 days.

The other day BBC News published a feature on Thomas Gregory and his feat.

You can see why the age limit was imposed:

"When I reached the shore, I was a few notches off compos mentis," he says. "I was dazed, confused. I'd been in cold water for 12 hours, with a high rate of exertion. I'd been told you had to take three unaided steps after reaching land, otherwise you hadn't made it. But I couldn't stand up. I was on my knees. 

"Those steps became massively important. It was a Neil Armstrong moment. Eventually I did three steps, and I sat down. I remember being surrounded by people cuddling me."

Yet the hero of the interview is Gregory's coach:

"If John Bullet was alive today, he'd be getting Unsung Hero Award at the Sports Personality of the Year," says Tom. "He did countless relays of the Channel, and broke two world records, all with kids from a two-mile radius of Eltham Baths. It was incredible. But when John died, the club sort of died. It lived on thanks to some very selfless people, but my connection went. 

"This isn't false modesty, but the Channel swim wasn't about me. It was about the club. I was part of a movement, and I represented all of us. It only happened because of the courage and vision of John. I guess I was the lucky one who got the challenge." 

The crack-of-dawn starts, the hours in the pool, the weeks in Windermere, the cold showers, the open windows, the burn, the pain, the tears. Could any child enjoy that? 

"Oh yeah," Tom says, surprised at the question. "I loved it. That club changed people's lives."

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A lost line: South Acton to Hammersmith and Chiswick

A brief video about a brief and long-forgotten line. I traced its course myself when I was living in West London around 30 years ago.

For more on the line, see the Disused Stations pages for Hammesmith & Chiswick.

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Lord Bonkers' Diary: Giving Isis one up the snoot

Who would have thought it? The old boy turns out to be a bit of a hawk on Syria

One up the snoot for Isis

In my view defence questions resemble a closely fought by-election: if someone is out to get you then you give them one up the snoot at the earliest opportunity. Thus I was happy to support the idea of lobbing the occasional bomb at ISIS (the Boat Race has deteriorated since my day). Let us remember that they attacked people going to a footer match, out for dinner at a restaurant and listening to the Eagles of Death Metal, who so enlivened a tea dance at Uppingham last summer.

Thank goodness there was no move to invade Syria the way we used to invade countries under Blair. It wasn't the soldiers the Iraqis and Afghanistanis objected to so much as what came after. Health workers to enforce safe drinking guidelines; animal welfare inspectors to measure the camels; social workers from Islington to enforce Jack Straw's National Bedtime.

Just after I had written this the telephone was brought to me; it turned out to be Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party, who has called for ‘peace talks’ with ISIS. “What concessions will you demand?” I asked her. “I’m going to ask them to throw homosexuals off slightly lower buildings.”

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers' Diary

• A shadow cabinet maker

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A ghost sign from Rothwell

Photographed on Saturday, along with Big Brother.

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Karl Popper interviewed on Channel 4 in 1988 - part 4

This is the other half of the second Uncertain Truth programme, which sees Popper in conversation with John Eccles.

Watch part 1.

Watch part 2,

Watch part 3.

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Eric Clapton and Ronnie Lane in the Shropshire hills

Abel's Harp - once the Drum &; Monkey

I have blogged before about the stories that it used to be possible to wander into pubs in the Shropshire hills and find the likes of Eric Clapton and Ronnie Lane giving unadvertised concerts.

The journalist Johnty O’Donnell, with whom I have recently swapped emails on the subject, has pinned down the truth of these stories.

As, of course, the Shropshire Star tells it:

God, Slowhand . . . all nicknames for the guitar legend Eric Clapton. 

And indeed he did appear, playing along with Ronnie Lane, previously of The Faces, to a packed house at a country pub in a night which has gone down in pop folklore. And all for just £1 on the door. 

Some fans were turned away. Others were rumoured to have climbed in through the toilet windows at the Drum & Monkey at Bromlow. 

The date was Friday, March 4, 1977.

Memories of that night will be recalled in a special programme on BBC Radio Shropshire on Sunday 7 February from noon to 1pm,

It is called The People’s History of Pop and forms part of a BBC project collecting people’s pop memories and memorabilia from the 1950s to the 1980s. Johnty O’Donnell has been overseeing the project for Shropshire.

The Star reports ends by saying "the Drum & Monkey ... has passed into history".

Yes and no. When I first went there, more than a decade after this concert, it was the Callow Inn and resembled a little bit of suburban Birmingham set down in the Shropshire hills.

Last time I was there it had turned into a boutique hotel - Abel's Harp - which I am told is currently closed for refurbishment.

Later. According to its Facebook page, Abel's Harp reopened on Saturday 13 February:

Pop in for a drink with Vicky, stay awhile and sample Jude's delicious food or cosy up for one of our vintage afternoon teas!

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Birmingham City Council vs local historians

Some graves yesterday

What is it with West Midland graveyards and the authorities?

On Saturday I blogged about the thwarting of the locals' attempts to preserve a historic gravestone at Bishop's Castle.

Now comes news that Birmingham City Council is frustrating the Jewellery Quarter Research Trust's effort to compile an online database of thepeople buried in the city's Warstone Lane and Key Hill Cemeteries.

ITV News reports:

The voluntary group’s website, is still under development, and contains database with lists of graves and in some cases biographies, obituaries and photographs or portraits of the deceased ...

They say they receives hundreds of visitors on their website each week from around the world, ranging from historians to people researching family histories. 

But they have now been banned from taking photos of each gravestone unless they apply in writing for permission on a ‘case by case’ basis.

The report also quotes a spokesman for the council:

Permission for this request was declined on the basis that once this information is held by a third party then the council will have no control over how it may be used in future, without a formal agreement in place.

Which must mean it never issues press releases, because it has no control over how they are used either.

If you asked Birmingham City Council to fund this work, they would (quite truthfully) tell you that their finances are under unprecedented pressure.

Which makes it a shame that the only departments they still fund are the ones that stop other people doing things.

Anyway, enjoy the Jewellery Quarter Research Trust website.

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