‘Making Plans for Nigel’, the first top 20 hit for that most brilliantly quirky of British bands, XTC, tells the tale of parents mapping out their son’s future without much consultation with the son himself. ‘We only want what’s best for him,’ they say. ‘Nigel’s whole future is as good as sealed’ because ‘he has his future in British Steel.’ The wry, witty lyrics portray parents fixed in the belief that a job with a state-run industry – steel was first nationalised in 1949 and again in 1967 – is a job for life. Within months of the single’s release, steelworkers went on strike, presenting the Thatcher Government with its introduction to industrial unrest and presumably wrecking the plans of Nigel’s parents.
British towns that morphed into cities during the white heat of the Industrial Revolution bore the scars of their industries like an old boxer’s broken nose and cauliflower ears. Most were smelly, dirty and dark. Should anyone head north from the capital – or west to Wales – they would have embarked on an eye-opening journey into the black underbelly of the Empire’s engine, confronted by skies discoloured with the discharge of chimneys and cooling towers, the toxic fallout from industry that had put the city on the map and served as the supplier of employment for its population. It was the Faustian pact that population entered into, and however miserable their living conditions and however low their wages, a pride was imbued in the industry that their city was associated with as generations earned a living from it. The industry was a benevolent cushion that kept its beneficiaries from being thrown upon the mercy of the state.
The decline of Britain’s manufacturing industries in the decades following the end of the Second World War went hand-in-hand with the death of Empire and the country’s diminishing status on the global stage. In the space of a generation, Britain had to make its biggest adjustment to its place in the world since the advent of the era that had made it such a force to be reckoned with in the first place. Certainties that provided the nation with a great deal of its identity for more than a century, whether a map sporting huge swathes of pink landmasses or an industry that sprawling metropolises had grown around, were clung to with a sense of futile desperation as though the populace were scrambling for the boats jettisoned from a sinking ship.
The slow, painful extinction of Britain’s mining industry perhaps spawned the most extreme reaction from people who had known nothing else, and losing the battle left their communities decimated, smashing the framework of those communities without offering a tangible alternative; many remain struck in the shadows of that defeat to this very day.
The reasons for decline in British industry are myriad: Competition from nations whose economic fortunes improved in the aftermath of WWII as ours nosedived, the cheapness of imports over home-grown produce, lack of long-term investment, the materialistic, self-aggrandising greed of union leaders which was then followed by the often ruthless individual profiteering from privatisation at the expense of collective benefits, EU restrictions on government subsidies and bailouts, the increasing preference for service industries over manufacturing ones, the financial sector being awarded seemingly ‘special’ status – many of these aspects have played their part in the sorrowful situation that the British steel industry finds itself in today.
Unusually for a declining industry, demand for steel is high and supply is abundant – perhaps too abundant. China’s steel industry outgrew its own domestic demand and began to export its steel at knockdown prices that quickly rendered the native steel industries of the countries buying-in the cheaper Chinese version unprofitable. Despite the money that Tata, the Indian company that purchased what used to be called British Steel in 2007, has poured into the business, it continues to operate at a loss, making this week’s announcement that the industry is up for sale the kind of apocalyptic news that everyone who works in it has been dreading. As was the case with mining, the steel industry isn’t centred on just the one specific region of the UK, and the loss of jobs if the industry is allowed to go under has the potential to affect far more lives than if it were restricted to a solitary city or county.
There’s no doubt that cities which suffered the loss of their major industry have emerged from the wreckage as cleaner, healthier and less polluted places to live; but their spirit has been broken in the process, leaving youngsters without the guarantee of following in the footsteps of their forefathers little option but to up sticks and try their luck elsewhere, getting on their bikes and looking for work as someone once famously said. Consett, Corby, Ebbw Vale, Shotton and Motherwell all suffered high unemployment in the wake of their steel plants closing down; workers at the remaining plants in South Yorkshire, South Wales, Scunthorpe, Teesside and Scotland now bite their collective fingernails to see if the Government will intervene and prevent similar devastation laying waste to their own corner of the country.
© The Editor
When Radovan Karadzic received a forty-year sentence after being found guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in The Hague last week, the trial of the former Serbian politician, poet, fugitive and advocate of ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian War had taken six years to reach its conclusion. By contrast, the trial of Nazi War Criminal Adolf Eichmann in Israel half-a-century ago took just eight months between the opening of the prosecution case and Eichmann being sentenced to death. At the time of Eichmann’s capture in Argentina by Mossad agents in 1960, a mere fifteen years had passed since the end of the Second World War; when Karadzic was finally found ‘hiding in plain sight’ in Belgrade, twelve years separated the present day from the conflict in which Karadzic had earned his notoriety. His crimes were as fresh in the memory of those affected by them as Eichmann’s had been for death camp survivors in the early 60s. In many respects, they remained present tense.
If only we could blame it on the EU or Muslims – I suspect that was the first thought that entered the heads of Mail and Telegraph journos when it was pointed out that the word ‘Easter’ had been quietly dropped from the branding on boxes containing the springtime produce of the chocolate manufacturers. It would certainly chime with some of the silliest Brussels directives of recent years, ones concerning new specifications over the size of sausages, ones that prompt Sun campaigns to ‘save the British Banger’ and so on. It would also fit the classic Fleet Street Islamic narrative of Loony Left local councils banning Christmas decorations on the grounds that they might offend the non-Christian community. Alas, no. This particular move appears to have come from the chocolate companies themselves.
There will always be the debate – Stanley Matthews or George Best? Pele or Maradona? For me, the man who played the beautiful game with greater artistry than anyone ever to slip into a pair of studded boots was Johan Cruyff, whose death from lung cancer at the age of 68 has been announced. The outspoken and opinionated Dutchman displayed an undoubted arrogance and absence of modesty both on and off the pitch because he knew he was the best; and he was. Although he made his professional debut as a 17-year-old in 1964, domestic football in Holland had only recently emerged from its amateur age and the Netherlands had never made any notable impact at either club or international level. Cruyff’s club, whose books he had been on from the age of ten, was Ajax of Amsterdam. When former Ajax player Rinus Michels returned to the club as coach, he saw in Cruyff a player around whom he could build a team playing a style of football that would eventually turn Ajax into the world’s greatest club side.
It’s a ghastly side-effect of warfare that those who haven’t signed up for either side always end up in the firing line. Whether their turf is contested by professional national armies, amateur guerrillas or nihilistic terrorists, the civilian population is invariably caught in crossfire while attempting to go about their daily business. To the left is a remarkable photograph taken on a London street in 1944: two women step off a bus onto the pavement while the cloud from a V-1 rocket that exploded a second before the photographer clicked the camera shutter can be seen rising in the background. It’s the juxtaposition of the ordinary with the extraordinary in the image that speaks volumes as to the tenacity of the human spirit when necessary routine is confronted by a potentially fatal threat.
The Pox, Consumption, Dropsy, Scurvy, Scarlet Fever – anyone who has read the canon of classic English literature penned in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries will be familiar with references to diseases that at the most could kill or at the very least leave a lifelong physical effect on the health of those exposed to them. In the absence of modern medical science, ancient herbal remedies were applied across the social divide until the aristocracy were introduced to the benefits of inoculation against Smallpox in the 1720s. Prominent lady of letters Lady Mary Wortley Montagu advocated inoculation after witnessing its success on her travels through the Ottoman Empire and convinced Caroline, Princess of Wales that something previously untested in the West could serve as a cure. Princess Caroline famously had her two daughters successfully inoculated, and less celebrated guinea pigs received the same treatment at Newgate Gaol. Offered a choice of execution or inoculation, seven condemned prisoners unsurprisingly chose the latter, survived the experiment, and were all granted their freedom as a consequence.
The annual survey by the Sunday Times to name the most perfect place to live in Britain has revealed the winner. Hold on a minute, Grimsby, Workington and Hartlepool – and step forward Winchester. According to the compilers of the survey, Hampshire’s county town offers ‘a tasty slice of authentic history, with great transport links and fine schools. It also has an irresistible mix of food, festivals and feel-good factor.’ I’ve no reason to doubt this brief summary of Winchester’s plus points; though I’ve never visited this most perfect of places, I know enough about the Home Counties to recognise a uniquely English ideal of picturesque beauty when I hear it described.
Who’d have thought it? Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, arch-advocate of cutting benefits to the bone for the best part of a decade, has resigned on the pretext that the cuts to disability benefits proposed by the Chancellor in the Budget went too far. Yes, you heard right. I know it sounds about as plausible as Nick Griffin regarding Oswald Mosley as someone who was a bit extreme, but that’s what ‘the quiet man’ said in his resignation letter as he walked out of the Cabinet.
Yesterday it was Sylvia Anderson; today it’s the turn of Paul Daniels and Cliff Michelmore; last week it was George Martin and Keith Emerson. As far as famous names go, the one area of the economy currently experiencing a boom is undertaking. The Grim Reaper has seemingly never had it so good. A year only midway through its third month has seen a remarkably sweeping clear-out of characters from the entertainment firmament on a scale unseen since the mid-to-late 80s, when it felt as though every day saw the curtain come down on careers that had begun during the golden age of Hollywood. The 30s, 40s and 50s have been comprehensively covered and now the shadow of the scythe has fallen on the 60s and 70s.
As far as serendipitous scheduling goes, the decision to repeat a documentary about the career of The Carpenters on BBC4 Monday night was somewhat ironic. The sad story of Karen Carpenter’s surrender to eating disorders was screened on a day when venerable veteran broadcaster and Labour Peer Joan Bakewell publicly apologised for comments she made on the subject of anorexia nervosa. I haven’t seen the original piece in which Dame Joan aired her opinions, though from what I can gather she suggested the sickness was a consequence of narcissism amongst adolescent girls. I presume they provoked the usual storm in the twitter teacup, hence the climb-down by a woman from an era in which opinions were expressed without the need to retract them 24 hours later.
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