Letter from A. Broad

Despite being arrested and badly beaten, protesters are not giving up and protests in Belarus continue. Over 200,000 people took to the streets in Minsk over the weekend while TV Journalists are refusing to work in the state-sanctioned stations. Europe and much of the world are watching, appalled at the police and army violence used to control the protesters. Beleaguered President Alexander Lukashenko is feeling the heat and has turned to Vladimir Putin asking for help, which may – or may not – be forthcoming. Is this a world-warning to the U.S. if, in November, the U.S. presidential elections appear to be overtly tampered with?

An Eton Mess, as described in Wikipedia – the now go-to in depth Encyclopedia Britannica – is a traditional English dessert of strawberries, meringue, and whipped cream. As the name suggests the Eton Mess originated at Eton College and began life when served at the annual cricket match between the Eton and Harrow Schools at Lords Cricket Grounds in London.

In the summer time of the early 1960’s, as young student nurses, with our end of the month brown envelopes, we would walk up the hill to The Corona Cafe on the Guildford High Street. Crowded tightly into our little booth we would each order, not an Eton Mess, which was not yet on every restaurant’s menu, but a Knickerbocker Glory, which was.

Before the European Market, and a global economy, soft fruit was truly seasonal and ripe only in June and July. The berries then faded, giving way to August’s blushing peaches and plums.

But here we are in August, with strawberries and raspberries still in the markets and so, if we choose, we can make up our own versions of an Eton Mess; mashing merengue, ice-cream and fruit all together, or we can be more creative, putting together an elegant Knickerbocker Glory.

Now in this mid-summer moment, Boris Johnson’s Government has produced its own Eton Mess within the education system, taking all the good things of a last school year and, with a hairy fist and no thought for the consequences, crushed them into the industrial blender of the Ofqual algorithm. Whether it is G.C.S.E.’s or A levels, leaving school exam results are hugely important to the students, teachers and their schools. I can remember fearfully waiting during exam result’s week for the brown envelope containing my O Level results to come though the letter box. This year, because of the Corona Virus, there have been no A level exams. They are vital indicators for a student’s way forward to a university – or not – and if so which university can they attend. The government’s first choice was to wiggle through two paths. In Private (called Public) schools, the teachers were allowed to give their assessments of a student’s grades. In State schools the government implemented an algorithm from the exams watchdog, Ofqual, based on previous results from these schools. This appeared dependent on post codes for schools and students alike and did not address the hard work of the schools and teachers struggling to improve and equalize the opportunities for students throughout the country. The gap between rich and poor has been broadened and deepened more that ever.

The Scottish Prime Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, was the first to think ‘Rubbish, off with that computer’s head, we are going to listen to the teachers,’ though she put it more politely saying:
“We’ve got this wrong and apologize to both students and teachers. We are going to do whatever we can to put this right.” Northern Ireland and Wales followed suit. Quickly, old Etonian Boris Johnson, and the Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, far from an Old Etonian, but maybe with such aspirations, were left watching their Eton Mess collapse into a proper Dog’s dinner. And now the students have voices; quickly they formed protests around the country and posted their stories on Social Media. Those whose post-codes down-graded their results are not going anywhere quietly. This maybe the first time that Domonic Cummings’ computer and puppet-strings for Gavin Williamson have tangled and crashed. The government has been forced to abandon their algorithm from Ofqual and now slides into a U-Turn. Like a cur that has regurgitated its Eton mess, it has turned tail, eaten its own words as a dog’s dinner and retreated.

But this week we are preparing for the Virtual launch of COUP 53 on Wednesday August 19th. That is this evening if you are listing on KWMR.org, one of the over 90 venue hosts in four countries, for COUP 53. Yes, I’m putting in a plug for the film and our own beloved radio station, where you can get tickets for Wednesday night and thereafter as long as the venues keep the link on their website. If your tickets are for the Wednesday opening you also get to see the on-line Q & A moderated by Johnathan Snow and featuring the writer/director Taghi Amirani, the writer/editor Walter Murch and actor, Ralph Fiennes. Ticket sales are split between the host venue and the film.

Everyone involved in the making of COUP 53 at times wondered what rabbit-hole we were falling into as these historic events from 67 years ago played out in more than unusual footage and film. The Press coverage has been amazing and maybe is in part due to the guts and determination it has taken to not only make the film but now to release it in these Covid-19 times. I’ve seen COUP 53 many times but truth be told, I’m looking forward to switching on and watching it again on Wednesday night.

This has been A. Letter from A. Broad.Written and read for you by Muriel Murch

Most government ministers have gone on holiday, even though there are some bits of business throbbing under hastily applied band -aids, such as the brushing under a carpet of important school grades being estimated by post codes rather than teacher input. Meanwhile the Prime Minister looks like he is doing his bit to reduce obesity in Britain possibly having shed seven pounds in weight.

But during this now almost normal English heatwave, migrants are crossing the English Channel by the boat-loads from France, and Johnson is pushing this back into the French Prime Minister’s lap like a hot potato. But his language, calling the migrants criminal, is being called on by the Refugee Council’s director of advocacy, Lisa Doyle.

“Seeking asylum is not a crime, and it is legitimate that people have to cross borders to do so.” Pulling in the English Navy to stop the mere hundreds of migrants from landing seems more than a bit harsh at this point in their journey.

Last week Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, was blown to bits because of a boat-load of neglected fertilizer warehoused at the dockside. Estimated at 1/10th the size of the bomb on Hiroshima it became a weapon of mass destruction as hundreds were killed, thousands wounded and the city destroyed. Last night Lebanon’s prime minister, Hassan Diab, announced the resignation of his government, ceding to the will of the people, and saying the incident was ‘the result of endemic corruption. It was time to turn the country from a state of brokerages and theft to a state of law and justice.’ What a great phrase, but looking at the carnage it is hard to know where they can start.

And in Belarus, where you say, (it used to be part of the Soviet Union), Sunday’s election results brought another landslide victory for Lukashenko bringing thousands of protesters onto the streets. The Guardian paper reminds us that foreign observers have not declared a Belarusian election free and fair since 1995.

The opposition candidate, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, was apparently pressured to leave the country in exchange for the release of her chief of staff, Maria Moroz, who had been detained by police on Saturday. Her foreign minister was quoted saying “I can just say that she is safe and that she is in Lithuania.”

Last week Michelle Obama’s admission of a ‘light depression’ was on the front page of ‘The Evening Standard’. The paper is delivered to our doorstep by kind neighbors as they take their evening Covid Constitutional walk around the village in this corner of London.

When Barak Obama was first elected president of the United States of America in 2008 many of us wept for joy and relief but the mother in me also wanted to write Michelle Obama a note. Of course I never did, and when we heard that Michelle was bringing her mother, Mrs Robinson, with the family to the White House, I knew I didn’t need to. Michelle was going to be all right. And, of course, she was more than all right. For the often unspoken secret is that no one is ever ready for the role that is thrust on them, or they choose, but if their heart and mind are willing and focused then they will grow into that role, a truth for all who ‘grasp the nettle’ of their life’s work. Michelle Obama did just that. Then she wrote, “Becoming” knowing it would inspire, giving hope and courage to all those young women reaching over her shoulders to take this work forward. So many people are sick with fear and anguish, while others show their fear with hatred and rage. It is hard to think that anyone in the United States of America is not very afraid. As we enter the sixth month of sheltering in place and no real end in sight this low level of depression is palpable all around me here in London.

But we have a lot to be grateful for. Last Thursday we celebrated our 55th wedding anniversary. How on earth did that happen? With more laughter than tears, some incredible highs, our share of deep lows, and a lot of washing-up throughout all the years. And we have memories. A morning wedding, sandwiches for lunch with a cake and champagne before getting on the bike and heading a little way north to our first night at a hotel; borrowing a jacket and tie from the management, a trout for supper with at least a glass of wine, a purple haze in the morning dew outside of our window and a receptionist who, when I returned the keys, said, “Have a nice trip back.”

But we weren’t going back, we were going forward, North and then West into a life together.

However Walter had not really heard his mother’s marital advice, “Remember she is just a girl.” Maybe a rather tall tom-boy girl but still a girl. He had bought a war-surplus tent for $12.00. The tent smelt of creosote. It was 6’ long, 4’ wide and 3’ high. After our first night in the hotel, we were to camp our way north to Canada and west to Los Angeles. Maybe so, but for me the stars were better company than the tent. Somehow the tent fell from the back of the bike and he didn’t notice until we were long gone to the next stop. But it it had served a purpose, to show a girl about the Scott in Scott Murch and to show a boy what a girl will – or will not do.

This has been A Letter from A. Broad
Written and read for you by Muriel Murch

When I walked up and over the hill to the Saturday’s farmers markets in the play-yard of St. Paul’s School on Primrose Hill Road I took a detour to a stand of shrubs that has been left to grow on the hill. The outer tresses are vines of sweet and plump blackberries, and I have a small container-full before I head down the back side of the hill into the market. Volunteers are still at the gates, watching who goes in, helping with a queue if necessary, and giving us all a squish of hand sanitizer as we enter the school yard.

What is it about markets? We gather at them as at an oasis for life. A community without such a market feels depleted in a deep way. There is rejoicing when a new market is established and a sadness when one dies.

It was probably in the early 1980’s when my mother first said “Come on Saturday and we can go to the market.” There was now a weekly market set up in the Ghurka Square parking lot of the Fleet town library. There were stands selling tools, some of which definitely looked as if they had fallen off the back of a lorry. There were stalls of fruit, vegetables and a small garden shop with its racks of plants, all of whom my mother would barter with, much to my embarrassment, but not to hers. The stall owners knew that they would lose nothing in giving her a bob or two off, and she would happily be back to shop with them again the following Saturday. The butcher and fishmonger, Mr. Driver and Mr. Harden, both taking over from their fathers, brought vans to the market to sell fish and any game that had come their way during the week. Being on the edge of farmland and the countryside there would be plenty of pheasant, rabbit and hare, in season or not. My mother would meet old friends, and though it was no longer the genteel coffee house moments of Mrs. Max’s Cafe it was another way to say hello and check in with each other.

These early markets had a flair of the fair about them, with the sharpness and quickness of traveling people. It was a racy flavor not usually found in the quiet suburbs but one I came to know in the old Inverness Street market in Camden. Now we have the Primrose Hill Saturday produce market and it suits us as I can chat with the organic farmers from Kent and beyond.

Who holds the keys to markets? For there always is a gate keeper, and not all are as amiable as the volunteers with their hand sanitizer at the St. Paul’s schoolyard entrance. What is it you have to sell and who you might serve or upset plays a part in selling pheasants or films.

The arts, and culture, are being particularly challenged within this Covid-19 crisis situation. The film business is hopping up and down, deals are being struck, contracts withdrawn, to produce, not to produce, to screen, not to screen and Coup 53 which was ready for release at the end of 2019 has been caught in the middle of this jammed water-way and was close to drowning in the river mill-stones along the road to distribution. But Todd McCarthy wondered in his article in Deadline if there was more going on with this film? He writes “At a moment in time when documentaries are in greater favor, and more widely accessible to the public than ever before, it’s both disturbing and ironic that the most enthralling and revelatory documentary I’ve seen over the past year hasn’t yet found a clear path to the public.”

There could be many reasons why mainstream streaming and cinema art-houses have not picked the film up yet for their own pockets. Is the truth of the UK and US involvement in the take-down of Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh too hot a topic at this time? It could seem that this is so.

Now the film makers have joined a new venue of online viewing. Using the streaming platform eventive.org, Coup 53 will be released in several countries and continents on August 19th and be available for viewing for several weeks thereafter. I don’t actually know how it works but I do know it involves virtual cinemas which are set up by cinemas and other parent organizations, such as KWMR.org. Another leap into the unknown for these film makers, enticing the truth-seeking and curious audience to follow. The newspaper press have already begun writing their stories and in the weeks to come there will be more. In the Sunday Observer newspaper a full page article on Coup 53 has pushed Boris Johnson off of page three onto page five, and Steve Bannon onto page seven.

U-turns and unclear explanations have led to endless chaos and a painful week for Boris Johnson. Even the Honors list has heads spinning and thinking of the saying “Keep you friends close but your enemies closer.” The list of knighthoods and peerages bulges and instead of ‘Off with their heads’, the House of Lords will now be crammed with 800 Lords and Ladies of the Realm. Maybe our Queen can delegate this investiture to Prince Charles who has a swift and steady hand with a sword. Who has been ushered upstairs? One is the cricket hero Sir Ian Botham, who was a staunch Brexiteer. Brother Jo Johnson is moved out of harm’s way into the House of Lords. Philip May, husband of ex-prime minister Theresa May for “political Service” by just getting his wife out of the door of Number 10 and into the limousine during her time in office. And let’s not forget a nice Russian. Mr. Lebedev, whose dad, since we were talking of spies, was a former KGB agent. Now Mr. Lebedev owns the Independent and Evening Standard newspapers – and has been a good friend of Mr Johnson’s. All of this announced on the second day of August when parliament is no longer sitting.

They have gone on holiday. Fewer ministers will travel overseas, but may be seen in shorts and sun-screen licking an ice lolly at a fete in their own constituencies throughout the country. Let’s hope they have plenty of sun-screen, for the temperature is about to get hotter.

This has been A Letter From A. Broad. Written and read for you by Muriel Murch.

And where is Boris? The Prime Minister thought it a good idea to fly to Scotland last week. But did he drop in on Scotland’s Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon? No, he did not. Either she didn’t know he was coming, or more likely he just wanted be seen popping in and out, like popping into a fish-and-chip shop.

Fishing. That’s the thing. On the News at Ten, Boris Johnson was seen holding up a very substantial Atlantic Crab. One that could definitely go on some kind of a diet if it didn’t want to avoid the pot. But all evidence showed that the pot was to be the crab’s destiny. It was hard to tell which variety of crab this was as it was on its back, where Mr. Johnson may find himself if:

He doesn’t pay attention to the women leaders who can deliver daily briefings on their country’s Covid-19 situation, alone at the podium, wearing stiletto-healed shoes.

He doesn’t get himself on the imposed dietary restrictions he is putting in place for England. Photographs of him jogging in London are not a pretty sight. Johnson has now declared a campaign on adult and childhood obesity. And it is true that in England 70% of the deaths from Covid-19 have been for patients who were seriously overweight.

The weather has turned blustery, as English weather does, and is the reason that the English migrate so steadfastly to Spain, Portugal and Southern Europe for their summer dose of sunshine. Now suddenly the UK government has mandated a two-week quarantine on people returning from Spain. Even a government minister has been caught out, and will have to self-isolate when he returns to the UK. Dominic Raab made the announcement from home, with the backdrop of delightful delphiniums growing in his garden – reminding us all that really the government has ‘shut up shop’ and gone on holiday. Is anyone paying attention?

For some of us are watching North America go into free-fall.

This weekend saw the beginning of Senator John Lewis’ journey home, including his funeral procession over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The quiet dignity of the procession befitted a man of quiet dignity and good trouble. I have pulled out blue and purple ribbons and tied them onto our front door. Blue for Mr. Lewis, and Purple for the pancreatic cancer that felled him. Over the course of his life John Lewis returned to Selma again and again. He often said, “This is where I come for renewal.”

A book, ‘The Best of Ruskin Bond,’ was given to me by Shubki, the wife of a government minister who welcomed us to Pune in 2004. This collection includes many of Bond’s short essays. In ‘At Home in India’ he asks, ‘What is it that holds me back in India, that I don’t leave?’ And he replies, “It is more than the land that holds me. For India is more than a land. India is an atmosphere. Over thousands of years, the races and religions of the world have mingled here and produced that unique, indefinable phenomenon, the Indian: so terrifying in a crowd, so beautiful in himself. … Race did not make me Indian. Religion did not make me Indian. But history did. And in the long run, it’s history that counts.” I like to believe that John Lewis would have nodded in agreement as the history of his country and his work unfold before us.

The West Indian Cricket Team is playing the English Team in the third Test. And ‘Rain Stop Play’ is holding the last day’s play hostage. This is of no interest or importance to anyone outside of cricket fans. But in a box of old family memories there is a sepia photograph of the first West Indian team to be invited to play in England at the Dulwich Cricket ground where my father was captain. The photograph is dated 1928 and shows the team striding sternly out to take the field at ten minutes to noon. I looked at the man standing at the entrance to the club house, Trilby-hatted with a hand in his old raincoat pocket, and I wonder if it is my father. Like a message in a bottle I have sent a copy of the old photograph to the team’s captain, ‘To wait for their arrival’ at Lord’s Cricket Grounds. If it reaches that shore – or their captain – I can give them the original. For this memory belongs to them, not to me.

Between the showers on Sunday we walked in the park. Clustered on the playing fields and under the trees by the lake were groups of families and friends, wanting to picnic together but not venture inside another’s home. The roses in Queen Mary’s Rose Garden are blooming in waves and every bench is occupied by family or friends taking time to be together. Leaving the rose garden to return to the park I look for Gilbert, a fine, standing topiary of tight yew and ivy shaped into a hard-working gardener, complete with a tin watering can. But Gilbert is gone. Once, when questioning a live gardener working close by he had assured me, “‘is name is Gilbert”. Gilbert had been a signature at this corner of the rose garden for at least five years.

Now he has been replaced by a very elegant succulent elephant, with tin ears. I admire the succulents and the handiwork of this new sculpture. And think maybe it is a homage to the zoo which has struggled with the pandemic shut-down, or maybe it is more, a homage to those whose work has made these gardens and the park as beautiful as they are.

This has been A Letter from A. Broad. Written and read for you by Muriel Murch

Now the open season on game for blame had begun and stalkers are on the beat. Who said what to whom and when? There is much scuttling around the zooming halls of Westminster as the cozy personal chats in the tea room become more difficult to access. Will it be the scientists, Public Health England, the National Health Service, or a couple of ministers who will get the blame now and – or the ax later? There will be ‘An Official Inquiry.’ though the PM Boris Johnson doesn’t feel this is quite the time for that. 

The Coronavirus is still very much with us in England, even as it recedes in other parts of the United Kingdom and Europe. Spikes and new outbreaks of infections have caused mini-lockdowns, The City of Leicester from an outbreak in a sweat-shop, and a farm in Herefordshire from the immigrant workers flown into the country for harvest. 

Other governments in similar predicaments and with similar geographies and social economic situations have managed better than Mr. Johnson. At 5 a.m. on Tuesday morning the European Council came to the end of a masked. ninety-hour session that agreed to 750 billion Euros in grants and loans to the 27 members of the Union. What a pity not to be a part of that Union. Instead the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has given 900,00 Public Sector workers, teachers, doctors, and dentists a 3.1% pay rise, back-dated to April, recognizing their vital contribution during the coronavirus pandemic but this is not for nurses or any other auxiliary staff.

Timing and Dosage. A medical term that also works well in all walks of life and work. Because this week the major – minor row in Government is not so much about the global pandemic we are living through, but some serious flag waving to obscure the view of a deeper investigation into the Russian Report that comes out today.

Johnson and his boys wanted their man, Mr. Grayling, to be the committee chair. But trying to make the appointment was against the rules. It gets confusing in here but with a little campaigning from back-benchers across the aisles, and a lot of tut-tutting, Mr. Lewis (already a committee member and someone who actually knows something about espionage) was appointed the chair. It was more than squabbling about who would chair a committee but hopefully who would really examine or obscure Russia’s use of cyber-espionage, money and social media campaigns to influence other countries political outcomes.

This week could be interesting, but it is getting tiring. As well as a global pandemic there is the Russian Report, and now the row with China over 1. Hong Kong  2. Ethnic Cleansing with forced Sterilization and ‘re eduction camps’. 3. the threat to national security from China’s Huawei firm. 

And all of this before turning to America and see undocumented Federal agents in Portland, the passing of the great warriors John Lewis and Rev. C.T. Vivian and an imbecilic dialogue about washing machines. Somehow this week’s news brought me to tears.  And I am not alone. 

We retreat into the bubbles that we create, and with the summer stretching before us, can be excused for struggling with the scrapping dog-fights of the world’s governments. (Our tiredness being counted on to defuse us). We long for our families and friends. As we come to the end of month four of lockdown and sheltering in place, no one over 65 is going anywhere soon or fast. But we miss each other, the frantic tidying before grandparents arrive, the rumble-tumble of grand-children, and then the meals, games and naps all shared together and the exhaustion after it is over. 

We see it in all ages as we slide along in our own bubbles. For many, loneliness creeps into the mornings and lingers through the days, leaving some people shuffling about and questioning their place in the universe. But as the lock-down has eased and social distancing measures made a little clearer, some communities have found ways to connect. Not everyone is ready to rush out to the pub or the restaurant or even the shops, but people do want a natter, a chatter, a grumble or a moment with another. With summer weather and some organizing, the Oldfield council housing estate up the road has put out clusters of a few tables and chairs, an umbrella here, another table with drinks and chips there, and they have their own pub garden. 

As we walk through the days and weeks of this year not knowing where it, or we, will stop it can feel as if we are walking towards an unknown abyss. But on Monday’s sunny afternoon, when the park was less full, we walked down to the lake and lingered to watch the ducks and geese resting in the sun, taking things a little easy as their fledglings got on with the business of feeding themselves. We wandered on, down by the canal and found the blackberry brambles that have begun to ripen. Weaving in and out of the elderflower and nettles, the brambles produce tiny berries that have a flavor all of their own. These are not the lush bushes of the rivers or low-lying fields, but scrappy brambles that continue to grow despite the grounds-men’s best efforts to whack them back out of the canal-path. We slow down and begin plucking a little black berry here and another there. I pull out a plastic box that I had brought, ‘just in case’ and for the next twenty minutes we are at peace.

This has been A Letter from A. Broad.

Written and read for you by Muriel Murch