A short history of tomorrow by Trevor Plumbly
The sun ain’t gonna shine anymore They’re all at it! Even my blog mates are doing the gloom and doom stuff, so I reckon it must be my turn to announce that the world is going to hell in a handcart. Like the man said back then, ‘The times they are a-changing’. I don’t mind change as long as it’s properly handled, but latterly I’m beginning to doubt the competence of the folk dishing it out. I’ve never had much truck with the ‘those were the days’ culture some oldies cling to,… Read More
Grandparents Crossing the Globe by Angela Caldin
The Pain of Separation A year or two before I became a grandmother, I had a job providing support to witnesses called to give evidence in criminal trials at a magistrates’ court in London. All kinds of people of all ages, races, socio-economic groups, prejudices, temperaments and beliefs flowed through the doors and I remember very few individual cases. But two people have always stayed in my mind: an elderly couple who had been the victims of a fraudulent builder who had marched the husband to the bank and made him draw… Read More
My Struggle (Mein Kampf) by Trevor Plumbly
A Lifetime’s Commitment to Neutrality Looking back over my colleagues’ blogs, I couldn’t help noting (kindly of course) the change in the content of their articles: Angela, it seems, has morphed from the darling of definition to the Doberman of the downtrodden, while more disturbingly, Emily has aspired to become Baroness of the besmirched by metaphorically flinging her undergarments at a sad old soap opera star accused of all sorts of nasties. You will, I hope, be pleased to hear that I’ve remained true to my early commitment to truth, justice and… Read More
Some of my Best Friends are…by Trevor Plumbly
Learning to be racist I grew up in Royal Tunbridge Wells in the South East of England. Whilst a pleasant enough town, in the early 1940s it was hardly a classless or multi-cultural community; in fact, among the educated and privileged there was an inbuilt superiority that, sadly, we the less fortunate accepted as their lot in life. Oddly enough though, instead of identifying with the other lesser mortals we, being white, and indeed English, practised our own form of bigotry. “Eeny, meeny, miney moe!”, “Little Black Sambo”, “Sir Golly de Wog”… Read More
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