The Light's on at Signpost (13 page)

Now, on our return, and the inevitable reaction from various well-wishers of oh-so-you-didn’t-make-good-and-here-you-are-back-with-your-tail-between-your-legs, it was an unexpected pleasure to meet Shankly on English Street and be told: “Ye’re back? Ye’ve done the right thing, Geordie—there’s far more opportunities here than there is ower yonder! Good for you, son!”

A hard man? Hardly.

Lastly, a genial old gentleman now living in retirement in California and delighting our household each year with his Christmas cards, which he paints himself. Seventy years ago he was a popular supporting player in Hollywood musicals, a tall, gangling, loosejointed, country-bumpkin-style comedian with a slow humorous drawl, puzzled expression, and brilliantly relaxed dancing style. After a memorable failure to appear in
The Wizard of Oz
he became a respected character actor, and gained international celebrity as the archetypal hillbilly in one of the most popular TV series of the sixties. If that were not enough, he is also an authority on Mary Queen of Scots, and is probably one of the few people who know
exactly
where the Battle of Evesham was fought. He is Buddy Ebsen.

He was at the peak of his career as the yokel turned millionaire, Jed Clampett, and detective Barnaby Jones, when he phoned to introduce himself, announce his arrival in Cumberland, and ask me to be his guide on a brief tour of the Border country. He had read my history of the sixteenth-century reivers,
The Steel Bonnets
, which dealt in part with Mary Stuart, Bothwell, and their adventures in the wild frontier country; as an enthusiast on the subject, he wanted to see the land and people at first hand.

We met in the dining-room of a Carlisle hotel where he was trying to finish breakfast while detaching himself politely from admiring American tourists, with many a “Gee!” and “Gosh!” and “Waal, ye don’t say!” to the delight of both guests and attentive waitresses; all fans of the
Beverly Hillbillies
knew the grizzled head and rumpled features, and were enjoying the happy discovery that he was as nice and funny off screen as he was on.

He was also a most satisfactory tourist, exclaiming eagerly at the scenery as I drove him north through the Debatable Land to Liddesdale, the cockpit of the Borderland, and the grim fortress of Hermitage, where Bothwell had been bushwhacked and wounded by the Elliots, and Mary had risked life and limb on a hectic ride to be with him. Buddy knew all about this, and stalked round the ruined castle photographing and murmuring: “Boy, that’s an impressive hunk o’ stone!”

He was indefatigable, too, insisting on tracking down Johnnie Armstrong’s gravestone at Carlanrig, assuring me that it wasn’t nearly as tough to find as the site of the Battle of Evesham, which he’d done recently, hacking his way through bracken and bramble to the marker stone, and consequently arriving late for a Shakespeare production at Stratford (“but my wife’s talking to me again now”). We visited Hollows Tower, one of the best Border peles, dating from 1492, and he stood in awe-stricken silence at the thought that it had been there when Columbus discovered the New World. Accosted by tourists (as he was at every stop we made), he flourished his copy of
The Steel Bonnets
, advertising it in the most shameless fashion (“Publicity, that’s the name o’ the game”).

Naturally, he wanted to talk about Border history, and I wanted to talk about his movies, of which he had little to say, but recalled a production of
HMS Pinafore
when he was at sea in the US Navy; he was to play Admiral Sir Joseph Porter, KCB, and was already in costume when action stations sounded, so he’d served through the engagement in the full fig of a Victorian Royal Navy officer. I still
think it’s a shame the Japanese didn’t take him prisoner; their reaction to Buddy Ebsen in cocked hat and tail coat would have been something to see.

We had tea in Hawick, and watching the people pass by outside the cafe, he asked me about the racial origins of the Borderers; I told him they were part Viking and he nodded contentedly. “So that’s why I feel at home here. My people are Danish.”

We didn’t meet again for several years, when we had lunch in Century City. Jim Hill, Burt Lancaster’s partner, joined us, and afterwards told me about Buddy’s famous non-appearance in
The
Wizard of Oz
. I knew the authorised version, that he had been cast as the Tin Man, but had suffered an allergic reaction to the silver paint make-up, and was replaced by Jack Haley.

Not so, said Jim. What had really happened was that Buddy had
refused
to be painted silver, even defying the great Louis B. Mayer himself. The result was that for eight years Buddy did no film work; after the war he and his sister, with whom he had appeared in vaudeville, resumed their stage partnership, touring the country. Once, in a New England winter, their car got bogged down in a snowdrift, and Buddy laboured in a blizzard to dig them out, heaving heroically and finally breaking off in a state of near-exhaustion to stagger round and address his sister through the car window: “Boy, I sure told Louis B. Mayer, didn’t I?”

That’s Jim Hill’s version, and it fits. If it’s not true, it should be.

T
HAT POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
should have become acceptable in Britain is a glaring symptom of the country’s decline. For America…well, a country that could tolerate Clinton in the White House and Edward Kennedy in public view will buy anything, as P. T. Barnum observed, and the transatlantic tendency to embrace the latest craze is one of their more endearing traits, but for Britain to swallow—or at least to accept at the prompting of its media and supposed intelligentsia—the most pernicious doctrine to threaten the world since communism and fascism, with both of which it has much in common…that truly beggars belief. But it’s here, in all its deceitful wickedness, and it’s a brave soul who will dare to lift two fingers in its direction.

Political correctness, whatever form it takes, almost always involves a denial of truth, or at best a refusal to recognise it; it may be the lie downright, or a dishonest, even cowardly, reluctance to face reality. In both these senses it would have been anathema in Britain fifty years ago—or more probably submerged in gales of scornful laughter. For political correctness would be a total hoot if it were not undermining the concept of truth as we have always understood it—until now, when truth is acceptable only if it suits the prejudices and false doctrines of the powerful and unscrupulous p.c. lobby.

Its chief weapons are censorship and taboo, often employed far beyond the limits of lunacy, as in the case of the council which called for Christmas decorations to be “restrained” in case they gave offence to “non-Christians”. (And mosques? And synagogues? Would the same council be concerned in case they gave offence to non-Muslims and non-Jews? One suspects not.)

The list of such evil imbecilities is, of course, endless, but before describing my own encounters, as a writer, with political correctness, I cannot resist a few random examples as a reminder of how low we have sunk. Even thirty years ago they would have been greeted with incredulous derision, but now they are enshrined in the p.c. code.

The word “black” must be used with care, or even removed from the vocabulary. Expressions like black market, blackspot (as in reference to accidents), black economy, and blackguard must be avoided in case they upset some racist bigot whose antennae are attuned to take offence where none, obviously, is intended. In one instance, a person of African descent actually objected to being called “a black man” and “black friend”. The nursery rhyme “Ba-ba black sheep” is banned in at least one infant school to my knowledge, and there exists a council-run canteen where (wait for it) black coffee must be referred to as “coffee without milk”.

Elsewhere, references to war and victory were censored from a plaque commemorating the little ships of Dunkirk, in case foreigners (guess who) were offended. Concern for the tender feelings of the same people inspired the removal of a Spitfire from a beer advertisement.
*

“Guidelines” from the Lord Chancellor’s office to judges have discouraged the use of the word “British”, and leniency has been urged in dealing with Rastafarians convicted of smoking pot, apparently on the ground that it is part of their culture. (I resist the temptation to speculate facetiously on what guidelines the Lord Chancellor’s office might suggest if some enterprising worshippers of the Indian goddess Kali decided to revive the ancient cult of
thugee
, whose culture included ritual murder.)

In view of the above it is perhaps not surprising to hear that the Foreign Office, whose record of blunder, stupidity, and sheer perversity is unmatched in the history of British institutions, should have considered changing “British Embassy” to “United Kingdom Embassy” for fear of wounding the devolved parliamentary bodies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York are instructed in “race awareness”. It would be interesting to know just who is considered fit to teach their Graces anything on a subject which is surely at the very heart of Christian thought.

Policemen are cautioned against asking outrageous questions like “Are you married?” and “Do you have a girlfriend?” in case they wound the feelings of homosexuals. The use of nicknames is discouraged so that people of different races may be spared such wounding appellations as Mick, Jock, and Taffy, and feminist sensibilities are catered for by changing “manning the phone” to “staffing the phone” to avoid “sexism”, which also substitutes the nonsensical “chair” for “chairman”, and prohibits such disgusting words as policeman, fireman, foreman, and, presumably, mankind. And “Ploughperson’s lunch” has appeared on a pub menu.

The length to which the p.c. lobby will go not only in discovering, but inventing causes of offence has been demonstrated by the college which reportedly frowned on “taking the mickey” and “nitty-gritty” on the entirely false grounds that one is anti-Irish and the other refers to sexual intercourse with black women. In fact, “taking the mickey” has nothing at all to do with Ireland or the Irish, but derives from a vulgar piece of rhyming slang anent one “Mickey
Bliss”, while “nitty-gritty”, though possibly from black American vernacular, carries no sexual connotation whatever, being simply an expressive piece of slang, slightly onomatopoeic, meaning the heart of the matter, the essential.

The same seat of learning, incidentally, disapproved of “lady”, “gentleman”, “crazy”, “mad”, and even “history” (which presumably is sexist in excluding the alternative “hertory”).

Nor should we forget the diktat that those working with infants must not use the word “naughty” because of its negative quality. So a magnificent, expressive, universally respected word with a currency of five centuries in English, is banned at the whim of some trendy idiot; this is as splendid an example of p.c. as one could wish—perverse, stupid, and thoroughly dishonest. At this rate, no word in the language is safe.

A mad world, my masters? Yes, but along with the misguided, frightened, and brain-dead, it has some very nasty, unscrupulous people in it, intent on destroying traditional values and established truth—but for what reason is not clear. Perhaps simply sheer perversity, or an obsessive dislike of Western (and especially British and American) civilisation, or possibly the p.c. brigade are carried away by that destructive impulse so often detectable in supposedly progressive and enlightened thought. It should be noted that p.c. is rarely found on the Right; it is almost entirely a psychopathy of the Left, and if it seems too dramatic to suggest that they are out to overthrow democratic society, one should bear in mind those liberal apologists for communism who used to pooh-pooh “reds under the bed” with such amused disdain, and managed to overlook the fact that the doctrine they so admired was dedicated to just such an overthrow, by any means, violent, criminal, or deceitful.

But the “why?” of p.c. is less important than the thing itself, with all those subversive and malevolent fatuities which it has tried to impose, with considerable success, on a society frightened to stand up for sanity and honesty and simple decency in case it incurs
the hostility of the new children of Goebbels. Even the British press, while denouncing them, is not immune to their influence, or to the incessant, insidious propaganda with its weight of censorships, proscriptions, and downright follies dreamed up to pander to the prejudices of special interest groups such as feminists, racists, animal rights activists, and every vocal crank and mischief-maker clamouring to assume the role of victim.

Many of them, of course, are good for a laugh—or were, in the days when W. S. Gilbert, casting about for the most nonsensical taboo he could imagine, conceived of the death penalty for “all who flirted, leered or winked”.

Gilbert, thou shouldst be living at this hour, when a glance or a compliment or the most inoffensive of gestures can be described as “sexual harassment”, often with demands for compensation.
*
Whatever became of the girls (oh dear, female persons) of fifty years ago, who responded to unwelcome attentions with a wisecrack, a sarcasm, or, in extreme cases, a left hook? And no hard feelings or whines for protection; they could take care of themselves, and if anyone had recommended that they complain in p.c. terms, they would have fallen about, the brazen little hussies.

Come to think of it, Gilbert would have had a field day with Cool Britannia, ethical foreign policies, Lord Robertson and Mr Hoon sticking close to their desks as they ruled the Queen’s navee, people recommending themselves for peerages, asylum-seekers costing more to keep than Etonians, and the word going forth to museums and galleries that they must meet quotas of visitors from ethnic minorities and the poorer classes—a decree which raised the spectre of Asians, Africans, and ragged bums being rounded up and forced to stare at glass cases of Roman coins, while museum police barred the doors against Anglo-Saxons and the wealthy. (How would they deal, we wondered, with a Pakistani who arrived in a Rolls Royce?)

This lunacy, designed to achieve a racial and social balance to satisfy the Secretary of State for Culture (a title which told us we had been delivered into the hands of the Philistines) was introduced in 2000, to the horror of museum and gallery directors: some were told that 40 per cent of their visitors should be from “non-wealthy” backgrounds, and the Tate Gallery was warned that its annual £25 million grant was conditional on its ability to prove that 5 per cent of its visitors were from ethnic minorities.

Sanity prevailed the following year and the decree was dropped after the museums had pointed out the difficulty of determining what an ethnic minority was (Scots? Welsh? parties of French schoolchildren?) and the further problem posed by some of those officially categorised as poor (pensioners, students, et al.) who in defiance of bureaucratic definition were actually quite well off, and even rich, damn their impudence. The Secretary for Culture, Mr Smith, described the abandonment of the scheme as a “move away from lots of detail”.

So that was all right, and what this p.c. experiment cost in money, time, and stress, it is best not to ask. But we may wonder what kind of moron thought of it, blind to its obvious impossibility, and thank heaven that the Culture Department, which is also responsible for sport, didn’t think to apply the percentage demanded of the Tate Gallery to the England football team, since this would have limited it to .55 of a black player. (And if a racial yardstick can be applied, why not a feminist or ageist one—why are there no women or pensioners in the England team?)

It’s all very well my being facetious. The politically correct ding-a-lings are perfectly capable of demanding these things, and a few more I haven’t thought of.

My personal encounters with p.c. are of comparatively recent date. Thirty years ago, when I resurrected Thomas Hughes’ bully, Flashman, p.c. hadn’t been heard of—not by me, at any rate—and no exception was taken (apart from one mildly concerned American
publisher) to my adopted hero’s character, behaviour, attitude to women and subject races (indeed, any races, including his own) and general awfulness; in fact, it soon became evident that these were his main attractions. He was politically incorrect with a vengeance, and nowhere more flagrantly than in his descriptions of native peoples, of whom he used language which, while perfectly acceptable in the Victorian era, has been outlawed (quite literally) in our own time.

Through the seventies and eighties I led him on his disgraceful way, toadying, lying, cheating, running away, treating women as chattels, reviling and abusing inferiors of all colours, with only one redeeming virtue, the unsparing honesty with which he admitted to his faults, and even gloried in them. And no one minded, or if they did, they didn’t tell me. In all the many thousands of readers’ letters I received, not one objected.

In the nineties, a change began to take place. Reviewers, interviewers and commentators started describing Flashman (and me) as politically incorrect, which we are, though by no means in the same way. This is fine by me; it’s my bread and butter, and if Flashman wasn’t an elitist, racist, sexist swine, I’d be selling bootlaces at street corners. But what I notice with amusement is that many reviewers and interviews now feel themselves obliged to draw attention to Flashy’s (and my) political incorrectness in order to make a point of distancing themselves from it. This isn’t to say that they dislike the books; they have been much more than generous, but where once the non-p.c. thing could pass unremarked, they now feel that they must warn readers that some may find Flashman offensive, and that his views are certainly not those of the reviewer or interviewer, God forbid.

I find the disclaimers interesting and just a little alarming. They are a novelty of a new age, almost a knee-jerk reaction, often rather a nervous one, as though the writer were saying: “Look, whatever I may say about Fraser’s books, please understand that I feel a
proper loathing for Flashman’s character and behaviour. I’m not a racist or a sexist, and hold the right views, and I’m in line with modern enlightened thought, honestly…” They don’t admit to being politically correct, and indeed I’m quite sure they’re not, and despise p.c. for the dishonesty it is; some may even sympathise secretly with Flashman’s dreadful outlook—but they will say nothing to which the p.c. lobby could take exception. That is what alarms me: the fear evident in so many sincere and honest folk of being thought out of step.