1877 Invictus and Hotel, The Small Back Room and more

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Fifty years ago after hearing of the massacre of women and children at the Sharpville Township in South Africa, I put on a suit, caught the train to Victoria, made my way to Trafalgar Square and stood outside South Africa House feeling self conscious and was joined by 50 to 100 people in a spontaneous gathering of individuals and small groups. A Liberal Party Parliamentary candidate with media in tow suggested we ought to do something such as sit down, which some of us did and were duly asked to move on by the police and were arrested, taken to Bow Street Police station and charged with obstruction of a policeman in the course of his duty. I then waited with half a dozen others while inquiries were made regarding bail. My birth and care mothers had to approach a relative to ensure the money was available before my release from custody was agreed and meanwhile there was some talk between the half a dozen individuals in the room as over the next hours one by one they left leaving me and a black student from South Africa at the London School of Economics. In those days I felt and thought more than I was ever able to say and did not know how to make conversation. I just felt what had happened was wrong and against my faith and political beliefs and I had nothing to contribute except my protest. The man thanked me for doing what I had done which was nothing compared to the position he had put himself in, and as with an Afghan with whom I had lunch one Sunday when at Birmingham University and who gave me his card, which may still be somewhere, I have often wondered what happened to them, and to others subsequently. I was subsequent fined two pounds and had my name and address published in the London Evening Standard.

I had read or heard somewhere that the film Invictus was not just about how South Africa came to win the World Rugby Cup held in the country in 1995 and where Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mandela is also being talked about for a Bafta and an Oscar. I had intended to go and see the film last weekend but finding there was the Opera Simon Boccanegra at the Tyneside Film Theatre on the Saturday and I left to this week and to Thursday afternoon after several days of limited sleep and day time tiredness. Finding that from today there were only two evening showings it was the afternoon outing or not at all.

It proved to be the best film experience for several years, shared by an unusually large afternoon audience.

It is twenty years since Mandela was released from thirty years of captivity with hard labour and later this year South Africa is to host the football World Cup, and event of even greater international sporting significance and interest than Rugby although it is likely to have nothing like the importance of the Rugby at that time, showing genius understanding of how to unite divided people on the verge of civil war or revenge killings.

The film is therefore two stories which entwine. Because of Boycotts which meant a lack of international competition and the limited population from which the players were drawn the South African rugby team were regarded outsiders in the 1995 competition which the country hosted. The Rugby world cup was still in its infancy when the decision was taken to hold the competition in the country after the release of Mandela and the election of a black majority

Between 1883 and 1910 a competition was held between England, Ireland. Wales and Ireland in the Northern Hemisphere and then France joined and this remained the situation until Italy joined in 2000. There was also a competition in the Southern hemisphere between Australia, New Zealand and South Africa with tours between the two hemispheres as well as between British Lions representing the four home countries.

It was not until 1985 that the idea of a world cup was promoted and although they would not be able to play, the South African Federation voted in favour. The first contest was held in Australia and New Zealand 1987 with nine member countries and 7 by invitation. New Zealand beat France in the final with Wales third against Australia.

The competition was then held in the UK and France in 1991 and Australia won against England and New Zealand beat Scotland into third position. Thirty five countries competed in a qualifying competition thus the event achieved a real sense of world championship although the between the long standing playing nations and the more recent remained far wider than that which exists in International Football. In 1999 Australia beat France and South Africa New Zealand for third place. In 2003 England won the memorable final in Australia with the Johnny Wilkinson last moments of extra time dropped goal and New Zealand beat France for 3rd. In 2007 South Africa won for the second time against England and Argentina beat France for third.

It also has to be remembered that even International Rugby unions was an amateur sport with players having other work to earn their living, although players tended to have the kind of jobs with understanding employers but training was undertaken early morning and in the evening and weekends for the most part. It was only after the 1955 World Cup that Rugby became a professional sport alongside that of Rugby League. 16 countries progressed to the Finals with South Africa joined in the first pool by Australia who were both expected to reach the knock out stage against Canada and Romania. South Africa had a poor record coming into the competition most commentators said that they would not have qualified for the finals if they ahd not been given an automatic place as the host country.

They nearly did not participate at all as the new South African Sport Council voted unanimously to abolish the hated ream which represented the White supremacists, with the national anthem and colours. Most blacks if there interested in the sport supported visiting sides, especially England. Mandela learning of the decision cancelled his immediate programme and rushed to the meeting where he attempted to persuade the gathering to change the vote explaining that if the country was to become one they had to overcome the fear of whites towards a black political and civil administration and blacks and to forgive even if they could not forget what had been done to them, until them until a few years before. He had a vision which centred on the home team winning the cup and for this he would need to keep the Afrikaner team name of Springbok and their colours. A new management was introduced but the former team captain Fracois Pienaar. The vote in favour was said to be just 12 and Mandela was criticised within his political Party and his estranged family.

The film centres on the personal influence Mandela had on the Captain after inviting him to his HQ for tea, visiting the training ground and persuading him to understand the potential significance for the country and its standing in the world,

Pienaar was born into a working class Afrikaner family, he eldest of four boys, none of his brothers appear directly in the film, and his promise as a player led him to a sports scholarship an Afrikaner University. Born in 1967 he made his first major appearance in 1989 just before the release of Mandela and was selected for his first International in 1993 when he was also made captain. A year later he was voted the International player of the year.

In the film based on the biographical books Rainbow Warrior and Playing or the enemy: Nelson Mandela and the game that made a nation, Pienaar’s family are shown as sceptical towards the new regime and he and the players react with hostility and resentment when it is suggested they learn the new National Anthem and give coaching sessions in the townships in addition to an intense and vigorous training programme to make them the fittest and strongest team in the competition to make up for their lack of skill and experience. The film gives the impression that Pienaar embraced the vision but the turning point was when he and the team visited Robben Island a few miles off the shore of Cape Town where Mandela was imprisoned over three decades. His cell can be viewed and the area outside where he broke rocks into smaller pieces. According to the film it was at this point that he truly understood Mandela’s vision of balancing black aspirations against white fears.

The film pulled no punches on just how difficult a task he faced especially when he decided to keep in he government service any whites willing to give the regime the benefit the doubt and this included some of the former Presidential security guard who had the expertise and experience having many been trained by the CIA, and who had committed civil rights and other crimes against their new political masters. The film shows that gradually they became impressed with Mandela because of his work level, the interest he took with everyone, if not his vision. What happened in the Cup was a Fairy Tale in that they commenced with a Victory against Australia and which meant they headed their table with 3 wins at the end and avoided playing either England or New Zealand until the Final. While their quarter final game against Western Samoa was convincing 42 points to 15, the semi final against France was narrow with 19 points to 15, Meanwhile England had beaten Australia and then lost to New Zealand who therefore made the final. France went on to beat England and finish Third.

South Africa came from behind twice in the first half of the Final to lead 9-6 at the interval and the full time whistle went the team level at 9-9 and again 12-12 at this period was coming to an end when South Africa won by a dropped goal and took the title 15-12. Because of the build up and the campaign to get the whole nation behind the competition, the country came to a standstill for the final and what became one of the most significant points in sports and South African multiracial hood Mandela strode on the field to present the cup wearing the previously hated team shirt and cap and joined in the celebrations as the event was watched around the world. It was a vindication of his approach and sitting in the comfort of home I quietly smiled with satisfaction at my own little gesture thirty five years beforehand.

Music while writing was the first set of Bruce Springsteen Live in Dublin with an Irish style country band : Atlantic City-Old Dan Tucker- Eyes on the Prize-Jessie James-Further on up the road-Oh Mary Don’t you weep-Erie Canal-If I should Fail-My Oklahoma Home- Highway Patrol-Mrs McGrath-How can a poor man.

Having gone to bed at 10.30pm and woken refreshed at two thirty, I washed up and wrote until 5am and then went back to bed and tried to sleep. Whether I did or not I am unsure, rising again and twenty to seven and breakfasting on two bacon roles cooked and eaten at an interval and completing the transfer of five May 2008 Blogs to Google. I was shattered again by the erratic sleep pattern of the past week. I had such high hopes for work on Wednesday and Thursday..

There was no new news about the proposed British and USA operation in the Afghanistan province to end a Taliban stronghold where estimated 2000 fighters, until late on Friday. The civilian population has been told to get out of the way and the fighters advised to lay down their arms and go home otherwise the combined force will deal with them. Jack Straw made his second appearance at the Iraq Inquiry and I was impressed with the clarity and determination with which he pressed his position, refusing to allow his words and their meaning to be twisted. The Inquiry team kept on putting their emphasis which someone less experience might well have let go without challenging. The team is in either private session, visiting Iraq if undertaking other work over the rest of this week.

Earlier in the week I heard the Nigel Balchin Play, The Small Back Room on the Radio once more. It was a successful 1949 film with Jack Hawkins and a number of other well known British actors including Cyril Cusack, Leslie Banks, Michael Gough, Geoffrey Keen, Patrick Macnee and Robert Morely. Ted Health also made an appearance with his band. The story centres on the work of backroom scientists and others to solve wartime problems. In this instance bobby trap devices which caused explosions and required expert care to render safe. In this instance there are two heroes-an actual disarmer who dies while trying to render safe the latest form of device and Jack who is in the small back room but who goes out to finish the job after his friend dies. The film hit out at the small minded and those who put their careers and personal interests first during the wartime. The film and the radio programme were immensely popular in their day and given the re-emergence of the bobby trap device in Afghanistan the play is a timely reminder of the heroic work and short life span of those who devote themselves to removing this threat to civilians and military.

Also heard Bruce with E Street Band perform some of my favourites- Blinded by the Light- Rosalita- Born to Run- Thunder Road- Badlands- Darkness at the edge of town-Hungry Heart- The River- Born in the USA I’m on Fire- Glory Days-Dancing in the Dark- The Rising- Lonesome Day-Radio Nowhere- Long walk home-Because the night- Fire.

There were two reasons for the gas boiler and cooker service on Monday. The annual service was overdue and its downstairs electric switch had become temperamental and required a separate visit from an electrician. This proved to be just a loose wire and both advised to keep the switch always on, especially in winter because it served an automatic switch if the temperature reached a certain level to stop pipes and radiator water freezing. You learn something everyday!

I took the opportunity of the visit from the electrician to mention the problem with the day room ceiling light where I had attempted to replace the florescent tube but it was too long to re fit on my own so I had attempted to replace with a shorter version. I had then found the old wiring confusing and twice thought I had arranged for someone to fix but this fell through for some reason and I had been making do with an unshaded table lamp. Having fitted the once new light something prevented it from working either the starter switch but more likely the tube. This resulted in two visits to B and Q on Monday for the starter switch sold only in pairs and then a new Tube yesterday. It did not work until I refitted as the end connectors had not fitted properly. There has been delight since it worked. We take much for granted until it does not work or we have to go without for some reason.

I received a letter from Gateshead Council saying that the parking penalty had been withdrawn because I not been given previous ticket with them and I had sent in the same purchased ticket which had been photographed upside down on the dashboard.

Although the temperature fell below zero during the week there was only a short burst of hail but lots of rain.

I have made good progress in the plan to bring my work up to date and reduce the chaos in the work room. Wilkinson’s had a new supply of 40 page 80 sheets black albums with provides for 3 sets and I bought the nine available with a couple of blue, thus saving myself a trip to Sunderland or wider affield. There was a great alarm bell which turned into a little when my with appeared to have shot up several pounds in less than fortnight. It was timely wake up call to not to relax too much in this period when exercise is reduced because of the weather conditions.

For light entertainment I watched the 1967 film Hotel with Rod Taylor and Karl Malden and with Michael Rennie and Merle Oberon playing the Duke and Duchess of Croydon. The film is based on the Novel by Arthur Haley and led to a TV series. There have been other films showing life in a hotel before and since and in the past I became intrigued and observant myself, as I continue to be other guests and staff on my many trips to motels over the past couple of decades, which my only stay in a good Hotel in the past decade the splendid former coaching in at Beverley just after the millennium.

The film centres of the decision of the old racist owner of a hotel in New Orleans catering for the upper classes and the wealthy getting into more and more debt because of the social changes after World War 2. What was fundamentally odd is that the hotel appeared packed with people as did the bar but not the restaurant.

The owner who lives alone in the Penthouse suit with staff taking his pet dog out for walkies and all meals delivered to his rooms is faced with two buyers. One wants to keep the manager Rod Taylor and the core staff but modernise and the other to demolish and site develop. There is also a third buyer a union pension fund. For some reason which I remain unclear the owner prefers to see the hotel demolished and the staff made redundant rather than the other offers, mainly because Rod Taylor does not like the one of them who gets his French mistress to occupy Taylor while one of his black employees attempts to take up a booked room in the racist run hotel thus adding tot eh hotel woe with a threatened civil rights suite. Taylor shows he is broadminded by chatting up the black Billie Holiday sounding singer in the bar and trying to get the turned away couple to return.

The film suggests that Rod may take on the mistress when she decides to return to France, after the deal is turned down, although Rod appears to have agreed to stay with now former owner and open an Inn with the balance of the sale money, after clearing debts and giving the staff generous redundancy payments for that time.

Karl Malden plays a small time thief with ambitions of the big killing by robbing other guests while staying at the hotel. One of his methods is to get girls in clip joints to offer to come to the rooms of visitors when they finish work, giving her their keys which they pass to Madden for a fee, who uses to break into the rooms in the middle of the night. However Madden can barely keep up with his bill let alone make any profit until he chooses the suite of the Duke and Duchess. The Duke has killed a child in a hit and run while drunk driving, and his wife sets out to fix the situation when a security guard at the hotel works out that the damaged Duke’s vehicle is the one which the police are looking for. He asks for ten thousand dollar and Merle offers him twenty five thousand if he gets the car out of town and back to New York. He is picked up when he leaves town and says he was undertaking the trip for the aristocrats for $300 the money on him and that he had a signed note from the Duchess authorising. Unfortunately this has been accidentally put in the rubbish when handed in to the Hotel Garage staff to release the vehicle and he is taken back to the station by the police when Merle disowns him. The Duke has a fit of conscience and makes an appointment to see the police, leaving the room to provide the opportunity for Malden to break in and find the balance of the payment some $15000 in a brief case He makes his way from the hotel with the money in the same lift as the Duke which gets hammed between floors as the breaks begin to fail. He is rescued without the money just in time as the lift crashes bringing the Duke to his death. His wife then claims that she was driving the vehicle and that she paid for the vehicle to be taken to New York. Both Taylor and the police as well as man in custody believe that she is covering the good name of her husband, even if this results in her going to prison. The film ends with a trad jazz band playing in the hotel bar with the signer, while Rod offers everyone drinks on the house to remaining guest and visitors as the most have fled after the lift disaster. While writing I am reminded of the British TV series Hotel Babylon which was cancelled after the end of the fourth season last year, thought to be because of a fall.

The best hotel I have had stayed in was the famous Randolph at Oxford as well as at three other hotels in the city, together with the best hotel in Chester. I also stayed at the railway hotel Chester for several weeks when I first went to work for the County but my longest stay was in two hotels of a major chain in central London during the last four weeks of the 1980 Child Inquiry and where I returned to stay during visits to discuss the findings, final reports and recommendations. I have also stayed in hotels in Gibraltar including the famous Rock Hotel, and in the centre of Athens, Rhodes and Corfu, Paris, Stockholm, and near Rome, Italy, Majorca, Tossa del Mar or Blanes one was camping the other was hotel, and at Hague. Other UK hotel was in Glasgow and Oban in Scotland, Cardiff in Wales, and Dublin in Eire, Other UK Hotels were at the Grand Brighton, other seaside town including Blackpool, Bournmouth, Brixham and Scarborough. Major hotels in Liverpool and Manchester, and then in pleasant places such as York and Harrogate, Lake Windermere and Lumley Castle in Co Durham, and functional towns such as Carlisle and Coventry, Hertford and was it Oldham or Rochdale or both, Bradford, and two country hotels one in Suffolk and one in west Yorks. I can recall at least six hotel in central London including one by Piccadilly Circus . The list excludes motels, universities and country house conference centres, including one where we had a gourmet chef as well as all the Lodges, Cottages, Villas and campsites.

Johnny Dankworth arguable the best modern jazz musician GB has produced has died at the age of 82. His wife performed with his former band on day he died, together with his son also a musician and their daughter, an accomplished jazz singer. Lady Cleo or she a Dame came on stage at the theatre built on their little estate to announce his death at the end oft he concert. It was felt that the effort he made to appear at the concert had been too much for him. I was never a great fan of Bebop and only saw Johnny play live once at the Marquee club in Oxford Street which eh opened with his Big Band around 1956 to 8.