DIARY MAX HASTINGS
The sacking of the two British Midland pilots whose tragic blunder precipitated the M1 air disaster inspires some reflections on the shifting sands of media enthusiasm. The morning after the crash, most papers produced blazing headlines about 'the Kegworth heroes', whose brilliant air- manship enabled them to nurse their stricken aircraft over the Leicestershire village before it crashed. From the outset, this view seemed grotesque, since the pilots plainly had no control over where their aircraft finally came down. Even if they did, it would scarcely have been in their own interests, never mind that of those beneath, to land on a populated area. In the second stage of media report- ing, which was in some ways even less admirable, some papers showed obvious eagerness to discover wiring faults in the cockpit of the American aircraft, to explain the shutdown of the wrong engine, rather than to accept the obviously far more likely scenario, involving human error by the British pilots. One of the uglier crimes of my trade these days, I suggest, is the debasement of that wonderful word 'hero'. History produces a steady succession of men and women who perform genuinely heroic acts, and whose names deserve to be honoured. Yet the word is in danger of losing all meaning, through daily devalua- tion. Whenever there is a tragedy or disaster, media convention now demands that it should produce 'heroes'. Anyone who displays modest fortitude under stress becomes a 'hero'. Groups of people trap- ped in lifts or cable-cars have been cano- nised by the tabloids, merely for failing to succumb to hysteria. Almost any man or Woman who served in the South Atlantic in 1982 and subsequently emerges as a crash victim, court case defendant or house Purchaser is labelled 'Falklands hero'. It is only a matter of time before anybody who negotiates a motorway in the rush hour becomes an `Ml hero'. The truth, surely, is that for anyone to deserve the accolade of hero', it is essential that they should have deliberately risked or given their own lives for others. There is nothing heroic about any act that promises to benefit or save oneself. The element of self-sacrifice, of supreme unselfishness, is indispensable. The word is a very special one. The °PPortunities for its legitimate use come very rarely.
The list of those who attended Ian Gow's memorial service was long and distinguished. A few months ago, I found myself sitting in a village church, filled to overflowing for the funeral of one of our country neighbours who had died when he was barely 50. It is a small irony that if one is cut off prematurely, a large gathering of
friends and colleagues is likely to assemble to mark the event. Yet, if one lives past retirement age, and certainly if one passes 80, so many friends and colleagues have already gone that there is sometimes a sadly thin house in the church. That prodigy in so many respects, the artist Raoul Millais, is still one of the best shots in the country, but he is getting to an age at which his contemporaries are disappearing at a disturbing rate. After attending a funeral recently, Raoul was standing with a friend in the churchyard. His son Hugh reports the conversation. Friend: `I'm 87 myself, now. How old are you, Raoul?' Millais: 'Coming on 90.' Friend: 'Hardly worth you and I bothering to go, home from this place, is it?'
It is saddening to observe the degree of fanaticism which seems to be setting into the activities of a growing number of excellent charities. The National Trust's life is being made a misery by the infiltra- tion of anti-field sports lobbyists. The RSPCA's affairs have been riven for years by factionalism. Now, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is showing growing signs of going over the top, in its crusade for the proliferation of raptors, above all in the Scottish uplands. Most of us who shoot have always opposed the excesses of a few gamekeepers who have shot or poisoned hen harriers, peregrines or, worst of all, eagles. All the reputable field sports bodies campaign constantly to wipe out the remnants of these practices. But today there is scarcely a glen in the
Highlands in which RSPB watchers are not systematically scanning the heather around the clock, in pursuit of landowners or keepers molesting raptors. As a Highland landowner put it to me this summer, 'They seem to be simply aching to put a duke into the dock.' More than that, raptors are even being released into the wild by enthusiasts, in areas where they are already plentiful. I am intrigued by the degree of class discri- mination thus displayed, between the in- terests of one group of birds and another. If I was a grouse, I should be getting together a strong petition to the RSPB, demanding that the organisation show why my interests should be so brutally sub- ordinated to those of the murderous rap- tors. The RSPB is, in effect, sponsoring the persecution of one group of birds by another. The fundamental truth is that Britain continues to have the best managed wildlife in Europe, because this manage- ment is in the hands of private landowners who, for the most part, conduct their affairs sensibly and responsibly. It is worth asking the simple question: who does more for the interests of wildlife — the owners of the land, or the growing army of outside busybodies, with no stake in the country- side other than a belief that they know better?
Renewed controversy about the fourth, fifth and sixth men reminds me of the disgust many of us felt at the time of Anthony Blunt's exposure, when some of his old friends announced that they saw no reason to think the worse of him; the Courtauld Institute still seemed proud to have him under its roof, and half the trustees of the National Arts Collection Fund required immense persuasion from the other half before Blunt was forced to resign from their number. Myself, I like to think of that incorrigibly vain, treacherous, evil old man even now stoking one of the warmer boilers of hell. Yet Blunt's genera- tion, in their apologias, could plead that the West depended upon the primacy of military assistance from Stalin's tyranny to destroy Hitler. Today, I cherish a fear that, if war comes in the Gulf, the West will live to regret its alliance with Syria. Morally and politically, Assad's regime is quite as loathsome and brutal as that of Saddam, and is only less dangerous because Assad lacks the resources to produce chemical weapons. If I were King Fand, I should not enjoy a moment's easy sleep while Syrian troops remain on Saudi soil. If Iraq's aggression is finally undone with Syrian aid, the international alliance will have compromised its moral position, it seems to me, in a fashion that will delight the modern Left quite as much as the Anglo- Soviet alliance gratified Blunt and his friends a generation or two ago.
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