A Spectator's Notebook
Reggie Maudling was very swift to deny some of the statements reported to have been made by Mr John Poulson at his continued bankruptcy hearing. I see the former Home Secretary's point, when he complains that Mr Poulson is able to make allegations "without notice and in my absence and without any opportunity for me to refute them "; but surely this can happen in any court of law? Come to that, it can happen in Parliament — any member can get to his feet and say absolutely what he likes about anybody who is not a member, provided he is in order and keeps within the rules of the House. Freedom of speech for members of Parliament, and also for people giving evidence, cannot be curtailed, even though it does at times cause the greatest distress to perfectly innocent people.
What I found quite astonishing and disturbing about the proceedings of Tuesday this week was the combined efforts of lawyers representing the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the Attorney-General and Mr Poulson — an extraordinary triple alliance, if ever there was one — to get Mr Poulson's examination adjourned indefinitely "in the public interest." What public interest? The public is very interested in the present proceedings, and what is more it is very much in the public interest that they should continue to be held, and in public. The unholy triple alliance suggested that, failing an indefinite adjournment, the hearings could continue behind closed doors.
It seems to me to be absolutely wrong that the Attorney-General should endeavour to adjourn or to put behind closed doors judicial proceedings which it is in the public interest should continue; and what on earth Mr John Davies's vast Department of State thinks it was doing agreeing with the Attorney-General I cannot imagine. I warmly congratulate Mr Muir Hunter QC, appearing for the trustees in bankruptcy, for the vigour of his protest, saying that in us twenty-eight years at the bankruptcy bar he had never heard anything like it. Also to be congratulated: the Registrar himself, Mr Garside, who upheld Mr Hunter's view.
Time to get shipshape
Sir Keith Joseph's reforms for the National Health Service strike me as sensible: the present managerial system, with 299 management committees in charge of hospitals and fourteen regional hospital boards, with GPs supervised by 119 executive councils, and with 158 local authorities running local health services, is hopelessly complicated. The new system should at least be simpler. But will health care in practice improve much? I doubt it. I sometimes think quite the wrong people get put on these boards and management committees and so forth: they are the
same sort of people who sit on the magisterial bench and who go in for local politics. A hospital is an institution which should be run like a ship — with a medical superintendant as captain. A happy ship is a well-run ship and there is no doubt who is master on a well-run ship. Committees may be necessary to represent the interests of the patients and the tax-payers: but is there any need for hospital management committees, with paid servants? Such a system is, apart from its inherent inefficiency, demonstrably open to abuse.
Pibroch and poems
The first time I played the bagpipes was in Glasgow; the second, and last, time was in Crieff during the course of Sir Alec Douglas-Home's by-election campaign. On both occasions, the pipes belonged to Alistair Campsie, fine journalist, writer, and great amateur piper. When the by-election campaign ended Alistair piped me out of Perthshire. Alistair Campsie has now composed a pibroch — variations on a theme, or ur/ar, for the pipes. It is to be published next week along with some new poems by Hugh MacDiarmid on the therne of music (Poems and a Pibroch by Hugh MacDiarmid and Alistair Campsie, Famedram Publishers Ltd.), to appear on the poet's eightieth birthday. The pibroch is called In praise of MacDiarmid and arose in a strange way. MacDiarmid had written a preface for a novel of Campsie's, and by way of return Campsie wrote a slow air for the pipes which he called Chris Grieve's Hansel — Chris Grieve being MacDiarmid's real name and " hansel " being Scots for a gift. When MacDiarmid heard it, he asked Campsie if he could expand it into a pibroch — a difficult piece of musicianship. "I must con
fess that constructing it," says Campsie, "was rather like trying to solve a Chinese crossword puzzle using Alec DouglasHome's matchsticks. It was a damned sight more difficult than writing the novel which provoked the whole thing." The original air itself was composed under the influence of HK 72, a very nasty brand of influenza which reduced Campsie to a fevered state for about three weeks last year.
Wrong place, right time
The Provisionals, I hear, not only claim to have given advance warnings of their Belfast bombings on "bloody Friday" but also of this week's explosions in Clady. One difficulty is that there are about twenty or thirty false warnings given every morning in Belfast these days; and there is no means of distinguishing the false from the accurate. The Clady incident was different: apparently, after the car with the bomb had been left, the bombers drove to Dungiven but could not find a telephone box in time — or perhaps they had difficulty getting through. No warning was given in Clady; but men were shouting warnings in Dungiven at precisely the time the bomb went off in Clady, killing six and wounding many more.
At the races
I went racing last Friday for, I think, the third time in my life (having previously seen the Derby once and been to Newmarket once). This time it was to Goodwood, which is indeed the most beautiful of courses. But it is no good: racing bores me. However, I managed to keep intact my racing record. Over the last twenty years or so I have usually bet on the Derby and the Grand National; and when I was at Newmarket I fluttered a bit. So I did at Goodwood. But I still have not backed a winner. It is true that I only back outsiders, since I am not in the least interested in dreary odds-on horses. Nevertheless, I have backed quite enough outsiders in my time for the law of averages to have worked in my favour and to have found me a winner. Not a bit of it. Once, years and years ago, I went to a ' flap-track ' in County Durham, and had my card marked by the fellow who ran it. But even with a card marked by the most knowledgable man, on a greyhound course outside the jurisdiction of the Greyhound Racing authorities, not one winning dog did I have. When I came into the office at the beginning of the week, Juliette (of the weekly Frolic) said to me "Why did you not telephone me back on Saturday? I had a lovely tip for you, Crespinall, who won the Nassau Stakes at twenty-five to one."
Juliette, I am glad to say, did not back Crespinall either: she went to a squashed and scruffy betting shop in the King's Road area, taking a bus specially there from Knightsbridge, and arrived just before the off: In the shop the middle-aged punters and youths in leather jackets started making lewd comments about Juliette (she being the only lady present). "It was all a bit rough," she said. "If I'd been putting my money on a favourite, it would not have been so bad. But I hadn't the nerve to back an outsider like Crespinall. Instead, I just listened to the race, standing there idiotically, and feeling very tragic when she won."
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