Willie's world

Charles Moore

The following is not a very hot scoop. It is the text of a speech delivered by the Home Secretary, Mr William Whitelaw, at Glenalmond School's Commemoration Day last July, a few weeks after the recap- ture of the Falkland Islands.

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Warden, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen. Your invitation, which alas I had to refuse on a previous occasion, has given me a very special pleasure. It has brought me to your school to which I have had an emotional link all my life, now stretching for 64 years. My father, William Whitelaw, and my uncle, Robert Whitelaw, were both in the school between 1900 and 1910. I note of my father that he was in the XI for three years, 1908, 1909 and 1910. He was also apparently the golf champion perhaps it was easier to be the golf cham- pion in those days than it is today — but I was never other than told that my father was a much better cricketer than ever 1 was and a much better golf player than ever I was. He also, I was told, was much more in- telligent than ever I was or had been. Sadly, of course, I have no means of judging because both my father and uncle did not survive the 1914-18 War: perhaps it is fairer to say my father did survive but he died of his wounds in 1919, just a year after I was born. Even today, so many years later and after all that has happened to me in life — perhaps it can be said a good deal — I still feel keenly that I never knew my father, a loss in one's life which can never be replac- ed and it is well sometimes to remember it. And so to come to this school means a lot to me. Indeed, of course, had my father lived I might have been here in the school myself many years earlier — I suppose 50 years ago now — only in the event of my having been considered to be suitable if I had been put forward: I could have had the chance of spending my schooldays here, if, of course, Warden, I had been at that time able to pass the Common Entrance Examination. But after much argument between my grand- father and my mother, 1 went to Win- chester. My loyalty in terms of a particular school lies there — actually not this weekend because in fact Winchester are celebrating their six hundredth anniversary this weekend and I am extremely unpopular because 1 allowed my loyalty to come here to go beyond my loyalty there. But I would readily do it, as I told you.

But I think loyalty and gratitude must go further even than one particular school, and that is to the independent, the public school system as a whole. I shall always be grateful to the start that it gave me in life and I shall always stand up as a result for the right that others should have the same opportunity in life as I had and indeed sup- port the part, as the Warden has said, that the independent public schools play in our whole education system. They provide, I believe, not only a very sound education but something deeper in life too, an oppor- tunity for friendship which is built up perhaps more closely, I believe, in a board- ing school than it is elsewhere — I think it is inevitably so. And I believe that the oppor- tunity is something which never should be forgotten and the opportunity to build character, as the Warden has shown to all of us today, is given by the very wide range of opportunities and different pursuits that are undertaken by the school. That shows something in the building of character.

I suppose I meet as many people in all walks of life as most People today, from prisoners at one end of the scale to very many skilful people at the other, and the Home Secretary is always talking and meeting people. I have over the years developed one very simple test, which I always carry with me — I don't think it's an unfair test because it has never been seen to be wrong. If you look very firmly and straight at anybody who comes to talk to you and look straight at their eyes, will they look at yours? If they will, you are nearly always on sound ground. If they won't, then you know you're on very bad ground. That test I always apply if I am lucky enough to be asked to a school prize-giving. I used that test today and I can only say that Glenalmond came out of that test, with the highest possible rating I have ever found at any time when I have given the prizes away anywhere else. And that I do think is something. If it is my test I don't think it's a bad one and if you win on it, well then I think that's a very good thing.

And so, I would simply add — and I hope it is reasonable to say to the boys here — that I hope in future they will remember with gratitude the considerable sacrifice that has been made by their parents to give them the opportunity of the sort of educa- tion that only schools like this can provide.

So far I have spoken of the value of fami- ly and schools and the loyalty and ties that they bring to our lives. Since, Warden, you have started a Public Speaking scheme, I think it is right that I should remember one of the most important parts, as I see it, of public speaking. Never imagine that you are going to leave more than one thought in the minds of your audience. You will be ex- tremely lucky if you leave one, but I am go- ing to try and leave one with you today and, you will also be glad to know, one only, because that should limit the amount of time that I have to take.

And that thought is the value in life of friendship and the comradeship that goes with it. Indeed, in my experience of govern- ment, life without friends would be bleak, even unbearable, but friendships depend in themselves on the mutual sympathy, understanding and, above all, on that sometimes derided but crucial virtue, loyal- ty to others besides oneself. Loyalty to organisations, loyalty to a community, loyalty to a country and in the final event putting these loyalties above one's own per- sonal feelings sometimes, one's own per- sonal inclinations and one's own personal

aggrandisement in one way or another. These need to be put above it, if one is go- ing to preserve the values of friendship and comradeship, and friendship based on these qualities brings increased happiness and satisfaction in moments of success as vital as support and comfort in moments of trial, failure and misfortune. Let no one ever forget that however successful anyone may be in life, they will have all had during that life their clouds, their failures, their misfor- tunes and the moments when they may have had some doubts about themselves. That is when friendship of others and those who are with you mean so much.

It is funny how loyalties live a very long time and, since a personal experience is usually better than mere words, I am going to give you a very recent one of my own which shows how a loyalty born of events many years ago is still with me. I was lucky enough to serve throughout the last war in the Scots Guards. I have never forgotten the loyalty that I owe to that regiment and to all those who served with me in that regi- ment. And so during the whole of the Falklands crisis, when I' was in that body which was sometimes called the Inner Cabinet and sometimes, as a form of, I think, opprobrium, the War Cabinet, or whatever you like to call it, we spent a long time, of course, together and the awful thing was that I was one of the very few People in it who had actually fought in the war, so I became known, before very long, either as the Amateur Strategist or the Old Soldier. Well, of course, my knowledge of the Falklands was nil, my knowledge of the terrain was nil, and my knowledge of modern warfare was nil, but that didn't in any way stop me from expressing my view on all three from time to time. But on this Particular occasion, it was the last day of the conflict and when we met in the morn- ing the Chief of the Defence Staff told us what was going to happen. Of course the timing was different because the Falklands were four hours before ourselves: when we were meeting at nine o'clock it was about five there. And he said, 'The attacks this morn- ing have gone in on the last hills that we need before Port Stanley. Far the most dif- ficult of the attacks will be on a hill called Tumbledown Hill and that' (and he looked very firmly at me) 'is being undertaken by the Scots Guards and upon success of that attack will depend very much how suc- cessful we are in getting at Port Stanley in the near future.' So I didn't say anything, I went away. But, strange, throughout the whole of that day as I proceeded on my nor- Mal course of meetings about prison buildings, about police actions, about im- migration cases and all the rest — which is the normal lot of the Home Secretary — I could never quite pUt my mind on to the Matters that' were in hand, and I began to think to my,self, 'I wonder if they have done Well. I wonder if they have lived up to our traditions.' And so by four o'clock I could bear it no more and I said to my Private Secretary, `Do you think the Chief of the General Staff would mind if you rang him

,up, rang up his office and found out what had happened?' He said, 'Of course he wouldn't', and so then I heard the news of their great success and that meant a great deal to me, naturally tinged with sorrow at the casualties which they had endured, though mercifully they were not as high as had been feared that morning.

That's an example of loyalty from a long time ago, loyalty which I shall never forget, and if it gives you an example of virtue of that loyalty, well I leave it for you, if you think silly feelings, well you're entitled to it, but it has been a foundation of my life and it has done much to help me in my life. And it is with the thought that schools like this promote that sort of friendship, that sort of comradeship and that sort of loyalty that I would like to wish you all, and in particular the school Glenalmond, every possible suc- cess in the years to come.

Amistake made by 'investigative' journalists is to imagine that the most interesting and revealing things about politicians are those which they take the greatest trouble to conceal. In fact, it is not in secret that our leaders manifest their true selves, but among friends. Mr Whitelaw's Glenalmond prize-giving was a public, though not, until now, a publicised occa- sion, yet in it he holds back nothing needful to the historian of his mind (if that is the right word). The whole man is here.

The speech must surely have been com- posed unaided. It is rich in the Home Secretary's characteristic forms of expres- sion which civil servants erase from his prepared political speeches. There is the choice of the most difficult way of saying something — 'I was never other than told ...'; the use of the pronoun referring to a number of possible things — 'But I would readily do it (what?), as I told you'; the conceding of the other person's right to disagree combined with the unsupported reassertion of his own point of view — well I leave it for you, if you think silly feel- ings, well you're entitled to it, but it has been a foundation of my life ...'.

As in expression, so in thought, the speech is all Mr Whitelaw's own. In the course of it, like an upper-class equivalent of the honest yokel fumbling with his cap and going rather red and hot, he haltingly sets out those things that matter most to him. First, his family — his piety towards his father's memory and his regret at never having known him. Next, school, and the value of sport, accompanied by deprecation of his own abilities; and school as the foun- dation of friendship and character rather than as a place of learning. Then from school to life beyond school, where things are more complicated, making it more than ever necessary to be straightforward Cone very simple test ...').

Now Mr Whitelaw gathers his arguments together and, with a little hint on rhetoric, leaves one thought in the mind of his au- dience. Loyalty. Nothing about freedom or equality or authority or power, but a per- sonal principle upon which friendship depends and which makes life supportable. This principle applies in politics, he believes (certainly he is its greatest practitioner), but it is best developed in more ordered, less complicated conditions — in school or among soldiers.

There may be some who will fail to take this speech in the spirit in which it was in- tended. They will imagine, perhaps, Mr Whitelaw looking straight at the eyes of an IRA terrorist (the only part visible beneath a balaclava helmet), and conclude that this is the speech of a blithering idiot. Or they may feel that someone who tells us, 'My knowledge of the Falklands was nil, my knowledge of the terrain was nil, and my knowledge of modern warfare was nil,' was an unsuitable member of the War Cabinet.

I hope, however, that most people will have read this speech with more open minds, and will recognise how beautiful it is. It comes straight from a heart free from egotism and rancour: It is the speech of a Tory Englishman, the more eloquent because it is not always lucid. If all politi- cians thought as Mr Whitelaw does, England would be safe from tyranny. Un- fortunately, it is a weakness of his instinc- tive and personal approach to politics that when he is opposed by men whose beliefs are more rigorous, though infinitely less ad- mirable, than his own, he has not the faintest idea what to do.

'Nigel, I don't understand you. Just as we're getting on so well, you go back into the closet.'