Notebook
ALondon Airport there is what seems like an interminable wait for our lug- gage to come through on the conveyor belt. When I first enter the gloomy baggage hall it is already thronged with huddled masses yearning to breathe free. I don't know how long most of them have been there but they break into bitter laughter when a loudspeaker announces that 'new pro- cedures' for unloading the aeroplanes are responsible for the delay. I am back in England again after more than two months abroad. I am eager to discover what these new procedures are. A woman at the infor- mation desk tells me that the baggage handlers and the aircraft cleaners have been merged into a single workforce. I have a Picture of strong men fluttering feather dusters and frail women straining under the weight of heavy trunks. In any case, I am assured that, despite the best efforts of a docile workforce, the new procedures are Impossible to operate. Another official, however, confides that the workers have responded to the new procedures by work- ing with rather less than their usual en- thusiasm. Whatever the cause, it is to be more than an hour before my suitcases glide into sight. During the wait, the airport staff try to whip up the indignation of the huddl- ed masses, urging them to fill in prepared protest slips and send them to the manage- ment. A large and prosperous gentleman says grandly that he prefers to make his protest direct by telephone to the chairman of British Airways, Sir John King, who is a friend of his. He is concerned, he says, not for himself or indeed for me, it being the sort of situation which we with our British subtlety can understand, but for the impres- sion it must be making on foreigners paying their first visit to this country. An official tries to hand me a protest slip. `The whole thing is a disaster,' he says, 'and you the Passengers are the only people who can do anything about it.' At this point I reject the slip, for it occurs to me that of all the peo- ple involved in this drama the passengers being neither cleaners, nor baggage handlers, nor managers, nor trade union negotiators — are the only ones who cannot In fact do anything about it at all.
bought a copy of the Times and read a warning from the Central Office of In- formation: `If your animal is responsible for sheep worrying, you could be fined, lose Your dog, and have to pay the farmer damages.' It gave me a sharp pang. A cou- ple of weeks ago I arrived at our house in Tuscany to find there a stray dog, clearly starving. I bought it several tins of Italian dog food called 'Loyal', which it frantically devoured. It was a large black and brown sporting dog, less than two years old,
which, once fed, proved to be an animal of great character and charm. When I said 'sit' in English, it sat, which immediately endeared it to me. It stayed in the house for several days, never making a mess and be- ing in all respects a perfect guest and com- panion, until one evening it disappeared. Next day a grinning youth appeared at the door and asked if I had lost a dog. Saying no more, he led me to a house a couple of miles away occupied by a Sardinian shepherd and his family. The shepherd escorted me into a shed where I was greeted by a horrible sight — a sheep, still alive, which had apparently been scalped. Then he produced a large tin containing a selec- tion of bleeding sheep's ears. My dog, he said, had killed four of his sheep and bitten the ears off several more. The bill would be two million lire, or £1,000. At this point, I disowned the dog, which, tied up outside the shepherd's house, was half strangling itself in its efforts to reach me. It was not mine, I said, pretending hardly to know it, but a stray I had been feeding. If I had not reported it to the carabinieri, replied the shepherd, I was still responsible. So I set off to the carabinieri station, accompanied by his wife and two children, to sort the matter out. The maresciallo, presumably sharing the local prejudice against Sardinian im- migrants, immediately took my side, ab- solving me of any responsibility for damages. What should they do with the dog? asked the crestfallen shepherd's wife. Should they kill it? Luckily, the maresciallo said No, advising her to keep it until the true owner was identified. This reprieve was a blessing, for in the meantime the poor creature's innocence was proved. The massacres of sheep continued, and the wret- ched shepherd — for whom I was now beginning to fell much sympathy — went berserk. A few days later he was charged for shooting a number of perfectly harmless
dogs with an unlicensed gun. My dog, however, survived, for he was the only dog that the shepherd now knew to be innocent. He is now doing service as a guard dog in a nearby village.
While I have singlehandedly been get- ting to grips with the problems of the Middle East, the Guardian has sent 15 cor- respondents to Moscow in an attempt to understand the Soviet Union. Having only just returned from abroad (this, at least, is a good excuse) I cannot say I have read all the acres of resulting copy. I did, however, read the articles by Roy Medvedev and Malcolm Muggeridge which launched the series last Monday week. Muggeridge was recalling his experiences of 50 years ago when, as the Manchester Guardian's Moscow correspon- dent initially in love with Communism, he discovered the true horror of Stalin's regime and shocked well-meaning English liberals with his reports. As Bohdan Nahaylo described in the Spectator the other week, he was accused of lying and distortion and soon afterwards left the Manchester Guardian because he did not agree with the editor about Russia. Fifty years later, he has come under the same sort of attacks in the letters pages of the Guar- dian — most notably last Saturday when he was accused of seeing things through 'a distorted lens' and of indulging in 'silly fan- tasies' about the Soviet Union's imperial ambitions. I was interested therefore to see a letter which Muggeridge wrote to Winston. Churchill in 1934, describing the collapse of his illusions about the Soviet regime. He went on to describe 'the amazing success with which the Soviet government had been able to put across entirely bogus propagan- da via the shadowy personalities and organisations that still think in terms of 19th century "enlightenment"; from them filtering down to become ingrained in the outlook of whoever and whatever is in- sulted by being called unprogressive'. 'That is to say, a newspaper like the Manchester Guardian is a far greater asset to the Dic- tatorship of the Proletariat than the Daily Worker, and, say, the Quakers or the YM- CA than the Comintern.' Is this perhaps why, to the Guardian's surprise, its latest initiative was so eagerly welcomed by the Russians?
Ihave been given a matchbox showing a colour photograph of Westminster Ab- bey. On the back it says this is Number Five in a 'City of London series', which is odd enough in itself. But the caption describing the building is even odder: 'Begun in 1895 and consecrated in 1910, this beautiful cathedral is dominated by the tall Cam- panile, 284 feet high to the top of the cross.' This description, is attributed to the 'Har- row Match Agency'. Beside it is printed `Made in Turkey'. Whom are we to blame for this campaign of disinformation?
Alexander Chancellor
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