Notebook
As I write, a group of young people are standing uneasily on the pavement a few Yards up the road. They are picketing one of the Social Services Area Offices of Camden ouncil as part of a strike in favour of regrading', which means more money. We have to try and help everyone to solve their Problems — now we wantyou to understand and support us', says the pamphlet they are handing out to passers-by. 'We believe our Jobs have got much harder over the last seven years and more.' I am sure their jobs have got much harder, for what has taken Place over the last seven years or more has been a marked increase in public contempt for social workers. People are not at all sure that social workers are either necessary or useful; they are not even sure what they actually do. So they are not getting much understanding or support. One useful thing they do do is to provide meals-on-wheels to the old and infirm. So the news that flying Pickets are out in Southwark to ensure that this service is not provided during the strike IS unlikely to increase their popularity. Indeed, the sad truth is that hardly anybody cares whether they strike or not. A psYchiatric social worker in Tower Hamlets has been complaining bitterly to a friend that the strike has aroused no interest at all — neither with the public nor with the press. Soon most social workers themselves will be requiring psychiatric help.
It has been an excellent week for animal stories. From the gush over the fate of the Pony Gypsy, who was criminally kidnapped by a schoolgirl from a Devonshire market, emerged a new national hero in the form of slaughterman Lawrence Potter who stood firm against a tide of sentimental opinion and refused to sell the sickly animal at any Price, but slaughtered it instead. Less publicised has been the case of the Camberwell collie Butch, which was sentenced to be put down after biting a two-year-old girl. Butch's owner said he was too poor to 1)peal against the sentence, and the Even ing Standard's switchboard was duly Jammed with offers of help. Among the first callers to offer his services was the distinguished lawyer, Sir David Napley, whose Wife, a dog fanatic, had apparently been nagging him on the matter. Sir David, one would have thought, might have become a little tired of dogs. He is advising Mr Jeremy Thorpe regarding charges of incitement and Conspiracy to murder Mr Norman Scott. Mr Scott, of course, was not murdered, but a dog was.
The Times, that great newspaper which has been saying such nice things about the Spectator in recent days, has once again revived the controversy over the 1957 libel action against this journal which resulted in the payment of substantial damages to Aneurin Bevan, Richard Crossman and Morgan Phillips. All three are now dead, but several people have subsequently claimed that they perjured themselves in court by denying that they had been drunk at an international socialist conference in Venice. It is useful once again to recall what the Spectator actually said in the offending passage. We declared that these three Labour bigwigs 'puzzled the Italians by their capacity to fill themselves like tanks with whisky and coffee' and that 'although the Italians were never sure if the British delegation was sober, they always attributed to them an immense political acumen.' The point about this is that the Spectator never actually said they were drunk: we might even be thought to have flattered them by suggesting they were remarkably good at holding their liquor. Had they not sued, it is hard to believe that their reputations would have suffered any lasting damage. However, they did sue, and the result is that long after their deaths they are being talked about —rightly or wrongly — as drunks and perjurors. For those who, like me, believe that our libel laws are unjust there is some perverse comfort to be found in this situation.
There is a programme on the television called Word for Word which is concerned with the exact and proper use of the English language. Perhaps the BBC should not have chosen Robert Robinson to be the anchorman, for he was responsible last Monday for at least two major howlers. At one point, talking to Kingsley Amis about his new book, he asked: 'To what extent do you infringe the character?' (by which he presumably meant 'impinge on'). Subsequently Mr Robinson referred to 'the violent disaffection Edith Sitwell always felt for Noel Coward' (by which he meant 'dislike'). Talking of television, Richard Ingrams is, I think, too kind this week about the unspeakable programme Saturday Night People, making only passing mention of Mr Russell Harty for whose extermination he once so nobly if unsuccessfully campaigned in this paper. One thing that interested me about it, however, is the way in which television has no secrets left. The autocue was a device originally intended to create an illusion of spontaneity to the viewer by enabling the performer to read his lines from a concealed screen. Now that its existence is openly acknowledged by the performers, as it was in the last edition of Saturday Night People, it has become redundant. They would do better to read from a piece of paper.
The gossip columnists made a meal of the Spectator's 150th anniversary party last week, so you may feel that enough has been written about it. But there were two incidents which I feel deserve reporting. The first was a conversation at the bar between myself, the bandleader, and the Spectator's distinguished columnist, Mr Patrick Marnham. It went as follows: Me (speaking somewhat indistinctly): 'May I introduce Tommy Hawkins, the leader of the band. This is Patrick Marnham, the greatest writer in England.' Marnham: 'You are a very good bandleader.' Hawkins (very politely): 'I am sure you are also an excellent waiter.' Second incident. As I walked down the Strand at 5.00 am on my way home I was approached by a young man trying to sell me a copy of our 150th anniversary issue. He had been at the party and removed an armful of the copies which had been supplied free for guests. When I told him that I had a copy, that I was the Editor of the Spectator etcetera, he became very embarrassed and tried to press on me a pound note which, he said, were his takings so far—not bad at 5.00 am in the Strand. But of course I did not accept it. Such initiative deserves its reward. Incidentally, I should apologise to Mrs Sheila Burns of Kingswood in Surrey who has written to me complaining about the party. 'It would seem,' she says, 'that the only people missing from this fantastic affair were the poor bloody infantry — the readers. I can't tell you why but I'm damned annoyed.' I should perhaps reassure Mrs Burns that, contrary to widespread opinion, we do actually have more readers than can be comfortably accommodated in the Lyceum Theatre.
Alexander Chancellor
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