Today, I received a further refusal by the Government to proactively support the issue of stamps to commemorate our Armed Forces. The stamp would be based on the work "Queen and Country" by the war artist Steve McQueen, which shows the portraits of 98 of those who have fallen in Iraq. If that cannot be done on veterans day—for understandable reasons, because the day is designed as a celebration of the work and sacrifices of soldiers—why can we not have a commemorative stamp on Remembrance day to remind us of the true cost of war?
Today, in response to a letter written after a parliamentary question, I received this response from 
Derek Twigg, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence. The MoD believe it would be "inappropriate" for the Government to involve itself in the matter. Responsibility should lie with the commissioning bodies and the Post Office. However it is the wish of the artist and many of the relatives of the soldiers who died that a commemorative stamp should be issued using the work of war artist Steve McQueen. That would be appropriate, not only because it is a strong and powerful work of art but because it would be reminder to us all of the true cost of war.
Sketched to joy or misery
Scorpion venom
The sketch writers are the best read chroniclers of the passing parliamentary pageant. A word of praise or flattery can put a spring in a politicians step for days. An insult can send a vain MP spiralling into a pit of misery.
Sketch writers are not expected to be entirely accurate. They enjoy a certain jokers latitude to distort the truth. Andrew Rawnsley one mocked me for being ‘heroically adjectival’. I was speaking on pensions bill. Rawnsley recalled that I raged and denounced the bill as “crude, wasteful and mean” and then admitted that the bill “would affect only 6 people in the UK." Entertaining. The figure is a fiction.
Possibly I had obliterated unkind references to me by sketch writers, but they have been generally kind. Simon Hoggart once suggested that I was not an ideal human type. I had asked Nicholas Soames a question about a “genetically engineered virus contaminated with scorpion venom which is being released in an Oxford wood to improve the growth of cabbages by attacking the moths that feed on them. ” I innocently enquired, “Wouldn’t it be safer if the scorpion venom was first fed to members of the cabinet. Even if that experiment failed, the country would benefit.”
Soames answered that ‘The Hon Member is the first example I have seen of a genetically engineered MP .’ Hoggart quipped ‘I am an admirer of Mr Flynn, who is the thinking man’s Dennis Skinner, but frankly, if that’s the best physical specimen Dr Quatermass can manage, he should get back to the lab.’
Walking in a funny way
I first met my lifelong companion when I was nine.
I leapt out of bed and fell over. The pain was new, severe but transitory. Occasionally I had difficulty in walking. Rheumatic fever was then a dreaded childhood illness that returned as heart trouble in later life. That was suspected. But I had escaped it. As described earlier ‘rheumatism’ was diagnosed and I was fed a pink medicine in a bottle. It had no noticeable effect.
‘Bone ache’ intermittently nagged me gently until I reached my mid thirties. Then it got nasty - especially in my hands.
Rheumatoid arthritis was diagnosed. Pain and exhaustion were frequent month long episodes. I devised tools to drive the car. Techniques were learnt to avoid using my hands. Doors could be opened by leaning on them with my shoulders. Staplers could be operated by elbows. There were no alternatives to some tasks - including many in my job at Llanwern.
The problems were not constant. The beast was a cyclic visitor. Sometimes merciful : other times treacherous. My cynicism about the value of medical intervention was at an embryonic stage. I took the odd pain killers when I could not sleep. The deterioration in my mobility worsened. Problems were spreading all over my body, feet, knees, hips, hands, arms, shoulders and neck. The prospect of increasing infirmity was a worry.
In 1974 my hands were closing and I could not fully open them. Arthritis nodules appeared on the backs of my hands and elbows. My consultant insisted on injecting steroids into my hands. The pain was excruciating and I bellowed like a stuck pig. Mercifully he did one hand only and asked me to return for the other one to be perforated in six months time. A few months later I could not remember which hand he had treated. There was no noticeable difference.
Being knowledgeable about the side effects of steroids I refused further injections. The consultant suggested that a ‘wheel chair’ was a real possibility in 'six months time’ if I persisted in refusing steroids. I stopped taking the tablets. There was a swift and long lasting improvement in my condition. Coincidence ? Probably. Without reason or discernible pattern it disappeared for months and then returned.
It determined my retirement from Llanwern but its intermittent nature did not stop Newport West Party from selecting me as their candidate. There was even a perverse bonus in Parliament.
When the beast was active, my walking gait was irregular. I limped and stumbled, at worst ricocheted from one side of a corridor to the other. If I had the slightest smell on alcohol on my breath, a fair conclusion was that I was ‘staggering drunk.’ Such reputations are easily gained, very damaging and impossible to shake off. I announced when I first arrived in Parliament that I would not drink alcohol there. Everyone quickly understood why I walked in that funny way.
Five elections later, a thorough health M.O.T. and the support of the Newport West Party approved my nomination as a candidate for Gordon Brown's General Election. More staggering forward.
Comments