Jameswoodward’s Weblog

William Rees-Mogg is one of the pivotal figures of post-war Britain. In this memoir he recounts the story of a colourful life, and reflects on the key figures and events of his time.

As editor of The Times (his glory years), journalist, commentator, Chairman of the Arts Council, and, later, Chairman of the Broadcasting Standards Council (when he was accused of censorship), William Rees-Mogg has spent his life at the centre of events in politics and journalism.

Often controversial, he has always had the courage to hold strong, fiercely defended opinions which go to the heart of the problems of the day. From his famous defence of Mick Jagger on a charge of possessing cannabis when he attacked the ‘primitive’ impulse to ‘break a butterfly on a wheel’, to his recent criticism of the morality behind the war in Kosovo and defence of monetarism, his writing has demanded attention, to the point of becoming newsworthy in itself.

He knew and knows most of the people who have shaped public events, from royalty to prime ministers, presidents, business magnates and religious leaders, and uses his unique insider perspective to great effect, with perceptive, sometimes provocative, recollections of people such as Rab Butler, Margaret Thatcher, Anthony Eden, Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins, Robin Day, Rupert Murdoch and many more.

From an early age his life was filled with incident – among the many anecdotes are the stories of the Bristol Blitz; his doomed attempts to enter politics; writing speeches for Anthony Eden during Suez; hiring burglars to uncover corruption in the Met; an eventful stay at Chequers with Harold Wilson; how Rupert Murdoch amused the Queen at lunch; and how Harold Macmillan impressed Ronald Reagan at dinner.

These are colourful and illuminating memoirs.

Unmasking Age: The significance of age for social research

Social Research

Bill Bytheway Policy Press 2011

When the history of social gerontology is written, the chapter devoted to the contribution of individual researchers to the field, will certainly feature Bill Bytheway. This book is a brilliant overview of age. It is readable, stimulating and also challenging to the reader as it demands that we engage with our own views of age, older people and the ageing process. Bytheway also demonstrates the art of being able to present complex material in an accessible form. The book is carefully organised with a comprehensive biography and index.

Key to the distinctive quality of this narrative is the use of the authors own reflections on his experience of growing older. The lived experience of ageing lies at the heart of the book. The author draws upon interviews, diaries, letters and novels as the meanings of age are discussed.

The book is divided into ten chapters. In chapter one age is introduced, concepts and definitions discussed and the rationale of the book set out. Chapter two informs the reader of research methods and opens up a critical question for social gerontology ‘How old are you?’ chapter three illuminates the relationship between age and time. Chapter four examines representations of age through words and images and pictures. Chapter five and six explore the diversity of experiences of growing and being older. These include looking at the body and ‘markers’ of age such as birthdays. All of these perceptions and experiences are placed within the context of family and the often complex set of interrelationships and disconnections that make up family life today. Chapter seven is a fascinating examination of ‘a great age’ (being a centurion) and shows the readers how some older people approach their 100^th birthday. The remaining chapters offer us an overview of the main features of an ageing population and the role of gerontology today especially in supporting social change.

Throughout the text the author always opens up new questions and avenues of research. There are helpful figures and tables of statistics and summaries of information.

This book bridges that often wide gap between the theoretical and the practical, the academic and the popular. It is a sheer delight to read. It is a book for pondering on and using if we want to develop wisdom in our understanding of how we grow older.

One morning–and so soon!–the first flower
has opened when you wake. Or you catch it poised
in a single, brief
moment of hesitation.
Next day, another,
shy at first like a foal,
even a third, a fourth,
carried triumphantly at the summit
of those strong columns, and each
a Juno, calm in brilliance,
a maiden giantess in modest splendor.
If humans could be
that intensely whole, undistracted, unhurried,
swift from sheer
unswerving impetus! If we could blossom
out of ourselves, giving
nothing imperfect, withholding nothing!

Denise Levertov, The Métier of Blossoming

I am surrounded by lists at the moment and preparing to go fly off to Canada – intrigued and interested to see what I shall discover. Monoday morning shall take me in Heathrow (soem advantages of living in Windsor!) to fly to Ottawa, Ontario

St Matthews Anglican Church are my hosts and I shall be having a week thinking and speaking and listening to a range of people there. My subjects? Pastoral Care, Death (of course) and theological reflection.

I am look forward to meeting staff and students at St Paul University

and meeting people at St Matthews Institute

I will keep you posted as the adventure unfolds!!

“Adam, where are you?”
God’s hands
palpate darkness, the void
that is Adam’s inattention,
his confused attention to everything,
impassioned by multiplicity, his despair.

Multiplicity, his despair;
God’s hands
enacting blindness. Like a child
at a barbaric fairground —
noise, lights, the violent odors —
Adam fragments himself. The whirling rides!

Fragmented Adam stares.
God’s hands
unseen, the whirling rides
dazzle, the lights blind him. Fragmented,
he is not present to himself. God
suffers the void that is his absence.

Denise Levertov, On a Theme by Thomas Merton

1. Is it absurd to suggest that the tick of the clock is relevant to understanding age?
2. Picture it: a landscape, a family enjoying a picnic, rolling hills in the distance; Can you think of an equivalent timescape?
3. How routine is your daily life? Do you think it is becoming more routine as you grow older?

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry, The peace of wild things

Try this out for a starter if you want to reflect in Age!

1. Do you feel age masks ‘the real you’?
2. When did you last take a hard look at yourself in the mirror?
3. Do you look your age?
4. Do you feel your age?

An absolute
patience.
Trees stand
up to their knees in
fog. The fog
slowly flows
uphill.
White
cobwebs, the grass
leaning where deer
have looked for apples.
The woods
from brook to where
the top of the hill looks
over the fog, send up
not one bird.
So absolute, it is
no other than
happiness itself, a breathing
too quiet to hear.

Denise Levertov, The Breathing

Tate Modern was created in the year 2000 to display the national collection of international modern art (defined as art since 1900).

By about 1990 it was clear that the Tate Collection had hugely outgrown the original Tate Gallery on Millbank. It was decided to create a new gallery in London to display the international modern component of the Tate Collection. For the first time London would have a dedicated museum of modern art. At the same time, the Tate building on Millbank would neatly revert to its original intended function as the national gallery of British art.

An immediate problem was whether the modern art gallery should be a new building or a conversion of an existing building, if a suitable one could be found. As a result of extensive consultations, particularly with artists, it was decided to search for a building to convert. When the building that is now Tate Modern presented itself, it appeared something of a miracle. It was a former power station that had closed in 1982, so it was available. It was a very striking and distinguished building in its own right, by the architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. Not least, it was in an amazing location on the south bank of the River Thames opposite St Paul’s Cathedral and the City of London.

A national architectural competition was held attracting entries from practices all over the world. The final choice was Herzog and De Meuron, a relatively small and then little known Swiss firm. A key factor in this choice was that their proposal retained much of the essential character of the building. One of the shortlisted architects had, for example, proposed demolishing the splendid ninety-nine metre high chimney, a central feature of the building.

The power station consisted of a huge turbine hall, thirty-five metres high and 152 metres long, with, parallel to it, the boiler house. The turbine hall became a dramatic entrance area, with ramped access, as well as a display space for very large sculptural projects. The boiler house became the galleries. These are on three levels running the full length of the building. The galleries are disposed in separate but linked blocks, known as suites, on either side of the central escalators. The Tate collection of modern art is displayed on two of the gallery floors, the third is devoted to temporary exhibitions. Above the original roofline of the power station Herzog and De Meuron added a two-storey glass penthouse, known as the lightbeam. The top level of this houses a café-restaurant with stunning views of the river and the City. The chimney was capped by a coloured light feature designed by the artist Michael Craig-Martin, known as the Swiss Light.

 At night, the penthouse lightbeam and the Swiss Light mark the presence of Tate Modern for many miles.