Eulogy for Dad...

Dad with a Moggridge piano, March 2010.

Funerals can be gloomy occasions, but the word ‘gloomy’ is not an adjective I would use to describe the man whose life we are celebrating and whose passing we mourn today. Dad was full of positive energy and optimism for life. He possessed an immense enthusiasm for everything and, while he probably wouldn’t admit to it himself, he was a true perfectionist.

Even his initials spell out the nature of the man: Gerald Eldred Moggridge can be shortened to GEM and for all of us, dad was a real gem of a husband, a father, a grandfather and, of course, a great grandfather.

Mum will tell you what a great husband dad has been; they were married for 56 years, had three great kids, including me, and there was never a cross word – well, one or two, perhaps. Dad loved being at home with mum and was fortunate to enjoy 22 happy years of retirement, tending to their amazing and inspiring garden and researching and writing a history of the Moggridge family – available in all good bookshops soon.

As a father, dad was second to none. He probably wasn’t that good with dollies and teddies – that’s why Criss was forced to squeeze one of her dolls into Action Man fatigues – but our early years were characterised by cap guns, forts, train sets and toy soldiers and the biggest kid of all was dad. He taught us how to make log cabins out of sticks and blow them up with bangers and he was definitely behind the legendary Battle of Kiln Castle, which I’ll explain later to anyone who wants to listen.

Our childhoods were defined by two key events: summer holidays on the South Coast at Middleton-on-Sea and Felpham where dad played King Canute in a sandcastle; and, of course, Christmas time. Dad made both occasions truly magical – so much so that we’d be walking around the block, counting the days to our summer holiday, months before boarding the train to Bognor; and we probably believed in Father Christmas for longer than most kids – thanks to a bell and a ball of string.

Dad rigged up a bell outside of our bedroom window. It was attached to a ball of string, which he threw into the garden and then back through the bathroom window. On Christmas Eve, we would be tucked up in bed and dad would stand by the door clasping and pulling the string, ringing the bell outside the window. For years, we were believers – until I found the bell.

Dad also shone outside of the home. He enjoyed a highly successful career in the Government Information Service where he worked in Number 10 Downing Street alongside two great British Prime Ministers – Harold Wilson and Ted Heath – as well as one legendary Prime Minister-in-waiting, Margaret Thatcher (when she was Minister for Education). He set up the press office at the Lord Chancellor’s Department and was a regional director of the COI, in charge of co-ordinating media activity surrounding Royal Visits. He worked with the late and equally legendary Princess Diana and other members of the Royal Family.

Dad has met some of the world’s greats, including former American president Richard Nixon, in Bermuda with Ted Heath, and the diplomat’s diplomat, Henry Kissinger.

Which brings me to dad’s other enduring qualities – his strong moral code and his ethical approach to life. Dad was a fair man with a strong sense of right from wrong. Over the years, he provided us all with what I can only describe as expert guidance on how to live our lives – standing here today, I can confirm that he did a brilliant job and we will all miss him.

What a drag it is getting old...

Last night Panorama screened a programme about ageism in the workplace. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! The BBC is renowned for being ageist as the recent case concerning Miriam O'Reilly, a Countryfile presenter, proved; and let's not forget countless other people who have been told they're too old to be on the beeb – Moira Stewart was one and then there was Arlene Phillips, who was replaced by Alesha Dixon. 


Arlene Phillips knows more about dancing than Alesha Dixon, but because Dixon is younger than Philips, the beeb thinks that people sitting at home in front of the TV would rather stare at Dixon than Phillips. We're not THAT shallow, are we?


Phillips must have been inwardly fuming over that scandal, but surely Dixon is secretly thinking, "I'll be next" as she stares pensively into her bathroom mirror, checking for any early wrinkles.

The problem with the BBC's ageism policy is that it's sexist. Strictly Come Dancing's Len Goodman and Bruce Forsyth, for instance, are both really old men – Brucie is in his 80s – but they are still going strong and if you take a look at Newsnight, good old Paxo, now white-haired, is as stroppy as ever. Mind you, I'd rather have Paxo presenting a heavyweight current affairs programme than Adrian Chiles or Dominic Littlewood.

Fortunately, Panorama chose Fiona Phillips to present its ageism programme, probably because she's no spring chicken, although she scrubs up well, to coin a phrase. Philips turns 50 this year and I guess she was chosen to quieten down the beeb's critics who would have been in uproar had Fearne Cotton been the chosen presenter – and rightly so.

The programme focused on a real problem: the fact that employers in the UK don't want people in their 50s working in their companies. 

When you're in your 50s you just want to do your job to the best of your ability and get paid for it; you're not going to suck up to the boss, not only because he or she will probably be younger than you are, but because you know that it's not the way to conduct yourself and you've realised that you work to live, not live to work.

Panorama focused on four people: three men and one woman, all of whom were out of work and having real problems finding a job. Why? Because they're considered to be past it. All four of them have been trying to get work for a very long time, but they've failed despite being well qualified for the roles in question.

What I found really annoying – alright, I found it really irksome – was the absolutely useless presence of Digby Jones. That man failed to grasp the problem and spent any airtime he was given patronising four decent people who already felt bad enough about their lot and certainly didn't need Baron Jones of Birmingham telling them what do.

Jones got it completely wrong. If you're reading this, 'Baron', the point of the programme was this: people in their 50s – qualified people who might have studied hard to become professionals in some sphere or other – are being turned away from jobs that they want to do and for which they are more than qualified. They want to do the job but one thing stands in their way – their age.

But did Jones grasp it? No, he didn't. "Why don't you re-train, become a plumber?" he said as the hapless individuals were given a patronising one-by-one audience with the Baron, who resembled a poor man's Wizard of Oz, after the curtain had been pulled back, and our four 50-somethings were, perhaps, Dorothy, The Tin Man, The Lion and the Scarecrow.

That's not the point, Mr Jones, they don't want to become minicab drivers, driving instructors or plumbers. Why would they? They want to remain as accountants or teachers and they're perfectly capable but they are being stopped by employers who are more concerned about saving money or, in the case of the Beeb, with cosmetic issues. 

What I also found rather amusing about the Panorama programme was the occasional input from Age UK, a charity that is obviously anti the whole ageism thing. Sadly, though, the charity's representative was a young bloke who was definitely not in his 50s – they missed a big trick there.

There was no happy ending to the programme either. I was expecting written announcements prior to or during the end credits, stating that the programme's subjects had all found work in their chosen fields, but no, they hadn't. One resorted to voluntary work, the other considered turning a hobby (picture framing) into a job and another – who was sent to work in a bar – gave it up because he felt it was below him. The female former teacher had started her own business, but it all went wrong for her when she lost a contract.

The big problem for the UK and its growing population of over-50s, is that while we're all being expected to work longer before we pick up our state pensions, there are people, like Digby Jones, who expect professional people to simply down tools at 50 (largely for cosmetic reasons) and accept jobs that aren't so important in a 'people-facing' sense. It's as if the general public as a whole – and employers and their workforces in particular – have some kind of aversion to people with a bit of white hair or a more wrinkled face and shouldn't have to endure looking at them for fear of being offended.

I was going to finish this article with the phrase 'grow up', but then I realised that growing up and getting older was the nub of the problem when it shouldn't be.

Napoleon once referred to the United Kingdom as a 'a nation of shopkeepers', but if things keep going the way they are, we'll be a nation of driving instructors and 'white van men' and newsagents windows will be inundated with 'man and van' cards.

Such a fate awaits us all and there must be thousands of people in college today wondering whether it's worth studying hard if they're going to end up stacking shelves in a supermarket or a DIY superstore. Why not simply leave college and go there now? That way you'll avoid disappointment later in life.

The Prestige, by Christopher Priest

Borden and Angier as portrayed by Christian Bale (left) and
Hugh Jackman.

Well, first of all, let's start with the fact that I bought Priest's The Prestige a long time ago, probably not long after it published in 1995; but, for whatever reason, I didn't read it – or rather I started and then put it down. It remained on my bookshelf for many years and is still there now, the difference being that, as of 26 December 2010, it has been read and, I must say, it's up there with the very best of all the books I've read. Why? Because of the way it was written, the fact that it was well-researched – or at least I assume it was – and because the characterisation is so rich and the story so authentically told. For a book set in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but written in the late twentieth century, it manages the conceal its youthful nature through the style of the writing, a lot of which is in diary form and conveys the thoughts of the two main characters – that of Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier – both of whom are magicians, one who calls himself the Professor de Magie and the other, The Great Danton.

In essence, the book documents the rivalry between the two men and how they each attempt, on numerous occasions, to sabotage the other's act. In fact, that word 'attempt' is misleading as Borden, more so than Angier, manages successfully to sabotage Angier's act and, in the process, causes him great harm. One of Borden's early attempts results in the loss of Angier's unborn child, although later he inadvertently saves Angier from drowning when one of his illusions goes wrong.

The main theme of the book, however, is the quest of both men to discover the secrets of each other's main illusion, that of teleportation from one location to another. In Borden's case we discover that body doubles are involved in his New Transported Man, something Angier finds hard to believe (although it turns out to be true). Subterfuge is involved when Angier's wife defects to the 'other side' by working for Borden, initially to find out his secrets, but ultimately she falls in love with him and sends Angier a false lead after admitting her original intentions to Borden.

Angier receives a note from his wife informing him that the secret of Borden's act lies in the work of a Professor Tesla who is experimenting with alternating current in Colorado. Angier travels to the USA and asks Tesla to manufacture a machine that will enable him to transport himself from one place to another – in other words, not an illusion but a reality: a machine that literally transports matter from one location to another. Angier pays a hefty sum for the equipment and, for a while, appears to have been ripped off until he discovers that the paid-for equipment had been shipped and was probably languishing in a dockyard somewhere in the UK.

Once retrieved and assembled, the equipment does its job and Angier discovers that, without the aid of a body double – a method he does employ prior to meeting Tesla – he can transport himself from the stage to the circle seats of any theatre as long as it has electrical power. He manages to wow audiences the length and breadth of the country and becomes very rich in the process, but his great nemesis, Borden, is always lurking in the audience, trying to sabotage the act.

On one occasion he manages to somehow switch off the power of Tesla's apparatus at a crucial moment in the act when Angier has passed the point of no return. The end result is that two Angiers spring into existence, one being his original self and the other his part-transported self – a ghost-like wraith who decides that enough is enough and that he must kill Borden. But when push comes to shove, he can't do it. The 'other' Angier, the one that initially entered the Tesla machine, becomes ill and eventually dies.

It is important to remember, however, that Angier is also part of the aristocracy and so has two identities: one being Rupert Angier (The Great Danton) and the other Lord Colderdale of Derbyshire. With the Great Danton dead – and so, by default, Lord Colderdale, only the wraith-like Angier is left and he decides to end it all by using the Tesla equipment once more to re-unite himself with the other Angier who is now in the Colderdale mausoleum.

While most of the book is set in the mid-18th Century and early twentieth, the first and last parts are set in modern times. The book starts with a reporter – an unknowing descendant of Borden – visiting a descendant of Angier and explaining how he always feels he has an identical twin somewhere in the world. These feelings are strongest during his time in the Colderdale stately home and it is not until the end of the book, when the reader is back in the present day, that story reaches its rather eerie and frightening conclusion.

I loved this book and was elated to discover that my son Max had a DVD of the movie, which I sat down and watched last night (Boxing Day 2010) having finished the novel that morning. Sadly, although understandably, considering the novel's intricacies, the movie was considerably different from the book and nowhere near as good. Borden is portrayed as some kind of plucky cockney magician – not how I imagined him at all – and he and Angier see a darn sight more of one another than they do in the book (where most of their encounters are during acts of sabotage). The movie has Borden accidentally killing Angier's wife, when in the book he kills their unborn child. Unless I missed it, Borden is not shot by Angier and Borden is never in prison awaiting hanging. What's more the modern-day element of the story is completely ignored as is the eerie climax to the novel. All in all, while the book was one of the most impressive I've read in a long time, it was let down by the movie – but only, I'd imagine, for those, like me, who had read the book. Coming to the movie in isolation, it's a good film.

Cycling and running boom shows appetite for sports participation

 New participation figures published by Sport England paint a mixed picture of progress in grassroots sport, with strong growth in running and cycling but a decline in other major sports, including football and swimming.  

Cycling has experienced strong growth in terms of participation,
claims Sport England

Overall, the slow but steady increase in participation numbers seen over the past five years continues, with 6,938,000 people now taking part in sport at least three times a week. Today’s Active People Survey results show that regular participation is now 123,000 closer to the Government’s aim to get one million people playing more sport by 2012/13.

Weekly participation in athletics (including running) has swelled by over 263,000 over the past two years, buoyed by a growing network of informal running groups across the country. Over the same period, cycling’s numbers are up by almost 100,000. British Cycling’s Chief Executive, Ian Drake, said:

“We put great stock on trying to ensure our participation initiatives truly meet the needs of those we’re hoping to get involved in our sport. Indeed, we can partly put the continued success of Sky Ride down to the fact that we listen to participants and adapt our offerings based on the feedback we receive. We’re committed to getting more people on their bikes and importantly, keeping them cycling. What is particularly exciting for us is that we’re confident there’s plenty more to come and throughout 2011 we will be launching more new initiatives to help get more people cycling more regularly.”

Netball’s participant numbers are up by over 26,000, an increase of a fifth in the size of the sport in two years. Much of this success comes from the Back to Netball programme, which tempts women to return to the sport with a fun and flexible offer.

This is just one of the initiatives that have contributed to a recovery in women’s participation in 2010, but the gender gap in sport remains a challenge.

Of real concern, however, is the continued under-performance of five of the top seven participation sports, including the only sports with more than two million weekly participants - swimming and football. Their size means that this decline has a major impact on the overall growth of grassroots sport.

For these two – and other sports such as cricket and rugby – the challenge is to arrest the drop in participation outside the club structures where they have traditionally focused most of their attention.

The past 12 months have also been a tough period for sports that are costly and time-consuming such as golf, sailing and skiing. There has been a marked drop in participation in these activities among men aged between 35 and 44, a key period of economic productivity in most people’s lives.

Sport England ’s Chief Executive, Jennie Price, said:

“It would be fair to describe today’s results as a mixed bag. It’s good to see a wide range of sports – from individual pursuits like running to small team sports like lacrosse - demonstrating that, with the right approach, increasing grassroots participation is a realistic ambition.

“What is concerning, however, is that a number of major sports have yet to deliver, despite significant levels of investment. They now urgently need to demonstrate their ability to grow participation in their sport and prove they can make a significant contribution to sport at the grassroots level.”

The Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson MP, said:

“During the comprehensive spending review we fought hard to get a good settlement for sport, keeping the Whole Sport plans in place. Now it is vital to see a return from the investment sports get from the public purse. I want every pound that national governing bodies spend on the grassroots to count.

“Our recently launched ‘Places People Play’ strategy will help get more people participating but we also need sports governing bodies to step up to the plate and deliver. Some sports are making progress such as athletics and netball and we need to learn lessons from them to get growth across the board.”

Me and Martin 'Wolfie' Adams, the darts player...

Martin 'Wolfie' Adams and yours truly, Evesham, December 14th 2010.

Alright, I know, I'm a friend of the stars. Here I am in Evesham at a social club with darts legend, Martin 'Wolfie' Adams. I had a really tiring day as I journeyed down to Evesham by train, getting in at around 7.15pm, then I hiked over to the club, interviewed Wolfie and a few others, got back to the hotel, checked in around 10.30pm, had dinner (it was a great hotel, the Riverside, Evesham, right on the Avon and great staff, clean rooms etc) and then, up to the room to start writing the feature. Finished it at 0130hrs, emailed it to David, the designer, then went to bed. Got up at 0630, had a Full English at 0700hrs, went back to the room, wrote the products pages (this is Club Mirror magazine, by the way) then jumped in a cab to Evesham station, discovered that a bridge had collapsed so spent £40 on a taxi to Warwick Parkway and then over £30 on a ticket to Marylebone. Got home, had a Marmite sarnie, drove over to David's, passed the issue and got back home again at 6pm. Then, at 10.30pm went out to pick up Max from Gipsy Hill, not a very salubrious place to be on foot at night. Got to bed around 11.30pm.

The great thing about Martin Adams was that he, like me, was born and bred in Sutton, Surrey. We had a good old chinwag about Sutton pubs, what a great bloke!

Smithy, the John Smith's No Nonsense racehorse – and me!!!

Here I am, yours truly, with Smithy, the John Smith's No Nonsense racehorse.
I was at the stables of Ginger and Donald McCain, both accomplished racehorse
trainers. Ginger, who turned 80 recently, trained the famous Red Rum. This shot
was taken on the first day of the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor, which was rained off.
What a great-looking racehorse – and, come to think of it, I don't look too bad either!

Leprosy, lager and psychics

I appear to have the knack of attracting some extraordinary people whenever I’m out and about. Once, on a train to London from Manchester, I sat opposite a woman who was reading, not Elle or Cosmopolitan but Leprosy Review. With two cans of Stella inside of me, and nothing like a book or newspaper to occupy my time, (that’s why I bought the lager) I found myself in fits of laughter – as a lone traveller, it never looks good – as I considered asking her if I could borrow her copy. It was the whole idea of being that desperate for something to do on the train journey that I was prepared to resort to reading a magazine about leprosy.

The woman noticed my shoulders shaking uncontrollably and, looking distastefully at the two crushed cans of Stella on the table in front of me, she asked me what I found so funny. With great difficulty, I told her and she let me read her magazine. It turned out that she was a doctor, but no ordinary GP. She was – and probably still is – the foremost authority on leprosy in the United Kingdom.

This week, I was in Northampton, of all places, on business, and I decided to walk back to the station rather than order a taxi from the office block I had been sitting in for the past hour. The walk was uninspiring and, as it was lunchtime, I thought I would find a tearoom or restaurant for a bite to eat.

Near the station there is a pub called The Black Lion, which, as a blackboard outside announced, was under new management. Having been editor of Pub Food magazine for six years, I can sniff out ‘pub grub’ from 100 yards and this was the sort of place, I figured, with a menu based around frozen chips and bar snacks and where ham, egg and chips was considered a delicacy. I played safe and ordered a ham sandwich.

I ended up in the pub because of Bruce’s Coffee Shop next door, which I hadn’t associated with the boozer. They were, I discovered, one and the same, which, in itself, was slightly odd: a coffee shop, a kind of independent version of Starbuck’s or Caffe Nero, inside a pub.

I stopped for a cappuccino and then walked through to the pub where I stayed for a beer because I liked the licensee. He was a decent sort of chap, ex-services, had been in the first Gulf War and was now the pub’s licensee. My sandwich was fine and I considered ordering another, but the crisps and salad accompanying my order sufficed and I survived on three pints of St Austell Tribute, one of three real ales available, the others being Spitfire and London Pride.

A man walked in and ordered a pint of Guinness. I had been chatting to the licensee about this and that and it transpired that his girlfriend worked in the local hospital, which I assumed was something like ‘Northampton General’. The man with the Guinness made a deliberate noise of disgruntlement at hearing this, and it turned out that he had spent six months there being treated for serious brain damage. He had been thrown off a nearby railway bridge by a group of Asian men in what the licensee described as a racist attack. Had a passer-by not spotted the man, he would have died.

The man was now on medication as a result of the attack and was only permitted a maximum of two pints of Guinness by the licensee. He only stayed for one. Apparently, the unprovoked attack had stirred up ill feeling among local hard men and revenge attacks had taken place.

The pub had recently been re-opened and the licensee told me that it dated back hundreds of years and had close associations with the impressive St Peter’s church next door.

The three pints of Tribute inspired me to take a closer look at the church. Prior to leaving my rather comfortable position at the bar, where I had been quietly writing an article about the Wye Valley Brewery on my laptop, I had noticed a man talking to the licensee. When I reached the church, there he was again taking photographs.

“I’ve got over 600 photographs of churches on my computer,” he told me, proudly, as we stood together in the churchyard while he continued to snap away. He produced his business card and, to my surprise, he was a paranormal investigator doing a bit of footwork for a psychic and medium called Susan Mock.

That surname bothered me. Mock. Mock not, but he said she was good and told me about a forthcoming meeting somewhere in Northampton. I loitered around the church for a while, admiring its inner beauty before boarding a train back to London.