A load of Bunkum

We all know the word "bunkum", which means "a load of rubbish" when spoken or written by someone else, but I don't suppose that many people know how the word came to mean what it does.

It all goes back to US Congressman Felix Walker, who was elected in 1816. Not only was he immensely proud of the people that he represented, but he thought that the rest of the House should know all about them as well.

He therefore spoke at length about his district whenever he got the opportunity, which meant every time he was called upon to speak, whether or not the matter at hand was even remotely relevant to his particular bit of North Carolina.

The name of his district was Buncombe County, and the name therefore became a byword for irrelevant rubbish.

© John Welford

A history of scissors

Scissors can be defined as hand implements that use two blades for cutting materials such as paper, cloth, thread, food, hair, etc. The cutting action is created by the shearing motion of the two blades moving against each other, such that the cut moves horizontally while the fingers and thumb of the hand move vertically. How did they originate and develop?

Ancient scissors

The earliest devices that can be loosely described as scissors were probably made in Egypt in around 1500 BCE. These comprised a single piece of bronze metal formed into a U shape, with the ends of the U sharpened into blades and the curve acting as a spring so that the blades moved apart on release after each cut. However, it would appear that the blades were not designed to cross, which would not have made them particularly efficient.

Cross-bladed scissors were invented in about 100 AD by the Romans, although the pattern followed the Egyptian design, thus resembling the shears used by more recent sheep-shearers and gardeners. The Romans used iron, which was less brittle than bronze.

(Incidentally, the difference between scissors and shears is basically one of size; scissors with blades longer than 15cm are generally referred to as shears).

Modern scissors

The invention of modern scissors, using a central pivot to join the two blades, each of which therefore comprises a lever, appears to have been made at some time before the 6^th century, when they were described, by Isidore of Seville, as tools used by barbers. Indeed, there is some evidence that the Romans themselves made this development.

We know that during the Romanesque period, from around 1000 to 1300, scissor-makers were held in high esteem, with craft guilds being formed. The development of other trades and crafts, such as those of dressmaking and calligraphy, led to greater demand for high-quality scissors that would produce clean cuts of cloth and paper.

The name of Leonardo da Vinci is sometimes associated with the invention of scissors although by his day modern-style scissors were in fairly common use. His contribution, as with several other technologies, may have been to make improvements to what already existed, and thus increased their popularity, but this is one invention for which he cannot take the credit!

A major development came in 1761, when Robert Hinchliffe of Sheffield began to use cast steel to make scissors, which could therefore be made to be highly durable and efficient. He set himself up in London as a manufacturer and purveyor of high-grade scissors.

There have been many developments in the design of scissors in more recent years. For example, there are now scissors for left-handed use, in which the blades are reversed so that a left-hander can see the line of the cut as it is being made, and the handles are moulded so as to be comfortable for use in the left hand. There are specialist tools for surgeons, “pinking shears” for dressmakers and tailors (to produce a zigzag cut in cloth that will not fray easily), safety scissors for children, and even bolt-cutter shears for heavy-duty use, in which the pivot point is placed as close to the blades as possible, to provide greater leverage.

In an age of technology when so many of our tools are power-driven and computer-controlled, it is interesting to note that the humble scissors still have a role to play, in a form that has changed little over thousands of years.

© John Welford

A guest of the Embassy

For five weeks during the summer of 1977 I lived in Moscow while working on a temporary assignment at the British Embassy. My living arrangements were interesting, to say the least.

Five weeks in Moscow

I was working at the time for the British Council as part of its team of professional librarians. The Council maintains libraries at many of its offices (although a number have closed since I was involved with them). At the time, the British Council was represented in the Soviet Union by only one person, who doubled as the Assistant Cultural Attaché at the Moscow Embassy.

The idea had been mooted that the Embassy should establish a library that could be used to support the English teaching activities of the Cultural Section, which were supported by the British Council. I was given the task of making two visits to Moscow – one to work out what was needed and place orders for bookstock, and the other, after a short break to allow for everything to turn up, to get the stock organised and catalogued.

The first visit, of two weeks, took place in July and the second, of three weeks, was in September. It was a very busy summer – during the interval between the visits I also got married!

Staying with the Cultural Attaché

For the whole of my first visit I was given a room in the flat that belonged to the Embassy’s Cultural Attaché. He was married with a family, but they were away at the time which meant that there was a spare room that I could use.

The two of us were therefore flatmates for two weeks. I soon discovered that he may have been an excellent Cultural Attaché (he went on to become an Ambassador in his own right), but his domestic skills were sadly lacking. We somehow managed not to starve, but it was a close-run thing at times!

NYJO pays a visit

One of the jobs of the Cultural Attaché is to organise visits by artists, writers, performers and others. This also involves arranging their accommodation and entertainment during their visit.

One visit that coincided with mine was that of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. I have never been a great fan of jazz, but I have to say that these performers went a long way towards converting me. They put on a couple of public concerts in Moscow and also an informal “jam session” at the Embassy. After the latter, which was great, the Attaché invited them all back to his place.

Ah! By “his place” he meant the flat that he was sharing with me. His generous gesture was made off the cuff, and as soon as he had made it he realised that it was probably a mistake because he had almost nothing in the flat with which to feed twenty or so hungry young musicians!

It was time to call in some favours, so while I was sent back to the flat to do what I could with the little that was available, he dashed from flat to flat to see if anyone had anything to spare. The block was occupied by diplomats from all the world – you could bump into people from up to 70 nationalities in that compound, the sole exception being Russians – so what he came back with was a very mixed collection of edibles!

Somehow, given our extremely limited culinary knowledge, we managed to cobble together an extraordinary buffet of bits and pieces without knowing what went with what, or which items should have been cooked and which should not! As far I know nobody was made seriously ill by our efforts, and there are probably some well-established jazz musicians who are still telling stories about the extraordinary catering offered by two guys in a flat in Moscow in 1977!

Unwanted guests

One problem with the block of flats was that it was infested with cockroaches. The various embassies in Moscow were assigned a certain number of flats, many of which would be empty as and when they moved their staff from place to place. When a flat was empty for several weeks it became a breeding place for cockroaches that would then move through the pipework to the flats above and below.

Not surprisingly, it was the kitchen where most of them would be found, but they did also get into the bedrooms from time to time. It was important to switch on the light before you stepped out of bed, because you risked stepping on a cockroach or two with your bare feet if you did not.

My worst memory was of returning to the flat one evening and walking straight into the kitchen. When the light was switched on we became aware that the walls and floor were black with cockroaches. This did not last long because they all fled for cover as soon as the light came on, and within a second or two there was hardly one to be seen. However, we knew that they were all still there, just out of sight in the gaps between the cupboards or in the drawers where the crockery and cutlery were kept.  There was therefore a need to wash everything you used for eating and drinking both before and after you used it.

It was an interesting couple of weeks courtesy of our guests, both welcome and otherwise!

© John Welford

Hydrogen: the most abundant element

Hydrogen has the atomic number 1 for a very good reason, namely that the hydrogen atom has only one proton and one electron, but it has other claims to the “number one” status.

It was one of the first elements created after the Big Bang, along with helium and lithium, and it is by far the most abundant in the Universe – 88% of all atoms are hydrogen atoms.

Its existence is vital for all life on Earth because it is the fuel that keeps the Sun burning, producing helium nuclei and vast quantities of energy as it does so. Unfortunately, hydrogen has also been “tamed” by mankind to create the fearsome hydrogen bomb.

Hydrogen has the huge advantage of combining readily with other atoms to form compounds – two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom produce one molecule of water, and, when allied with carbon, it enables the bonding of the cells of living beings.

When living organisms die and decompose, the hydrocarbons they leave behind can turn into natural gas and fuel oil.

As a lighter-than-air gas, hydrogen was an obvious choice for filling large balloons, such as airships. However, the fact that it is highly inflammable proved to be a major disadvantage, as in the notorious case of the Hindenburg in 1937.

It is the presence of hydrogen in water that leads to the strange behaviour of water when frozen. One would expect a solid to be denser than a liquid, and that ice would therefore sink in water. However, when water is cooled to 4 degrees Celsius, hydrogen bonding occurs that allows a single water molecule to link with four others, thus giving the resulting solid a more open, and thus less dense, structure.

Hydrogen is therefore a truly remarkable element. However, the question “where would we be without it” makes no sense. There would not only be no “we”, there wouldn’t be any “be” either!

© John Welford

The UK General Election of 2001

The UK General Election fought on 7^th June 2001 saw the second victory of “New Labour” led by Tony Blair, following their stunning landslide win in 1997 that brought to an end 18 years of Conservative rule.

As is typical of governments that are confident of their position, Tony Blair called the 2001 election after four years in office rather than five, and the result seemed to justify his confidence. The overall result was “steady as you go”, with only a handful of seats changing hands. Labour lost only six net seats, with the Conservatives making only one net gain (they won nine seats but lost eight). Of the mainstream parties, the Liberal Democrats had most to cheer on election night, with their parliamentary representation rising from 46 to 52.

The Conservatives fought the 2001 election under a new leader, William Hague, who had succeeded former Prime Minister John Major after the latter resigned following the 1997 defeat. However, as party leader he failed to galvanize the country, becoming something of a figure of fun after he was pictured riding a log flume at a theme park while wearing a baseball cap. He found it impossible to get the electorate to take him seriously as a potential Prime Minister and resigned as leader soon after the 2001 election.

The election campaign turned out to be low-key, with the opposition parties finding few issues on which they could attack the government, which had dealt competently enough with the issues that concerned the electorate during the four years since 1997. Polling on matters such as stewardship of the National Health Service and management of the economy showed that most people were satisfied with the way things were being handled and therefore saw no reason to change back to the Conservatives at this time.

This general air of satisfaction was reflected in the low turnout at the election, with only 59.4% of voters bothering to go the polling station, as against 71.4% in 1997.

In terms of proportion of votes cast per party, the Labour vote fell by 2.5% and that for the Conservatives rose by 1.0%, with the Liberal Democrats doing best with a 1.5% rise in vote share, although the low turnout mentioned above meant that the actual number of votes fell for all the main parties.

Of the relatively few seats that changed hands, a number could be accounted for by local circumstances. For example, in Taunton the sitting Liberal Democrat MP, Jackie Ballard, had been unwise enough to declare her opposition to fox-hunting in a very rural seat, and she paid the price accordingly. In Wyre Forest (Worcestershire) a local retired doctor, Richard Taylor, stood as an Independent and won with a majority of more than 17,500 (gaining 58.1% of the votes cast) on a ticket of defending the local hospital from closure.

One noticeable feature of the 1997 Conservative defeat had been their failure to win any seats in either Wales or Scotland, and they had high hopes of reversing this trend in 2001. In Wales they came closest in Monmouth, but fell short by just 384 votes. This failure in Wales was despite the relative unpopularity of Labour, whose share of the vote fell by 6%. However, given that most Labour seats in Wales were held with huge majorities, this percentage fall could easily be withstood.

In Scotland the Conservatives did manage to win their first seat since 1992, this being the border seat of Galloway and Upper Nithsdale which they took from the Scottish Nationalists with a majority of just 74 votes. Overall, the Nationalists (SNP) had a frustrating night, making no gains but suffering no other losses, thus ending up with five seats.

In Northern Ireland, where politics are fought on a completely different basis to that on the mainland, seven of the 18 seats changed hands, representing moves towards the extremes in both the republican and loyalist communities. Sinn Fein, who do not take up their seats in Parliament, doubled their number of MPs from  two to four, and the Democratic Unionists (led by Rev Ian Paisley) had a net gain of two seats over their more moderate rivals the Ulster Unionists.

Of the 659 MPs who took their seats after the 2001 election, 99 were new to the House of Commons, these comprising 38 Labour, 33 Conservatives, 14 Liberal Democrats and 14 others. This proportion of newbies, at 15%, was much lower than the 40% in 1997. The composition of the new House was overwhelming male, white and middle-class, with these trends being much greater among Conservative than Labour MPs. Only 188 MPs after the election were women, being three fewer than beforehand. Labour was the only party to have MPs who were from non-white ethnic minorities, the number of such being 12.

The 2001 General Election therefore resulted in a House of Commons that was not very different from what had gone before. However, Tony Blair’s Commons majority of 165 was to take something of a battering the next time round, being reduced to 60 in 2005.

© John Welford

Reaching the age of 61

(I wrote this piece a few years ago – on my 61^st birthday)

Today I reach the advanced (according to my son) age of 61.

There is nothing particularly significant about this number. 60 is much more of a landmark – you get free prescriptions and qualify for reduced charges on all sorts of things, but there is no difference between being 60 and 61. However, 61 is a special number for me.

This is because I grew up in a house that was number 61. I wasn’t born there, because I was adopted when very young and must have lived somewhere else for the first year or so of my life, but number 61 was the house in which I lived throughout my childhood and schooldays and which I really only left after I had been to university and started my career as a librarian.

Number 61 always struck me as being about half way down the road, which is not far off the mark in terms of the number of houses. On the “odd” side the houses went down to 119, but this was a bit deceptive because the houses at the top end of the road were older, semi-detached properties that took up less space than the detached houses further down. In terms of yardage, number 61 was probably about two-thirds of the way down.

This has got me thinking, and there seem to be several parallels between the road in question and my impressions of having reached the same age as my old house number.

The road sloped gently downwards, and I’m definitely on the way downhill! Touching lots of wood, I don’t have any major health problems, but I have to take pills to control my blood pressure and don’t have the same energy that I did thirty years ago!

The road had a bend in it about half way along, so the view from the house was in the direction of its end rather than its beginning – a bit worrying, that!

As I mentioned above, the houses at the top of the road were older and narrower than those further down. They dated from around 1900-10, when the tendency was for town houses to be built in terraces or semi-detached with narrow gaps between the house pairs. Very few people had cars, so there was no need to build garages next to houses. Numbers 1 to about 45 were therefore this type of house.

However, a few years later things had changed. After World War I had come and gone, people with a little bit more money wanted more space for themselves, with gardens front and rear and enough space at the side of the house for a driveway in which to park their car or build a garage. When my grandfather bought number 61 in the 1920s as his retirement home, the house was new and the last one in the road. He could also afford to buy the plot next door (number 63) and gave serious thought to number 65 as well. However, the extra land was enough for building a later extension to the house and giving my grandparents a larger garden.

The analogy of the pattern of house-building to a life of 61 years is interesting. One’s early years seem to go on for ever – time may march on but one is not so aware of it. A couple of years on one’s age don’t matter all that much, in that the “walk” from 23 to 25, for example, is only a few yards.

However, I seem to have swept through my 50s in no time at all. I have marched down an awful lot of my “road” during the last decade, and the next decade will also run away with me if I am not too careful!

So here I go down the road from 61. I appreciate that it is unlikely that I will get all the way down the road to 119, but I’m prepared to give it a try! Knowing that there is much less road in front of me than behind is an incentive to make the most of it, and tomorrow is another day!

© John Welford

Capital punishment in the United Kingdom

More than half a century has passed since the last execution was carried out in the United Kingdom. Although there have been calls for its return, this seems unlikely in the near future. This writer hopes that it will never do so.


Capital punishment in the United Kingdom

There was a time when executions were regularly carried out in Great Britain. In historical times there were many notable cases of execution by beheading and burning at the stake, but these were usually of prominent people who had committed treason or some other offence that displeased the monarch of the day. Common criminals were more likely to be hanged from a tree.

The rise of the middle class in the 18th century led to a surge in offences being designated as capital (i.e. subject to the death penalty), mainly as a result of propertied people sponsoring legislation designed to protect their property against theft by the starving underclass.

At one time there were more than 200 offences for which death was an available penalty, including “being in the company of gypsies”. Some judges were more inclined to impose the penalty than others and to take little account of the circumstances of individual cases – even young children could be hanged for stealing a loaf of bread.

Humanitarian reforms, over a long period of time, gradually reduced the list of capital offences until, by the mid-20th century, these only included certain types of murder, treason, and sabotage in a Naval dockyard – although cases of the latter two were, not surprisingly, extremely rare.

The method used for carrying out executions was also reformed, such that public executions (always by hanging) that had become a grisly form of entertainment gave way to a much more clinical process within the confines of a prison.


Moves towards total abolition

The public mood towards abolishing the death penalty altogether was hastened by several cases in which it was widely believed that justice had not been served. One of these was the hanging of Timothy Evans in 1950 for the murder of his infant daughter, although it later became clear that he was entirely innocent and that he had been framed by the real murderer, the serial killer John Christie.

Another case that shook public confidence in the death penalty was that in 1953 of Derek Bentley, who was involved in a robbery during which a policeman was shot dead. It was always clear that Bentley had not been the actual murderer (who was aged 16 and therefore could not be hanged) but he was condemned to death by virtue of having been part of the “joint enterprise” that led to the policeman’s death.

The hanging of Ruth Ellis in 1955, for the murder of her former lover, also sparked huge public revulsion for the death penalty and led to no more being handed down for nearly ten years. The final executions were carried out in August 1964 when two men were hanged in Strangeways Prison, Manchester, for a murder that had taken place earlier that year.


The abolition of capital punishment

This was achieved in 1965 by an Act of Parliament that suspended the penalty for a trial period of five years, although it was only four later, in December 1969, that abolition was made permanent.

Since that date there have been votes in the House of Commons on motions to restore the death penalty for certain crimes, with MPs being free to vote according to their consciences and not along party lines. However, despite the fact that a majority of the British public would apparently support a return, there have always been large majorities against it in Parliament.

It is now a condition of membership of the European Union that no country can retain the death penalty, so there was no chance of the decision being reversed as long as the United Kingdom remained a member.


Should capital punishment return?

With the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, moves to restore the death penalty are quite likely to be made. There would appear to be strong public support for certain offences to carry the penalty, including the murders of policemen, prison officers and members of the armed forces, as well as acts of terrorism.

However, this writer would not be in favour of such a move. For one thing, I take the view that when a country takes the lives of its own citizens, for whatever reason, it has forfeited the right to call itself a civilised nation.

Another reason is that repealing capital punishment has not resulted in a huge rise in the number of murder cases, as was originally feared. The number of occasions on which a murderer has stopped to think about the potential punishment should they be caught is vanishingly small – they either bank on not being caught or are so involved in the event as it unfolds that thinking of the consequences never enters their heads.

Knowing that their decision could result in the death of someone might incline some jury members to come to a “not guilty” verdict in a murder trial, with the result that someone who is actually guilty is released from any punishment at all and may even go on to kill someone else.

Finally, the reason that led to capital punishment being abolished in the first place has not gone away, namely the possibility that miscarriages of justice can occur. There are far too many instances in which evidence is tainted or trials are poorly conducted for one to be absolutely certain that the right verdict is reached in every case. A wrong can be righted if the person in question is in jail, but not if they have already been hanged.

I am delighted that that there is no death penalty in the United Kingdom, and I sincerely hope that things stay that way.

© John Welford