GEORGE BARNSBY BLOG NO.349 FRIDAY 11TH JANUARY 2007
NUCLEAR POWER.
I’ve said for years that anyone in Britain who supports Nuclear Power for an island surrounded with water and floating on coal need their heads examined. But the present generation who support both more nuclear power stations and a renewal of Trident are more sinister because they risk the total destruction of the planet. Gordon Brown and others who accept both of these propositions should be locked up and put out of harm’s way.
CORNUCOPIAS OF DELIGHT.
I deride those foolish people who disdain the use of the most democratic means of communication yet invented, namely the BLOG. In fact each day brings fresh delights to ordinary people like me who appreciate its costlesness and immediate form of communication. Take today, for example. There came an email from the Beacon Centre for the Blind in Wolverhampton. It told me that my modest donation was much appreciated by the trustees, staff and service users and since I had expressed surprise at there not being material concerning the blind pianist GEORGE SHEARING at the Centre they are currently taking steps to publish details in one of their Talking Newspapers and Newsletters.
George is so important to me because he and I were both born in the same year (1919) in the same suburb of London (Battersea) and I knew George during the 1930s before he became world famous. He wrote a book, ‘Lullaby of Birdland’, which is his signature tune written by himself, but is a very important book because it is the only one that not only inspires blind people but is directed also at us sighted people telling us what it is to be blind, and comes to the amazing conclusion that if he were offered the gift of sight he would refuse it.
He is now suffering from the maladies of old age which prevent him ever returning to England and I would like to contact him and ask whether he has a fan club, or if anyone in Britain can create one which will honour this extraordinary Briton who found fame in the United States. Much concerning George is in the Jazz Archives at Loughton in Essex and I appeal to them to help in this endeavour.
Just as important to me was an email from my friend BERNARD TRAFFORD. Bernard is head of Wolverhampton Grammar School and opposer of the war in Iraq. He is also this year chief of the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference and is using his considerable influence to pour scorn on educational League tables beloved by peoples such as Lord Adonis and sanctioned by Gordon Brown. Critic also of cuts in education now that Brown has been exposed as a penniless charlatan with nothing to finance the grandiose plans for Wolverhampton’s education and the country’s.
Instead there will be cuts unless the trade unions and professional associations such as the HHC mount the father and mother of all protest campaigns to force Brown to end the war in Iraq when there would be sufficient money to meet the needs for education, health and old age.
Bernard and I met before Christmas and discussed such matters as integrating WGS into a city wide campaign to promote Wolverhampton as the City of the Year for Culture, Education, Sport and Business and he tells me that he is now discussing with his staff and pupils the questions of linking the school with my website, links on such matters as the Holocaust which the school’s history department has commemorated for some years, also the school’s participation in assisting people to trace service men and women back to the first World War.
More than this, Bernard is willing to open up his school to the general public in such matters as revealing the ethnicity of his teaching staff as well as his pupils as well as participating in such projects of national importance as determining whether the Battle of Tettenhall of 1015 was fought at Tettenhall or Wednesfield as some authorities believe including Councillor Phil Bateman believe and by excavation if necessary to find remains of the battle. He is also willing to reveal to the public his syllabuses and whether they are ‘fit for purpose’ in this multicultural world. In all these matters schools in the City will have a key role to play, but have shown a reluctance to participate .
But Bernard Trafford has other claims to fame. He is a jazz fan and jazz pianist of considerable repute and has fostered a school band of national reputation within which there is a jazz unit.  He tells me that they did their best to raise the profile of Black History month back in October to play in School Assemby tracks of Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five. What a man ! Unfortunately we shall be losing him in June when he moves to a larger Grammar School at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Let us hope that we can keep in touch with him and the school that he leaves in promoting Wolverhampton as the City of 2008 in Culture, Education, Sport and Business.