RUSSIA IN THE POST-WAR WORLD

[This is the fifth of six articles I am writing on the respective positions of Britain, the US, France, Germany, Russia and China in the Post-War World]

Leaders of the USSR till 1991 and of Russia thereafter

1925-53 Joseph Stalin                         1984-85 Konstantin Chernenko

1953 Molotov, Beria, Malenkov         1985-91 Mikhail Gorbachev

1953-55 Georgi Malenkov                  1991-99 Boris Yeltsin

1955-64 Nikolai Khrushchev              1999-08 Vladimir Putin

1964-82 Leonid Brezhnev                   2008-12 Dmitri Medvedev

1982-84 Yuri Andropov                      2012-     Vladimir Putin

                                                          

The USSR triumphant

After a brutal war waged since the June 1941 Nazi invasion of the USSR, the Red Army defeated the Germans on the Eastern Front, most of Eastern Europe was under its occupation and Berlin itself fell in April 1945.

The Red Army storms the Berlin Reichstag

 The cost to Russia was however horrendous. It is estimated that 26m Soviet citizens died, about 10m in the military and 16m civilians – about 13% of the population. The devastation in Western Russia and the Ukraine was colossal. Even after hostilities ended there was more blood-letting. Nationalities deemed to have been anti-Soviet, like the Crimean Tatars, were deported wholesale to remote provinces; many died. Returning POWs were called cowards – thousands were shot or sent to labour camps. The Allies were bound by the Yalta agreements to repatriate any Russians in their zones. The raggle-taggle followers of Vlasov’s brigade, who fought with the Nazis, were shipped to Russia, often to be shot out of hand on the quayside.

Eastern Europe suffered grievously under Soviet oppression. The Soviet zone of Germany was the scene of mass rape and murder. Those who could flee, fled West. In Poland, which pro rata had lost more than the USSR (25% of the population dying) an election won by the Peasant Party was overturned by the Communists and the opposition purged on Stalin’s orders. The last vestige of Czech independence ended with the defenestration of foreign minister Jan Masaryk in 1948. In Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltics (annexed by Russia) prominent non-communists were exiled or executed; all opposition was silenced.

Stalinism and Terror

Russian dominance was rationalised as a natural wish to erect a buffer area between Russia and the aggressive West but the policy had all the hall-marks of a morbidly suspicious and ruthless mind. That mind belonged to Joseph Stalin. Adulated for the victory of his armies, he was unassailable in the Soviet Union and surrounded himself with equally ruthless lieutenants and many contemptible toadies.

Joseph Stalin, Dictator and Arch-Criminal

 Nevertheless the full resources of the USSR were mobilised to rebuild the Soviet economy, which did indeed recover quickly. As “a command economy” its priorities were decided centrally with no reference to market demand. Heavy industry and military investment were favoured while housing and consumer goods were more or less ignored. Partly through the success of secret policeman Lavrenti Beria’s espionage operations but mainly through the native skill of Soviet scientists, Russia began to catch up with the US in the critical nuclear arms race, exploding her first atom bomb in 1949. Beria got the credit, becoming Stalin’s most feared henchman.

Russia also acquired a significant new ally when in 1949 China became communist under Mao-Tse-Tung, who deferred to Stalin. Stalin encouraged Kim-Il-Sung to invade South Korea in 1950 and did nothing to stop China intervening in 1951.

Another prominent Stalinist was Andrei Zhdanov, minister of culture, who waged war on the intelligentsia denouncing distinguished composers Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Khachatourian for “formalism”. Lethal power struggles, engulfed senior ministers, often stirred up by Stalin himself. Molotov, Mikoyan, Malenkov and Kaganovitch dropped in and out of favour and feared for their (and sometimes their wives’) lives. In 1948 Stalin was defied by Josip Tito of Yugoslavia, the only independent Communist regime in the early post-war years. Stalin accused some Eastern European communist leaders of “Titoism” and was instrumental in the fall and execution of the Czech deputy leader Rudolf Slansky in a 1952 show trial. Stalin was an anti-Semite and only his death in 1953 forestalled a planned deadly purge of Jews arising from a wholly fabricated “Doctors’ Plot”.

When arch-criminal Stalin died in March 1953 there was a short-lived “troika” in the Russian tradition of Molotov, Malenkov and Beria. After anti-Soviet riots in East Berlin, Beria was himself denounced by Khrushchev in September 1953, tried by a kangaroo court and with 5 associates condemned to death. A Russian general despatched the detested Beria with a revolver shot to the forehead in December 1953. Thankfully this was the last time a Soviet politician was brutally liquidated. The worst of the Stalinist nightmare was over.

The USSR after Stalin

The troika made way for two years’ rule by Georgi Malenkov. There were tentative moves to relax the oppression by freeing and granting amnesties to many prisoners in the notorious Gulag forced labour camps. In Europe the Soviets unexpectedly withdrew from occupied Austria in 1954, though insisting on Austrian neutrality, possibly a gambit to hinder West Germany’s move towards the NATO alliance. Malenkov was castigated for failures in modernising the administration and in 1955 was replaced by Nikita Khrushchev with Nikolai Bulganin his premier until 1958.

Khrushchev was a vigorous peasant type, with a bloody past as a commissar in the Ukraine, volatile and undiplomatic, but often effective.

Khrushchev wields his shoe at the UN

 Khrushchev and Bulganin tried to put a more human face on Russia by visits to Western Europe and Khrushchev himself had a vigorous informal debate with Richard Nixon in the US on the merits of capitalism and communism. “We will bury you”, opined the Russian. The prestige of the USSR was enhanced by the launch of the first Sputnik space rocket in 1957 and the first man in space with Yuri Gagarin’s flight in 1961.

Khrushchev’s major move was his secret speech to the 20^th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in 1956 in which he denounced Stalin, enumerating his crimes and policy errors. This was a bombshell to many of his listeners to whom Stalin remained a hero, but the promise of less oppression and more openness was welcome everywhere. In time opposition to Khrushchev’s line grew among the Old Guard and plots were laid to depose Khrushchev. In 1957 these senior plotters were denounced as “the Anti-Party Group” including Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovitch, Shepilov and in 1958 Bulganin; they were stripped of their offices and expelled from the Party, but at least they died in their beds.

The Cold War, waged between the West and the Soviet bloc since the Berlin Airlift in 1948-9, sometimes heated up. When Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt over Suez in 1956, Bulganin threatened all three with a Russian missile attack; it was bluff and bluster but alarming nonetheless. When also in 1956, Soviet troops intervened to suppress unrest in Poland and an insurrection in Hungary, the West could do nothing. Tensions remained acute, not least after the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961.

Khrushchev was contemptuous of Western military determination and miscalculated badly when he began to station ballistic missiles in recently communist Cuba. In October 1962, President Kennedy reacted decisively, throwing a naval blockade around Cuba and vowing to stop Soviet ships. Although the European Left supported Russia and nuclear war seemed a possibility, Khrushchev backed down and removed his missiles in return for the US reducing theirs in Turkey. This rash Russian adventure humiliated the leadership.

Mao and Khrushchev all smiles in 1958

 A more momentous division appeared in the Communist bloc when the USSR and China became estranged from 1960 as the Sino-Soviet dispute developed. In part the dispute was ideological; Khrushchev came to urge “peaceful coexistence” with the West; Mao only wanted belligerence. Mao was shocked by Khrushchev’s reconciliation with Tito – “revisionist traitor” in Mao’s Stalinist eyes. Mao lauded the Asian peasant approach to communism in contrast to the Russian focus on the industrial proletariat. .Behind the theological jargon there was a power struggle. The Russians had always feared the Yellow Horde; the Chinese feared Soviet expansionism in the East. As a measure of the estrangement, the USSR backed India when a border war broke out with China in 1962 and deplored the excesses of the later Cultural Revolution and the personality cult of Mao. The monolithic communist bloc was split forever, opening up diplomatic opportunities for the West.

On the pretext of agricultural failures but really in reaction to Khrushchev’s erratic ways, he was ousted and pensioned off in 1964 to be replaced by a troika. It soon emerged that the real power lay with Party Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, although he consulted with Premier Kosygin and President Podgorny, and he dominated the USSR until 1982.

The Brezhnev Era

Leonid Brezhnev

 The USSR developed strongly in the early Brezhnev years. Her arsenal of nuclear weapons steadily grew drawing the West into Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). Although the US got to the Moon first, the Soviet space programme was impressive. The economy grew at about 4% pa during the 1960s and there was an aura of stability around Russian society. Russian influence in the Middle East and in Africa grew apace. The regime pursued notionally a policy of Détente towards the West but it was assertive in Eastern Europe, not hesitating in 1968 to send in tanks to overthrow the communist reformist government of Alexander Dubcek in Czechoslovakia, later proclaiming the Brezhnev Doctrine that socialist countries could intervene to prevent reversion to capitalism in fellow-socialist nations. The doctrine was even invoked when Brezhnev sanctioned an ill-judged expedition to Afghanistan in 1979.

However by the early 1970s domestic problems crowded in on the USSR. Managing a vast country on a command economy basis required prophetic talents which no country, and certainly not Russia, possessed. The internal contradictions of the communist economic system became apparent. The people cried out for decent housing and cheap consumer goods – neither was easily forthcoming. Some 50% of GDP was spent on defence, a colossal proportion, to the detriment of other areas of the economy. With little incentive to work hard, as unemployment had been supposedly abolished, the USSR had a work-shy workforce; productivity fell steadily, industrial discipline weakened and the growth rate faltered to about 1%. Despite huge, but often badly targeted investment in agriculture, the USSR became a major importer of grain and other farming products she should have produced herself. The quality of health and education services, once a national pride, deteriorated markedly; alcoholism became an intractable problem. The later Brezhnev years were characterised as wasted and stagnant. Brezhnev himself was cautious by nature and he became both mentally and physically immobile as ill-health dogged his twilight years.

Brezhnev died in 1982 and his two successors Andropov and Chernenko were old and ill too and soon died in office. In 1985 a new generation came to the helm with the accession of Mikhail Gorbachev proclaiming perestroika (reconstruction) and glasnost (openness).

Gorbachev and the end of the USSR

Mikhail Gorbachev

 Gorbachev was a breath of fresh air, outgoing, articulate and managerial. He was popular in the West, well regarded by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. However his period in power was a disaster for Russia. His policy of perestroika involved the overhaul of industry, the reduction of bureaucracy, the replacement of incompetents and the reorganisation of ministries; the command economy continued and free market forces were not allowed to operate. The Soviet economy inevitably did not improve and shortages worsened. Glasnost saw the reduction of cultural censorship and a lively free press emerged. A flood of negative sentiment towards the Soviet Union from its 15 constituent Republics shook Moscow. The continuing arms race with the US and rather low prices for oil weakened Russia further.

Gorbachev tried to square the circle between the communist hard-liners and zealous reformers but it was impossible. Events quickly took their own course. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the East German regime collapsed. Solidarity was recognised and soon took political power in Poland. Communist regimes in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria had crumbled by 1990.

The USSR itself started to disintegrate. Boris Yeltsin became president of the Russian Federation and its parliament passed laws which explicitly superseded Soviet legislation. Many other Republics followed suit. Hardliners attempted a coup in August 1991 to prevent a break-up, but after 2 days it collapsed, with Boris Yeltsin rallying the public in Moscow. Gorbachev returned from confinement in Crimea but his authority was compromised. The activities of the Soviet Communist Party were terminated. Over the next months the independence of the following Republics was formally recognised: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian Federation itself. On 25 December 1991 Gorbachev resigned as President and on 26 December 1991 the USSR formally ceased to exist, with the Russian Federation becoming the successor state.

Post-Soviet Russia

Boris Yeltsin in an expansive mood

 Yeltsin became President carrying many hopes but his regime was a failure. Taking advice from the US, the IMF, the World Bank and other Western economists he decided on a headlong rush -“shock therapy” – to abandon the socialist command economy and substitute a free market one. Other, perhaps wiser, heads advocated a more gradual approach. In early 1992 Yeltsin introduced by decree his reforms, ending price controls, raising taxes, cutting welfare and raising interest rates. The economy nose-dived and living conditions worsened markedly. A scheme involving the universal issue of vouchers anticipating a huge privatisation programme was frustrated as the population sold the vouchers for cash, mainly to the so-called “oligarchs” who subsequently acquired state assets at low prices. Corruption abounded and crime rocketed.

The Russian parliament opposed Yeltsin’s measures and defied his decrees. In 1993 Yeltsin called in the army to suppress this opposition and tanks shelled the parliament building, killing 187. Yeltsin won a constitutional referendum increasing his presidential powers and was re-elected in a close race in 1995. The economic shock therapy did not work and the Russian economy languished, leading to a 60% devaluation of the rouble, the collapse of some banks and an international default in 1998. Discredited and erratic Yeltsin resigned the Presidency in 1999.

Putin and Recovery

Vladimir Putin, originally a KGB officer, became Yeltsin’s senior lieutenant in 1998 and chosen successor. He and his close ally Dmitri Medvedev have presided over a successful era of growth and prosperity.

Dmitri Medvedev and Vladimir Putin

 Russia is an energy superpower, with vast oil and gas resources; the recovery from the Yeltsin default was much helped by 5-fold increase globally in oil prices. Debts were repaid and Russia built up large currency reserves. At last living standards consistently improved as the economy grew at 8% pa in the early 2000s, real wages more than tripled, unemployment halved, cheap credit became available. The oligarchs were reined in and an anti-corruption campaign began. The administration was streamlined and the courts reformed.

Domestically, Chechnya was pacified after a long insurrection although Islamic terrorism remained a problem. The West reacted badly to the brief 2008 South Ossetia war pitting Russia against an adventurous and provocative Georgia. Putin has been accused of dictatorial ways: there has been noisy opposition to him and at least two of his opponents have been murdered. He conducts himself as a quasi-Western politician, glad-handing the voters, joining in discussions and presenting a macho image.

Medvedev was Putin’s premier and became president in 2008 when Putin was constitutionally barred from a third consecutive term. He reverted to premier when Putin returned in 2012. A lawyer, Medvedev was rather more liberal than his mentor, but the extent to which he is his own man rather than Putin’s alter ego is unclear.

The Real Russia

Communism, especially the Stalinist variety, has been the bane of Russia. An immensely talented people lived under an oppressive regime and yet her spirit was never extinguished. Composers like Shostakovich were denounced but still produced symphonies. Russian performers like cellist Rostropovich, violinist Oistrahk and pianists Richter and Ashkenazy delighted global audiences. Dancer Nureyev thrilled London whence he defected. In literature Boris Pasternak, winning fame with Dr Zhivago, was forced to refuse the Nobel Prize; poet Yevtushenko heralded The Thaw of Khrushchev’s years.

A generation of dissident writers followed; Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky were infamously tried for “anti-Soviet activities” in 1966 and sent to labour camps. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn published Cancer Ward in 1967 deploring the Soviet practice of forcibly hospitalising dissidents as madmen, to be followed in 1973 by the Gulag Archipelago exposing the labour camp system. He was exiled in 1974 but returned in 1994 preaching the merits and values of an idealised Old Russia. The nuclear scientist turned civil rights activist Andrei Sakharov won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975 but was sent into internal exile; after a world-wide uproar, he was rehabilitated by Gorbachev.

In sport Russia excelled with distance runner Vladimir Kuts winning 2 Olympic Golds in 1956, gymnast Nellie Kim achieving a perfect 10 in 1976 and Moscow Dynamo thrilling in the 1950s football world. Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon in 2004 and Grand Slam titles since, exuding glamour.

Maria Sharapova, Tennis Idol

The Future

Russia was well described as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. The largest country in the world, with enormous natural resources and untapped potential, she has suffered a 20^th Century of misrule. If her economy is sensibly run and democratic institutions allowed to perform their function, Russia will add lustre to the leading nations in the world.

SMD

30.09.12

Copyright Sidney Donald 2012

ROCK AND ROLL IS HERE TO STAY

I have been gently chided by some friends about my recent piece “Show-Stoppers” because I hardly mentioned rock ‘n roll, which seems to have utterly transformed their otherwise terminally dull lives. I plead that they misunderstood my earlier piece, which was not supposed to record anybody’s favourite songs but rather to recall particularly striking musical moments. In fact I liked rock ‘n roll immensely in my distant wasted youth and am delighted now to pay tribute to its enduring potency.

The actual term “rock ‘n roll” was said to have been coined by DJ Alan Freed, but its musical sources were many and varied including rockabilly, gospel and rhythm and blues. Whatever (and a whole industry is devoted to exploring these origins), the new genre exploded globally with kiss-curled Bill Haley and the Comets singing Rock around the Clock in the 1956 film of that name; British Teddy Boys trashed cinemas in their enthusiasm . As a 14 year old Scotsman in 1956, my contemporaries and I did not bother in the slightest about who started rock ’n roll – it was sufficient that it made an enormous amount of noise and that our elders and betters found it offensive.

Doo-wop (sic!) group Danny and the Juniors scored a huge 1957 hit with At the Hop and then set out the manifesto neatly before sinking without trace:

Rock and roll is here to stay.
It will never die.
It was meant to be that way
Though I don't know why
I don't care what people say
Rock and roll is here to stay.

Elvis Presley swivels in 1956

Elvis was an excellent singer of gospel (Peace in the Valley) and of ballads (Don’t) but he electrified the world with his dynamic rendering of rock classics like Heartbreak Hotel, Hound Dog, All Shook Up and Blue Suede Shoes. His stage performances with his deep voice and notorious gyrations attracted adulation and scandal; his albums sold like hot cakes. Conscripted into the US Army in 1958 he became duller and more clean-cut. In the 1960s he concentrated on making rather feeble movies (King Creole maybe the best of a bad bunch) and then launching himself as a Las Vegas cabaret act in 1968. He attracted a huge US audience with ladies of a certain age but the Liberace-like, sequin-costumed and obese new Elvis was a travesty of the Elvis of old. He died an obsessive pill-popper in 1977 but he deserved the title of “The King”, though his reign was sadly short. I prefer to remember

She touched my hand what a chill I got
Her lips are like a volcano that's hot
I'm proud to say she's my buttercup
I'm in love
I'm all shook up
Mm mm oh, oh, yeah, yeah!
Mm mm oh, oh, yeah, yeah!
I'm all shook up

Elvis the King

                                                       

A major figure in the late 1950s was Buddy Holly, killed in an air crash in 1959. A geeky, bespectacled Texan, Buddy wrote, produced and sang his own excellent songs including That’ll be the Day, Rave On, Peggy Sue and Oh Boy. Much of his fame was posthumous and he left behind many tracks which were released later; his rockabilly style was widely influential.

Buddy Holly Raves On

                                             

A-well rave on, a-it's a crazy feelin' and
I know, it's got me reelin'
I'm so glad, that you're revealin'
Your love for me
Rave on, rave on and tell me
Tell me, not to be lonely
Tell me, you love me only
Rave on to me

Another Southerner was Jerry Lee Lewis whose Great Balls of Fire became a classic. A hell-raiser, his own career never got over the revelation that he had married his 14-year old cousin.

Another unquiet but greatly exciting spirit was Little Richard. Standing at the piano which he thumped unmercifully, hair greased, teeth gleaming he hit notes you hardly knew existed as he belted out Tutti Frutti, Lucille and Good Golly, Miss Molly - my, how our parents suffered as we played him endlessly on the record player, with his heavy back-beat punctuated by moans and screams! His bizarre retirement in 1958 to become an evangelist is essential America but he well represented the black origins of much rock ‘n roll.

Little Richard, the piano maker's nightmare

Good golly Miss Molly, sure like to ball,
Good golly Miss Molly, sure like to ball,
When you're rockin' and a rollin', can't hear your Mama call.

Quite often, a rock band is best remembered for only a few tracks. Cases in point are Gene Vincent with Be-Bop-A-Lula, Eddie Cochran with C’mon Everybody or The Coasters whose 1958 number Yakety Yak was unforgettable

Take out the papers and the trash
Or you don't get no spendin' cash
If you don't scrub that kitchen floor
You ain't gonna rock and roll no more
Yakety yak (don't talk back)

By contrast the British rock scene initially was parochial. Cockney Tommy Steele had a following but the most enduring artiste was goody-goody Cliff Richard, the Peter Pan of Pop, still going strong in his 70s. His 1958 Move It was a seminal British rock classic.

Wholesome Cliff Richard

Then another rock explosion detonated. A Liverpool band, the Beatles, had been touring the UK and building up fans in Northern Europe. Albums started to flow in 1963 and songs like Please, Please Me and Twist and Shout raced up the charts to be quickly followed by the likes of All My Loving, It Won’t be Long and I Want to be Your Man. Fan hysteria reached new heights and in 1964 the mop-headed Fab Four made a wildly successful US tour.

John, Paul, George and Ringo

What the Americans call The British Invasion had started with plenty other acts crossing the pond in the wake of the Beatles, such as The Dave Clark Five (Bits and Pieces), Herman’s Hermits (I’m into Something Good), Manfred Mann (Do-Wah Diddy Diddy) and Gerry and the Pacemakers (I Like It).

Although I enjoyed A Hard Day’s Night and Help! my own rock/pop days were coming to an end. As the Beatles moved on to Gurus, long hair and psychedelic substances, they had lost me. The Rolling Stones, an admired and edgier band, did not appeal – I found them physically repellent. Later rock bands are a closed book to me, although I briefly revived my interest with Abba’s iconic 1974 Waterloo.

My my
At Waterloo Napoleon did surrender
Oh yeah
And I have met my destiny in quite a similar way
The history book on the shelf
Is always repeating itself
Waterloo - I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo - Promise to love you for ever more
Waterloo - Couldn't escape if I wanted to
Waterloo - Knowing my fate is to be with you
Waterloo - Finally facing my Waterloo

Abba meet their Waterloo

Thus my rock ‘n roll days ended. It was all a long time ago, but it was great fun.

SMD

20.09.12

Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2012

SHOW-STOPPERS

 It is called “bringing the House down”, those magical moments in the breathless theatrical auditorium or viewing the thrilling silver screen from the back stalls, when you shout “Encore!”, clap madly and cherish the musical moment forever. You may in time retreat to your bath (like Bertie Wooster who favoured Sonny Boy) and lustily sing your own medley of Songs from the Shows to your heart’s content, though to the possible pain of your wife, family and neighbours.

I will not dwell on the venerable show-stoppers like Mozart’s Voi Che Sapete from Figaro or I’ve Got a little List from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado. My focus is on the 20^th century offerings from musical comedies, movies or pop concerts. You will all have your own special favourites and I suggest you produce your own personal nostalgically tear-stained song-sheets at once and run your bath.

Sometimes the show-stopper is just a catchy tune. I recall as a very young lad in 1948 seeing Dolores Gray in the London production of Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun at the Coliseum. She thrilled us all with Doin’ what Comes Natur’lly

Folks are dumb where I come from,
They ain't had any learning.
Still they're happy as can be
Doin' what comes naturally (doin' what comes naturally).

 Later in 1957 a similar simple catchy tune was the making of early rock star toothy Cockney Tommy Steele whose Singing the Blues had all Britain whistling.

More often the show-stoppers were wildly romantic and the lyrics were OTT. My dear Mother swooned at Mario Lanza belting out, tonsils a-quivering, Sammy Cahn’s Be my Love in the 1950 movie The Toast of New Orleans.

Mario Lanza - Be My Love

Be my Love, and with your kisses set me burning;

One kiss is all I need to seal my fate,

And, hand-in-hand, we'll find love's promised land.

            There'll be no one but you for me, eternally,

            If you will be my Love.

 

The same kind of genre is illustrated by the hugely popular Love is a Many-splendored Thing from 1955, on the soundtrack of a pretty dull movie

Once on a high and windy hill
In the morning mist two lovers kissed and the world stood still
Then your fingers touched my silent heart and taught it how to
sing
Yes, true love's a many splendored thing.

But the greatest show-stoppers are from the wonderful era of Hollywood musicals. Top Hat (1935) has two unforgettable Irving Berlin moments. My own favourite is Fred and Ginger singing and dancing Isn’t it a Lovely Day to be Caught in the Rain?

Let the rain pitter patter
But it really doesn't matter
If the skies are grey
Long as I can be with you it's a lovely day

Fred and Ginger caught in the Rain

 Even more famous is the supremely elegant song and dance sequence with Fred singing, in his delightful light tenor, Cheek to Cheek and Ginger twirling in an ostrich feather confection.

Heaven, I'm in Heaven,
And the cares that hung around me thro' the week
Seem to vanish like a gambler's lucky streak
When we're out together dancing, cheek to cheek.

Fred and Ginger Cheek to Cheek

 Fred Astaire did it again, this time with Judy Garland, in yet another Berlin hit, the 1948 Easter Parade when they both entranced us with A Couple of Swells.

We would sail up the Avenue, but we haven't got a yacht
We would drive up the Avenue, but the horse we had was shot
We would ride on a trolley car but we haven't got the fare
So we'll walk up the Avenue Yes, we'll walk up the Avenue
Yes, we'll walk up the Avenue till we're there.

Fred and Judy Garland - A Couple of Swells

 The 1950s were vintage show-stopping years, as who could resist the lushly romantic 1958 Lerner and Loewe song Gigi sung by Louis Jourdan amid the beauties of Paris?

Gigi, while you were trembling on the brink
Was I out yonder somewhere blinking at a star?
Oh Gigi, have I been standing
Up too close or back too far?

Musicals are not only fun and love; there is often a more solemn story-line and that is where the anthem type of song comes in. A classic is Jerome Kern’s Ol’ Man River, made most famous by Paul Robeson in the 1936 movie version of Show Boat.

Ah gits weary
An' sick of tryin'
Ah'm tired of livin'
An' skeered of dyin',
But ol' man river,
He jes'keeps rolling' along.

A more comic anthem was that sung by Stubby Kaye in the 1953 London production of Lerner and Loewe’s Guys and Dolls. His performance as Nicely-Nicely Johnson singing Sit Down your Rockin’ the Boat at a Salvation Army mission earned him encore after encore.

Stubby Kaye rocks the Boat

For the people all said beware
You're on a heavenly trip
People all said beware
Beware, you'll scuttle the ship.
And the devil will drag you under
By the fancy tie 'round your wicked throat
Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down
Sit down, you're rockin' the boat

I could go on much longer but I am sure you get my old-fashioned flavour. I loved other show-stoppers too like Edith Piaf launching into Je ne Regrette Rien or Abba’s peerless disco-anthem Dancing Queen; yes, I was one of those old fogies dancing in the aisle at Mama Mia! …and loving it.

I finish with my all-time great show-stopper, You’ll Never Walk Alone from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1945 Carousel.

When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of the lark

Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on walk on with hope in your heart

And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone.

The 1956 movie version has the hero Billy Bigelow climbing a celestial staircase to return to Heaven, with the surging song taken up by an angelic choir. It is a highly emotional moment and it has a particular poignancy for Liverpool Football Club currently, whose beloved anthem it is.

Liverpool supporters Never Walk Alone

        

SMD

17.09.12

 Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2012

GERMANY IN THE POST-WAR WORLD

[This is the fourth of six articles I am writing on the respective positions of Britain, the US, France, Germany, Russia and China in the Post-War World]

1945-49 Allied Control Commission

Chancellors of the Federal Republic of Germany

1949-63 Konrad Adenauer   1974-82 Helmut Schmidt

1963-66 Ludwig Erhard       1982- 98 Helmut Kohl 

1966-69 Kurt Kiesinger        1998 – 2005 Gerhard Schroeder

1969-74 Willy Brandt           2005 -      Angela Merkel

Leaders of the German Democratic Republic

1949-50 Wilhelm Pieck          1973-89 Erich Honecker       

1950-73 Walter Ulbricht        1989      Egon Krenz

Germany in Defeat

In May 1945 Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies. She was leaderless, her economy had ceased to function, her cities had been devastated, hunger was widespread and she was occupied by foreign armies whose attitude towards the native German population was at best unsympathetic and at worst brutally vengeful. Divided into 4 zones, British in the North, US in the South, Soviet in the East and a rather nominal French zone in the West, Germany was run by a Control Commission established by the 3-power Potsdam Conference (France excluded) of July-August 1945.

Cologne in 1945

Germany lost 25% of its territory – East and West Prussia, Upper Silesia and two-thirds of Pomerania including the great historic cities of Koenigsberg, Danzig and Breslau - as the Polish and Soviet borders moved sharply west. About 4m Germans fled from these areas and entered East Germany, many soon to defect to the less desolate West.

A further 3-4m ethnic Germans (the statistics are controversial) left Eastern Europe in 1945-50 where they had lived in scattered pockets for many generations, especially Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia, others from Poland, Hungary, Romania and Croatia. Most were brutally uprooted, often the elderly, women and children carrying the war-guilt of the Nazis. At least 500,000 died during this period of local atrocity and forced repatriation while others were traumatised.

The Germans had become pariahs in their own country. The American Army initially had a strict non-fraternisation policy forbidding any but official conversations with the natives. An early policy, known as the Morgenthau Plan, proposed the “pastoralisation” of Germany, dismantling its heavy industries and concentrating on agriculture. In the Russian zone, wholesale industrial dismantling took place in the name of reparations as plant was shipped to the USSR. Some food aid was delivered but priority was given to “displaced persons”- refugee Poles, Jews and others – with Germans at the end of a long queue. The misery was made worse by a severe winter in 1946-7, with fuel unobtainable by civilians, the Reichsmark currency worthless and US cigarettes being the key bartering commodity.

Seeds of Revival

Before the future could be built, the past had to be faced. Belsen had been liberated by the British, Dachau by the Americans, Auschwitz by the Soviets. Inevitably feelings ran high against the Germans. The main Nuremberg Trial of 1945-6, illuminated by the eloquence of US prosecutor Robert Jackson and the penetrating cross-examinations of Briton Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, resulted in the death sentence for 12 leading surviving Nazis, long prison sentences for 7 more and acquittal for 3. The US continued with further tribunals until 1949, convicting lesser figures while a de-Nazification programme was applied throughout West Germany until 1951, seeking past political details of all citizens. In time, some kind of a line was drawn under the Nazi era, although inevitably most people had been compromised in some way.

The Western Allies perceived that they were under threat from the Soviets. It was not in their interest that Germany should remain a burden – a functioning German economy became a priority and all thoughts of de-industrialising Germany were dropped. The 3 Western zones were united under a common Allied regime and in 1948 a new currency was introduced, the D-Mark replacing the discredited Reichsmark. This angered the Soviets, who used it as a pretext to withdraw from the Control Commission and blockade Berlin. The famous Anglo-American Berlin Airlift of 1948-9 defied the Soviets and heartened the Germans. The Cold War had begun.

German local government was allowed to function and among the more capable and clean politicians was the ex-mayor of Cologne Konrad Adenauer. Soon after the Airlift, West Germany (the FRG), with its capital at Bonn, was created although extensive Allied controls remained. In free elections Adenauer’s CDU party won and the 73 year-old Adenauer became her first Chancellor. In the East the Russians created the GDR, a Soviet satellite state, effectively run by the communist party leader Walter Ulbricht, with its capital in East Berlin.

 Recovery

The creation of East and West Germany was seen in Bonn as a temporary arrangement pending a proper re-unification. The Basic Law (Grundgesetz) set out the machinery of the FRG government but it was never called “a Constitution” as that would imply a permanent arrangement. The FRG did not recognise the GDR and promulgated the Hallstein Doctrine whereby it would not recognise any other country (apart from the USSR) which did. This effectively isolated East Germany and the policy lasted until 1969. Labour unrest in East Berlin resulted in rioting in June 1953, harshly repressed by Soviet troops and persecution by the all-pervading Stasi secret police, greatly damaging the international image of East Germany.

Konrad Adenauer

From 1949 onwards, the German economy took off with an astonishing average 8% annual growth rate in the 1950s and a very creditable 4.6% in the 1960s. Germany had a number of positive advantages. Despite Allied bombing only 6% of plant had been destroyed: most of the remaining 94% was less than 10 years old. A reservoir of skilled labour existed as up to 1961 some 3m East Germans fled to the West. Anyhow labour relations were good leading to the early settlement of disputes, unlike strike-bound Britain and France. The economy benefited from Marshall Aid but the main stimulus was Western rearmament following the outbreak of the Korean War, where German engineering expertise and spare capacity were at a premium.  Germany’s own defence budget was modest, only being allowed to form the Bundeswehr in 1955 when it also joined NATO. Unlike Britain and France, Germany had no onerous and expensive colonial obligations.

Adenauer entrusted economic matters to Ludwig Erhard who had courageously abolished price controls in 1948; he diligently steered the growth of Germany for 14 years and got much of the credit for the Wirtschaftswunder (the economic miracle). Erhard was a believer in free markets and worried about the expense of welfare legislation, but ultimately supported it.

Germany and European cooperation

Adenauer wanted Germany to be re-admitted to the family of democratic nations. When France proposed the pooling of the iron and steel resources of France, Germany, Italy and Benelux, he readily joined the European Iron and Steel Community in 1950, a forerunner of the EEC. The underlying agenda was French fear of Germany’s powerful industries on the Ruhr. An ambitious French proposal in 1951 for a European Defence Community was finally voted down by the French Assembly of a different political complexion in 1954. A huge step forward was made in 1957 when the seminal Treaty of Rome was signed establishing the EEC with Germany a founder member.

In the early 1950s Germany made overtures to the new State of Israel, recognized its right to represent the victims of the Holocaust and paid out large reparations. Bi-lateral agreements with other nations saw Germany try to make some amends for the past. With its long borders to the East, Germany was seen as the potential battleground of any conventional war with the Soviet bloc. She became a key member of NATO, contributing financially for years to the deployment on her soil of large US forces and the British Army of the Rhine. Although the West did little to assist the Hungarians when they revolted in 1956, the military threat from the Soviets in Europe receded as Khrushchev embraced a policy of “peaceful coexistence”.

While the border between West and East Germany was closely guarded, 4-power Berlin was a loophole and finally, to stabilise its limping economy, the GDR erected the notorious Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop its haemorrhage of skilled workers. It cruelly divided families and became a symbol of the repressive communist regime.

The Brandenburg Gate after the Building of the Wall

Adenauer continued to act as the good European, striking up a good relationship with de Gaulle and deferring to French diplomatic and administrative expertise, although the German economy was now much the stronger. Having won 4 consecutive terms in office Der Alte was reluctantly persuaded to retire in 1963 at the ripe old age of 87. He had served his country with great distinction.

 Life in Germany

The early post-war years were mainly devoted to grim survival; it is not surprising that “a German comedian” is almost a contradiction in terms. Germany was always proud of her culture, much of it high-minded. As early as 1946, novelist Hermann Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize. Best known for Steppenwolf, Hesse’s wide popularity was largely posthumous. Heinrich Boll and Gunter Grass (The Tin Drum) were admired too, although not much known outside the German-speaking world.

Bertolt Brecht had completed his main dramas by 1945 but his Berliner Ensemble touring company electrified the theatre. His The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui was written in 1941 but only first produced in 1957, most strikingly at the TNP in Paris in 1961 with Jean Vilar in the lead role. Music retained its hold as ever with the distinguished tenures of Herbert von Karajan and Sir Simon Rattle at the Berlin Philharmonic. Otto Klemperer heavily illuminated the profundities of Beethoven. Lovers of modern music could enjoy the atonal offerings of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Hans Zimmer followed in the steps of Erich Korngold composing rousing film and TV music while the late-developing German pop scene spawned Tangerine Dream’s electronic innovations and a genre known as Krautrock.

The German cinema appealed to an art-house audience although Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God, shot in Peru, won international interest. Prolific directors Rainer Fassbinder and Wim Winders are representative figures. German pulchritude was demonstrated by Romy Schneider in her 1955 Sissy trilogy, by smouldering Elke Sommer, by the singing and dancing Kessler Twins but most of all by lovely, bubbly model Claudia Schiffer whose face adorned every magazine front page.

Claudia Schiffer - a German Treasure

Sport remains an obsession with West German World Cup football success in 1954, 1974 and 1990 being high-spots. East Germany performed surprisingly well in Olympic athletics, later exposed as fuelled by illegal steroids, although beautiful Katerina Witt won two figure skating Golds by fair competition. Record-breaking Michael Schumacher brilliantly dominated Formula One motor-racing from 1994 to 2006.

From the mid-1950s onwards West Germany was a pre-eminent consumer society with its citizens spending lavishly on every modern gadget, eating and drinking well, buying fine cars and taking Mediterranean holidays. The economically mismanaged East lagged far behind; while it may have been the richest Eastern bloc state, that is not saying much.

Post-Adenauer Germany

Germany started to change. The building of the Wall cut off a vital supply of labour and the Guest Worker (Gastarbeiter) programme was initiated attracting many supposedly temporary single workers from Spain, Italy, Greece and above all from Turkey. Inevitably many took their families and settled – mosques, kebab houses and exotic restaurants proliferated.

The CDU political dominance faded and in 1969 Willy Brandt became the first Social Democratic Chancellor. He introduced a policy known as Ostpolitik, easing relations and freeing trade with East Germany and recognising the Eastern bloc countries. The danger of conceding de facto acceptance of partition was recognised but Eastern Europe perceptibly melted with much freer travel and communication.

Gradually the conventional Allied military presence in Germany was scaled down as ICBMs became the most likely weapon of war; any residual fear of German revanchism diminished when the loss of the old eastern territories to Poland was formally acknowledged in 1990.

As West Germany settled down to a prosperous bourgeois existence, under the long and successful chancellorships of Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl, she was plagued from 1970-98 by the activities of the Red Army Faction (originally the Baader-Meinhof Gang). These extremists represented the Anarchist-Marxist viewpoint, hating the West German state as the heir of Fascism, murdering 34 people, some prominent bankers and businessmen, and in 1977 cooperating with Arab terrorists in a hi-jacking ending bloodily in Mogadishu, Somalia. There were three waves of activity; many of the protagonists committed suicide in prison. The RAF finally dissolved itself in 1998 after much mayhem.

Re-unification

In the 1980s the Russian economy was in trouble, unable to compete with NATO in the ruinously expensive arms race. Mikhail Gorbachev was the prophet of change and put pressure on old-time Stalinist Erich Honecker to stand down; Honecker refused and Gorbachev left East Germany to its fate. When Hungary opened its borders to the West in 1989, a flood of East Germans set out for freedom. Unable to contain the situation in Berlin, the Wall was breached and joy was unconfined as at last Germans could intermingle without restriction. Free elections followed in 1990, the East German state was dissolved and absorbed into the West under the Basic Law, with no new constitution deemed necessary. A series of treaties finally recognised the full sovereignty of Germany, residual Allied powers in Berlin ended and the 1945 borders of Germany were confirmed. Communist regimes collapsed in the East and finally the USSR itself disintegrated in 1991. This victory in the Cold War was a triumph for the West in which the FRG had played a notable part.

Joy at the Fall of the Wall 1989

Rebuilding and absorbing East Germany has proved an expensive process and 20 years later there still exists a significant gap in living standards between the old two Germanies; there are differences in attitudes too with the Ossies thought less enterprising and more welfare dependent, if less acquisitive.

The Euro crisis and German dominance

The Economic Crisis from 2007 placed an unwelcome burden on Germany. As the richest state in the Eurozone by some margin, she was crucial to any agreement on assistance for struggling members. By 2009 Greece was in dire trouble, revealing her mismanagement and past doctored statistics; her remedies were feebly incompetent. The European Union leaders in Brussels, van Rompuy, Barroso, Juncker and Rehn were ineffective and slow and the ECB unhelpful. It took Chancellor Angela Merkel to knock EU/IMF rescue packages into shape for Greece (twice), Portugal and Ireland and to push forward measures to assist Spain and Italy.

Angela Merkel, daughter of a Lutheran pastor in East Germany, is a highly capable politician but possibly lacks any appreciation of the merits, but is well aware of the shortcomings, of Mediterranean Europe. Along with her Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, she has been rather self-righteous in her criticism and looks upon the solidarity of the Eurozone as a sacred cause, in the face of ample evidence that Greece at least must manage her own exit.

The countries of the Mediterranean periphery easily blame Germany for their self-inflicted troubles and Germany is uncomfortable being at the centre of affairs; the establishment of German hegemony over Europe is an unwanted, unplanned but perhaps inevitable outcome.

The Future

Germany has atoned for the grievous horrors of the past. She is democratic, generous and highly prosperous. Her people have admirable qualities and she carries an enviable artistic and cultural heritage. She has yet to demonstrate universally recognised political leadership abilities and this is the challenge facing re-united Germany.

Schauble and Merkel plan the Future

SMD

15.09.12

Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2012.

GOOD FOR A LAUGH

It is a cliché that Humour, like some fine wines, does not always travel well. We British fall about laughing at the mere sight of Sid James, Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey of the Carry On team and laugh immoderately at lines uttered by Kenneth Williams’ stabbed Caesar – “Infamy, Infamy, they all have it in for me!” Yes, quite. It would not be surprising if foreigners sit stony-faced through such entertainments, (there were 31 Carry On movies), just as we do not much care for the US’ dire Animal House or Police Academy, weary chapters 1 to 6. As for the French, they had their ribs tickled by leaden Fernandel and, Sacre Bleu, have you ever endured a Louis de Funes comedy at which the French laugh like a drain, comme une descente d’eau as they (probably don’t) say?

A stricken Kenneth Williams as Caesar

Written humour is no doubt equally insular but I would like to celebrate two heroic English maestros, Arthur Marshall and PG Wodehouse.

Arthur Marshall (1910-89) was stage-struck as a child in Barnes and attended many a West End theatrical matinee and to his retrospective horror gave “concerts” to his parents’ friends. He was sent to go-ahead Oundle public school in Northamptonshire, whence to Cambridge, reading languages. He returned to Oundle as a schoolmaster and, apart from the war years, was there until 1954. He evinced a profound knowledge of schoolgirl literature (Angela Brazil a speciality) and broadcast on the radio as a comic Nurse Dugdale gaining a modest popularity. His circle of friends was notably theatrical, many of them, like himself, “wonky” gentlemen, to use his own phrase – names like Terence Rattigan, Somerset Maugham, John Gielgud, supplemented by Maurice Bowra and Guy Burgess give you a flavour.

During the war, Arthur was in the Intelligence Corps and so hilarious a raconteur was he that it is said that his section of the beach at Dunkirk was the only one to echo with laughter. He was charged with guarding captured Keitel and Jodl in 1945, so impeccable in their uniforms and batons in contrast to Arthur’s sloppy informality, that he wondered how on earth we had won the war.

He returned to Oundle where a banking colleague of mine recalled his jokey ways teaching Frog irregular verbs and left to work for Lord Rothschild, moving on to read and vet plays submitted to his friend Binkie Beaumont, the theatrical impresario. Arthur meanwhile wrote hilarious columns first for The New Statesman (sacked for expressing admiration for Mrs Thatcher) and then for The Spectator. A wider audience got to know him as a chubby good-natured presence on the TV game show Call My Bluff.

Arthur Marshall

An Arthur Marshall column jumped around an amazing variety of subjects from Queen Victoria’s oddities, the limitations of British railways, the bon mots of famous actors, Dame Edna unbridled, horoscopes, the Table of Kindred in the Prayer Book, Tennyson’s Maud, bird-song, Dr Crippen, gifts to the Royal Family, foot fetishism, saucy postcards, the Old Testament, ghosts, London taxi-drivers, peculiar names, visits to the dentist, Dame Edith Evans and learning the facts of life, to name but a few.

All these matters were handled with the lightest touch and gems of humour extracted. Arthur is invariably cheerful and his sunny disposition bucks me up immeasurably; I often take one of his volumes to get me through the longeurs of the queue at the Athens bank or the wait at the café while my lovely wife indulges in some retail therapy. His short pieces of about 1500 words are miracles of conciseness and I would give my eye-teeth to write half as well. They are published in collections I Say!, Smile Please, I’ll let you Know, Sunny Side Up, and I also enjoy his autobiography Life’s Rich Pageant.

Arthur Marshall rejoiced in his frivolity; he was truly one of England’s humorous glories.

P G Wodehouse (1881-1975) was a more famous name, writing solidly from 1902 onwards, author of 96 books and lyricist for 30 musical comedies. He lived in England and the USA and also in France. His best years were the inter-war ones but in 1941 he made a foolish comic broadcast after release from German internment, deemed to be collaborationist; he was harshly criticised and never returned to Britain. He continued to write in the US and was long exonerated, being knighted belatedly just before he died.

P G Wodehouse

Wodehouse, known as Plum, once almost got me into very hot water. With my Greek wife and two young sons, we were visiting Athens in 1975 and staying with an aunt and her 2^nd husband. After a few days, the uncle suddenly and sadly died of a heart attack casting a dark pall over proceedings. Following the custom in Greece, the funeral was the next day and an open-coffin Wake for friends and relatives soon took place in the downstairs reception rooms with much weeping and wailing. I was excused this duty and was delegated to look after my two boys then aged 4 and 5 in the study and bedrooms upstairs. The boys were angelic but this is where Plum comes in. The aunt’s 1^st husband was English and some of his books were in the office, among which sat Meet Mr Mulliner and, already a PG fan, I fatally began to read the first story called The Truth about George. It is one of Plum’s best.

- George Mulliner, of independent means, lived in the country and his great pleasure was solving crossword puzzles with the vicar’s daughter Susan “the first girl in Salop to know the meaning of stearine and crepuscular”. Unfortunately he was afflicted by a bad stutter and becoming enamoured with Susan, every time he attempted to express his regard he sounded “like a soda siphon trying to recite Gunga Din”. He decided to take the train to London and consult a Harley Street specialist “a kind man with moth-eaten whiskers and the eyes of a meditative cod-fish” Unable to speak he was advised by the specialist to explain by singing and he launched into “I love a Lassie” supplemented by a tuneless “If you knew Susie” after which the wincing specialist preferred him to write down his requests.

The specialist diagnosed shyness as the problem and told George to engage three strangers a day in conversation after which the shyness and stutter would disappear. Then “in a voice of the clearest timbre, free from all trace of impediment” he requested 5 guineas from George and sent him out into the world. George did not care for the advice but with the courage of the Mulliners pressed on. He took the train home and when a large fierce-looking man entered his compartment he sought to enter into conversation with him. However his visitor anticipated him by saying “The wur-wur-wur-wur weather sus-sus seems to be ter-ter taking a tur-tur turn for the ber-ber better, der-der doesn’t it?” George realised that to answer his choleric visitor with “Y-y-y-y-y-yes” would obviously be madness, and with presence of mind he pointed to his tonsils and feigned dumbness. He sank back into his corner, “quivering in every limb”

Having to change trains for the branch line, he strolled down the empty platform, not far from the County Lunatic Asylum, to be accosted by a distinguished-looking stranger “simply dressed in pyjamas, brown boots and a mackintosh”. Informing George that he was the Emperor of Abyssinia, there followed an alarming conversation on the merits of human sacrifice. George pushed the Emperor into a dark mop-and-lamp room and fled, hiding under the seat of his waiting branch line train. He saw feminine ankles and heard a porter report that someone had escaped from the Asylum.

The train set off and George slowly edged out of his hiding-place while the lady passenger read her paper. Seeking to engage her in conversation as ordered, he cleared his throat, smiling winningly. The lady, believing herself to be quite alone was “a little in the position of Robinson Crusoe when he saw the footprint in the sand” and “regarded him with pale-faced horror”. Her eyes were now “the size of regulation-standard golf balls” George wanted to ask her to join him in a cup of tea from the thermos in his case but could only manage “a sizzling sound like a cockroach calling to its young”. A brainwave saw George singing instead “Tea for Two”, but at this his companion, certain she was in the company of the escaped lunatic, closed her eyes, her lips moving feebly “reminding George of a newly-gaffed salmon”.

George awaited her recovery and meanwhile drank tea from his thermos. The train ran over some points and the thermos was jolted off the seat and exploded noisily. The lady “with a single piercing shriek, rose straight into the air like a rocketing pheasant; having clutched the communication cord, she fell back into her seat.” At this juncture George fled the stationary train and sprinted for home pursued by an angry mob of rustics. He outran them and after downing a reviving whisky and soda, found Susan in his cottage studying his dictionary of synonyms. He explained that he was suffering from “extreme fatigue, weariness, lassitude and languor” and suddenly realised he was no longer a stammerer. He proposed to her in eloquently orotund terms: “Love” he declaims, “Like the topmost topaz of an ancient tower, cries to all the world in a voice of thunder – you are mine!” Susan of course accepts passionately but George has to excuse himself to hide from the mob in the coal-cellar for half an hour. But the pair are happily united. –

On reading this lunatic tale, my two young sons were bemused to see me, face empurpled, eyes popping, stuffing handkerchiefs into my mouth to suppress the peals of laughter that would otherwise have emanated from me, but wholly inappropriate in the sombre house that day. When I am feeling blue, I still read Plum’s story as the perfect restorative.

Wodehouse probably made more readers laugh than any other writer. His fans were legion and included Belloc, Kipling and Evelyn Waugh. Meet Mr Mulliner was dedicated to former prime minister and another fan H H Asquith, (Asquith must have been a fun person; my grandfather, a dancing-teacher, instructed him in the fashionable dance the Black Bottom, while Asquith holidayed in Scotland in about 1926!).

Wodehouse created his own mythical world of idle rich at the Drones Club, men about town like Bertie Wooster and his inimitable valet Jeeves, Lord Emsworth obsessed by his prize pig at Blandings Castle, a series of formidable aunts, the butler Beach, Uncle Fred, wonderful golfing stories and his earlier tales of Psmith and Ukridge.

To be taken out of this difficult real world and into the innocent, gentlemanly and hilarious world of Wodehouse is a privilege indeed. My gratitude to and admiration of PG Wodehouse is boundless.

SMD

5.09.2012

Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2012