Journal | Dispatches ~ What Were They?

Chapter One

Part I

WHEN I COMMENCED these dispatches I did so as part of my journal, for future material, and as part of my family’s archive. Something that descendants might peek into half a century from now.

We cannot rely totally upon recall. What I hadn’t realised was that people would enjoy reading them. In time, friends were referring to them as ‘your dispatch from Liverpool’!

I was grateful because I felt I was making a contribution to placing my adopted city onto the international map again. At the time, in 2008, we were the European Capital of Culture.

With time’s passage, I found the journal evolving into a contemporary record of events which, in the familiar language of the courtroom, I would report that the notes were “made at the time or immediately after the incident”, whereupon the learned judge would declare that they were to be treated as contemporaneous notes and, therefore, admissible in evidence.

As you can imagine, from this point on, the defence would try every tactic to undermine or disprove the accuracy of my recall of the incident, as I had recorded them!

Part II

A century ago, dispatches were the military front line’s equivalent of today’s tweet or Facebook message. Many dispatches were obviously “top secret”, for the eyes of commanders only as they organised their forces to defeat the enemy. Other dispatches might be more open, and journalistic, alerting the worldwide community to exactly what was going on in that particular theatre of war. Not all of those despatches reached the general public. That is war. Today, we are used to seeing and receiving reports from journalists reporting back from the front line. We have become accustomed to that relatively new term, embedded.

But when I learn that a journalist is embedded, then their report demands my immediate attention. They are putting their lives on the line to bring me, safely at home, news of the war. As I write this, the War in Ukraine is total war, a phrase understood fully by the People of Ukraine, a phrase beyond the comprehension of most Russians at the moment, but which would become total war if, God forbid, NATO needed to respond directly.

We have many journalists embedded.

They are risking their lives for us.

They are sending us dispatches.

Part III

In the British and Commonwealth Armed Forces, one of the most honoured decorations in any war was, and still is, the MD ~ to be mentioned in dispatches.

The ‘mention’ would be duly ‘gazetted’, that is to say, published in The London Gazette. I still have the London Gazette confirming that I had been ‘gazetted’ in 1974.[i] I hasten to add, my gazzetting was not MD.

I also favour the term because it helps me to hold on to tradition. Tradition is the cement in the bricks. Without that cement and without regular ‘repointing’, the cement begins to give way to the elements, to crumble and become dust, and as surely as night follows day, the untended, unpointed wall will crumble.

It reminds me to follow the advice given two millennia ago, to build my house on rock, not sand, if I am to enable my house to withstand the inevitable storms.

That said, I am no longer hidebound to just seeing the world through that perspective. God forbid!

I speak of religious fundamentalism ~ all religions.

I like to think outside the box. I like to act outside the box. I like to challenge and provoke, not maliciously or vindictively, but to stimulate public debate and commentary. I very much like to live outside the box!

Chapter Two

Part I

The dispatch carries with it the mental image of the brown leather pouch or buckled briefcase, rather than cyberspace tweets, text messages and e-mails. It hints at permanence. We stand on terra firma.

These are my personal views. This is vitally important to keep in mind.

I am of the old school with a new school attitude as to how we should be progressing in this exciting new century.

I do hold dear the old values. I do not want my house falling down about me.

Part II

How strange!

In 2011, that is how I still saw this century.

Today? No.

It is no longer an exciting new century.

Already in its third decade, it is a frighteningly unstable century.

For the first time, I grasp the enormity of that inevitable headlong rush into the Second World War, finally understanding that the ordinary man and woman in the street - ordinary people like my family - knew full well that war was inevitable, regardless of what politicians said, and in spite of what many of them actually did to try and prevent that war.

Part III

Today, we have Climate Change.

We have the problem of dealing with those who insist that climate change is a hoax, a conspiracy theory. Slowly, the world is waking up to reality.

When, metaphorically, Mother Nature is forced to turn up the heat in every part of the world and create havoc in an effort to shake human beings into sober reality, then I suddenly realise that time is very short.

Chapter Three

Part I

But something else is happening too.

As if it is not enough that we work out how to come together, to work together, and to seriously commit to solving the problem of reversing our planet’s decline, there is that sinister shadow from the 1930s showing itself again.

A country creates islands on reefs and erects military installations. That same country has, somehow, developed the hypersonic missile.

It is a country determined to impose its will. It is a one-party state with a leader elected for life.

Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan both did the very same thing 90 years ago. And they each did so with a disregard and contempt for human life that a century on still leaves me, as I dig down deep, shocked to my core.

Part II

Young people are discovering that the pressures of this real world after school or university are not what they had anticipated.

There is no let-up, and unless we keep ourselves up-to-date with national and international events, which means also casting an eye back over history, then, again as we were reminded two millennia ago, I shall become susceptible to every wind and fable, every gossip, every old wives’ tale.

This is dangerous, for it is here that we find the breeding ground of conspiracy theory.

Never before have I heard so many ridiculous conspiracy theories as fly around us all today, catching the imagination of young and otherwise intelligent minds, leading them away from truth and accuracy with such speed, that they will not see common sense and reason, even when both stand firmly in front of them.

Worse still, are the older generation who throw caution to the wind, and believe every oddity pronounced, oblivious to the damage they inflict upon everyone.

Chapter Four

Part I

When I look at my website I frequently check the analytics.

This is a good discipline, for it helps me to see what is uppermost in the mind of the enquirer. It helps me to understand differing viewpoints. It can be unnerving to read some of the ‘searches’ that people type into their browser on my website.

I find myself pondering … what on earth provoked them to think that they could find that on my website?

This is good, however. Very quickly, I do a recce over my website’s terrain.

Part II

In the United Kingdom, in the European Union, in the United States of America, in the wider English-Speaking Peoples, in the Commonwealth of Nations, we all live in one of the most open and democratic societies, and we take this freedom for granted.

That country I speak of in Chapter Three has no interest in true democracy, of true freedom of the individual, of the Rule of Law and of the Writ of Habeas Corpus.

The People of Hong Kong, former British Citizens, many still holding British passports, have had this realisation of brute force and totalitarian power savagely thrust upon them.

We should remember our debt to two generations who, in the space of twenty-six years, twice saw off the threat of invasion, the second attempt alone costing millions of lost lives, on all sides, worldwide.

Chapter Five

Part I

In the last fifteen years, we have still been fighting for freedom, in Afghanistan and before that Libya and Iraq.

It is unnerving to watch the civil war in Syria, a war as vicious as the world wars, and now entering its ninth year.

It is even more unnerving to see how the spark of religion still ignites the taper of war and to grasp the fact that even those nations that enjoyed that oh-so-brief Arab Spring, have their own very distinct interpretation of ‘democratic freedom’ - in a word, different.

Part II

With further wars approaching, we must prepare.

One of the best ways to do that is to be all-embracing, multi-cultural. There. I’ve said it!

I love my country, for sure. I am patriotic. But I am not a nationalist, not a populist, not a secessionist.

We cannot allow our lives to be undermined by warped agendas, odd religious allegiances, and the inability to live peaceably in a free and democratic society.

In the Arab Spring, we saw the resurgence of the desire for freedom. Then came the backlash and the dogged determination of dictators and demagogues to stop freedom and liberty in their tracks.

Chapter Six

Part I

For me, one of the greatest icons of the late 20th Century is President Nelson Mandela. Through his leadership and unparalleled example, we have the reality of today’s South Africa – a country embracing all peoples, all races, all faiths, and all genders.

During the years of Apartheid, and indeed during the same years that Nelson Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island, we watched that country fall apart, and I could not even comprehend what President Mandela has since achieved until he cautioned his people, on the world stage, that never again should our actions cause us to become the skunk of the world.

So in the wake of Utoya [ii], this fills me with even greater hope. That the sacrifice paid by the people of Norway is not in vain but instead strengthens us all even more.

Part II

Because these are dispatches, I have arranged them in the manner of legal precedent, whereby the most recent is always placed uppermost on the file before presenting it to the commanding officer, or to the solicitor or barrister-at-law or state attorney, who then authorises its dispatch home.

As a lawyer, I read my files from back to front on the same basis. So the reader might wish to consider the rather novel premise of ‘reading from the back!’

Chapter Seven

Part I

It is now 2021.

I ponder as I reflect on this review of Eleven years of Liverpool Dispatches as to what might have been my reaction had someone foretold me the Covid pandemic and then exampled that ostrich in the sand as the foreteller chats on about the President of Brazil, at the height of the pandemic, who, in the midst of the current global Covid 19 Pandemic, refuses all restrictions, rebukes the world, and tells all Brazilians that it is nothing more than a common cold.

The foreteller goes on to relate how in 2020, again at the height of the pandemic, orthodox bishops in the Mediterranean insist on using the same spoon for the mouth of every congregant taking Holy Communion, telling them, “Covid cannot touch you, for you are covered by the blood of Jesus”.

Oh for goodness sake. Get real! And, yes, I’m loosely put, a Christian! And of those Christians? They’ve not only received communion but possibly tempted a modern Passover! Death passed overhead and caught you right out there in the open! And who encouraged you to be there, out in the open? Your bishops, who, not to make too fine a point, also went on to contract Covid.

Part II

But talk about things coming to a head!

Since writing Chapter Seven, we have had the attempted ‘coup’ in Washington DC on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021.

Even a month ago, had I been told that a lawyer and politician would whip up the crowd prior to the march and storming, to have trial by combat, I would have denied that such an elevated leading public figure would say such a thing, let alone do it, especially in Washington D.C.

By this time tomorrow, President Biden will have been sworn in.

As each day has passed since January 6, more evidence emerges of just what was going on in the previous administration.

I can only hope that President Biden will succeed.

Closing Chapter Eight

Final Part

An ancient biblical text in Ecclesiastes 3 states that everything is for a time and a season. Everything has an end date.

The Dispatches have performed their task and have run for 12 volumes. At first, I closed 11 volumes covering 2010-2021. A month ago, it seemed right to keep Volume 12 2022 in place and to allow the Dispatches to quietly wind down during 2023, with the exception of the Ukraine Dispatches.

Then in one of those light-bulb moments, I closed 2022 as well, and it was like being on a long walk that had become more burdensome with each mile because the baggage was getting heavier and I could clearly see what a hindrance this baggage had become. Over the side, it went.

I’m very grateful to those who followed the dispatches. The dispatches reflect the erosion of standards. In 2010 I did not envisage 2022. In 1970, I simply could not have comprehended 2022.

But they’ve been enjoyable to write, and the closure is complete. Or, as I used to write across a file in legal practice, case closed, send to archive on-site, set archive off-site 12 months hence on [date]. KTW (date)

CASE CLOSED

31 December 2022
All Rights Reserved

© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2022

1 August 2011-31 December 2022

[i] ‘Gazetted Officer’ meant that the Queen’s Commission granted ‘to our trusty and well-beloved Kenneth Thomas Webb in the rank of pilot officer for service with our Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve … … … on this twenty-eighth day of May 1974 in the Twenty Third Year of our Reign’, had been duly promulgated and made permanent.

[ii] Parts I-VII above were written in July 2011 following the Utoya Massacre of young people in Norway on July 23 of that year. I spoke of multiculturalism, global unity and global commitment. What I did not foresee succeeding was the rise in ‘populism’, a silly word that masquerades for fanatical nationalism - and I’m not talking about simple patriotism