Touring Mont Blanc on foot

One day in 1981 - half a lifetime away - I began my walk around Mont Blanc. My companion was Bob Kyte, a man both taller and calmer than me. Our aim was to complete the Tour du Mont Blanc - a circular walk of 170 kilometres, through the outermost reaches of France, Italy and Switzerland. Our walk started in the village of Les Houches, at a railway station on the line to Chamonix, and then headed via mountain trails and cols to Courmayeur in Italy, Canton Valais in Switzerland, and then back into France and Les Houches. The hardest part of the walk involved plodding up the zig-zag paths which led from one valley to another. I discovered that Bob, with his long legs, could do this much faster than me. However, my shorter legs triumphed on the downhill stretches. The finest stretches of walking were along ridges and hillsides, such as those leading from France into Italy, and the high walk along and above the Chamonix valley. There were splendid views of the great mountain and its glaciers. Across the valley, you could hear the gunshot-sound of the ice cracking.

We slept in small hotels and hotel dormitories, barns and mountain refuges. The most Spartan was the refuge at the Col de la Croix du Bonhomme at just under 2500 metres above sea level. This rose like a gaunt ruin through the mist. Sleeping was in bunk beds in a mixed dormitory. Everybody slept in their clothing. The toilet was a shed a little down the hill, with a hole in the rock. But there was a hot meal of vermicelli soup, and I slept well. The next day we slept in the best accommodation: the far more luxurious Rifugio Elizabetta Soldini, across the border in Italy. This was warm, had comfortable bunk beds, civilised toilets, good food, and stupendous views.

On the way, we met the people of Europe: two Basque lads in a shelter above a gully of snow; a middle-aged Swiss couple with a rather camp son; and numerous jolly Belgians. Before we began the walk, Bob and I took a bus into Chamonix. Our fellow-passengers included a group of German walkers, dressed in a sort of walking uniform. As they looked with delight at the mountains around them, they began an enthusiastic song. The rest of us in the bus looked on with embarrassment. But with hindsight, I believe the German were right - the beauty of the Alps can not be described with words, only with poetry and song. I do, however, have some photos taken by Bob.

Five things you need to know about the EU referendum result

Despite the narrow victory for the Leave campaign in the referendum, the UK remains a member of the European Union and will do so for some years to come. In this country, Parliament and not the people is sovereign, and this means that a decision to leave requires a Parliamentary vote. Assuming this reluctantly confirms the result of the referendum, the UK will need to renegotiate the hundreds of treaties that cover trade with the EU, as well as those treaties between the EU and other countries in which the UK was a participant. The procedure for doing this under the Treaty of Lisbon is for the Government to notify the EU of a desire to invoke Article 50, which provides a maximum of two years for the completion of negotiations. This is unlikely to be sufficient, and so the renegotiation period may be extended on ad hoc basis.

In the meantime, here are five observations on the referendum vote:

1.    The ‘scare stories’ produced by the Remain camp during the campaign have turned out to be accurate predictions. The announcement of the result was followed by an 8% fall in the FT250 measure of share prices, a downgrading of the UK’s credit rating, an 8% fall in the value of Sterling, announcements by various firms in the City of London that they were planning to move staff to rest of EU, a renewed demand by the Scottish Government for another referendum on independence, and warnings that withdrawal from the EU would undermine the peace agreements in Northern Ireland.

2.    Immigration from the rest of the EU will rise. Withdrawal from the EU has been sold to the public as a means of reducing immigration from other EU countries. But during the period of negotiation, freedom of movement will still apply. This will be an incentive for people from the rest of the EU who wish at some point to move to the UK to bring forward their plans in order to beat the deadline. A similar pattern was seen when the British government announced plans to restrict Commonwealth immigration in the 1960s.

3.    There will be greater pressure on the NHS and social care services. About a million UK citizens live in the rest of the EU. Most are elderly people who have retired to warmer climes and who are eligible under EU rules for access to local healthcare services and social security. Withdrawal will probably mean the loss of these rights, which will result in a return of some elderly expatriates and a reduction in the number of elderly people who will choose to retire abroad in the future. In consequence, the number of elderly people in the UK will increase even more than previously estimated, Elderly people are of course the most intensive users of the NHS and social care services. 

4.    Whether the UK is in the EU or out, the fundamental weakness of the country’s economy will continue. Weak corporate management (sometimes more concerned with looting assets than developing long-term growth), a financial sector which makes more money from facilitating takeovers by foreign companies than investing in our own industry, and the basic lack of skills in the workforce all reflect British domestic policy and have nothing to do with the EU. You get a Polish plumber not because he undercuts British workers, but because we don’t train enough of our own citizens to be plumbers.

5.    Russia will be strengthened. Russian policy since the time of Peter the Great has been to subvert, weaken and divide its neighbours to the West. Under Putin, this has involved the invasion of Ukraine, building alliances with authoritarian nationalist rulers in the EU, and funding authoritarian nationalist political parties such as the Front National in France. A British exit from the EU will encourage other authoritarian nationalist movements in the EU and weaken individual countries’ commitment to NATO and other forms of collective action.

All of which makes it essential that the British people reconsider their vote. A good time would be at the end of negotiation period in two (or more) years time, when the full consequences of leaving the EU would be apparent. After all, this is what happens when workers go on strike: there is a ballot to cease work followed by a second ballot to decide whether or not to accept the agreed terms.

Wigmore - from Castle to Hall

One Saturday last month, I went on a road trip with my wife, my daughter and her friend Emma. We travelled Westwards from my village of Martley in Worcestershire, over Bringsty Common, through Bromyard and Leominster, and along quiet roads to the village of Wigmore in Northern Herefordshire. Like Martley, Wigmore has a rural high school, a garage, a shop, a pub and a castle. But whereas Martley’s pub is closed, Wigmore has the utterly splendid Castle Inn, with excellent food, good beer and a welcoming host. The castles in the two village also differ. Martley has an iron-age fort -  now just a series of mounds around a burial ground on top of a conical hill which dominates views of the village. Wigmore, by contrast, has a vast ruined castle that was once the power-base of the man who for three years was de facto King of England.  

That man was Roger Mortimer, first Earl of March. In 1322, he led a failed uprising against King Edward II and was imprisoned in the Tower of London, from which he escaped to France. There he met Edward’s Queen Isabella and they became lovers. In 1327, they led an army of invasion and ousted the king, who they later had murdered in Berkeley Castle. Roger and Isabella then ruled England in the name of Isabella’s son, the 14 year old Edward III. But in 1330, the young Edward organised a small group of knights to make a surprise raid on Roger, who was captured and promptly executed. Even mediaeval kings would have baulked at executing their mothers, so Edward had Isabella exiled to Castle Rising castle in Norfolk.

The Mortimer lineage ceased with the death of the 5th Earl in 1425, after which the Castle became ruinous and passed to the Harley Family of nearby Brampton Bryan . In 1643, it was owned by Sir Robert Harley, who was MP for Herefordshire and a supporter of Parliament against King Charles I. Sir Robert feared that the Castle could be used as a stronghold by the King’s forces, and so had it systematically demolished. There are now just great jagged broken walls on a high wooded ridge, with windows that look over the wide valley of the Upper Teme.

Despite the ruination of their property in Herefordshire, the Harley Family prospered. Sir Robert’s grandson was another Robert, who was chief minister under Queen Anne and was rewarded with the title of 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer. When the Queen died, he was impeached by the new Parliament and imprisoned in the Tower of London for two years. His son, the 2nd Earl, engaged in property speculation, buying farms to the North West of London. These were laid out as urban streets, which is why this small area of London now has an Oxford Street, Mortimer Street, Henrietta Street and Cavendish Square (both named after the Earl’s wife Lady Henrietta Cavendish), Margaret Street (named after his wife’s mother), Wimpole Street (after the estate in Cambridgeshire inherited by his wife), and Wigmore Street. Wigmore Street is famous for the Wigmore Hall, a major concert venue for chamber music and lieder. I suspect that very few of those who go to concerts at the Hall know that it is ultimately named after a ruined castle in Herefordshire.

The lost great houses of Worcestershire

Downton Abbey may be fiction, but it is accurate in showing how the great country houses of England once dominated the countryside, socially, politically and economically. They were an expression of the elevated status of their owners, and the centres of the social and political life of their county and in some cases of the nation. Their owners were the employers of numerous servants, the landlords of extensive acres of local farms, and the valued customers of many rural shops and traders. The local churches (often located in the grounds of the country houses) were shrines to the families that dominated them, with rows of elaborate statues and memorial plaques to each aristocratic generation. The imprint of these families was found in pleasure as well as death - many local pubs and hotels bear their name and coats of arms.

As in fiction, this all changed in the first half of the 20th Century, as the great houses were demolished, transferred to the National Trust, or otherwise disposed of. Farms were sold to pay off debts, and the people living in the English countryside became commuters to nearby towns instead of dependents on their local great house. This is an astonishing social change, little commented on by historians. To try and understand the scale of this,  I looked at the great country houses owned by aristocratic families in Worcestershire at the start of 1900, and what has happened to them since.

My researches are incomplete, but I have been able to identify four earls, one viscount and one baron who at the start of that year had their main country seat in the County. These were:

▸    George William Coventry, the 9th Earl of Coventry, who owned Croome Court, South-East of the City of Worcester. This was one the most important great houses in England, having the first garden ever designed by Capability Brown. In 1900, the Earl held various senior political appointments in the Royal Court, was Lord-Lieutenant of the County and later in that year became Colonel-in-Chief of the Worcestershire Regiment. In the Second World War, Croome Court became the residence of the Dutch royal family and a military base for research on radar. The Coventry family sold Croome in 1948, and it is now managed by the National Trust.

▸    William Humble Ward, the 2nd Earl of Dudley, who lived in Witley Court in the North-West of the County. This was a vast and beautiful palace that had once been the home of Dowager Queen Adelaide. The Earl later became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland and Governor-General of Australia. In 1928, he sold Witley Court, which burnt down in 1937. This is now a spectacular ruin, maintained by English Heritage. 

▸    Robert George Windsor-Clive, the 1st Earl of Plymouth, who lived at Hewell Grange, a great house he ordered built in Tardebigge in the North-East of the County. The Earl was a former Lord Mayor of Cardiff and had been Paymaster-General in the Government, and was later to become First Commissioner of Works. In County society, he was Lieutenant-Colonel of the Worcestershire Yeomanry. Hewell Grange was sold and became a borstal in 1946 and is now a prison.

▸    William Lygon, the 7th Earl Beauchamp, who lived at Madresfield Court, near Malvern. This was built in the 16th Century, with subsequent extensions. In 1900, the Earl was Governor of New South Wales, where he became unpopular after making several undiplomatic remarks. He later became a cabinet minister and supported several progressive causes until he was outed as a homosexual in 1931. The title became extinct on the death of the 8th Earl in 1979. Madresfield Court is still owned by the Lygon Family and is not open to the public.

▸    Charles George Lyttleton, the 8th Viscount Cobham (and also the 5th Baron Lyttleton), who lived at Hagley Hall in the North West of the County. This is a fine 18th Century building with an excellent garden, and is still the home of the present 12th Viscount. The 8th Viscount had been an MP for East Worcestershire before succeeding to the title, and lived at Hagley Hall. His predecessor, the 7th Viscount promoted settlement in New Zealand, where the City of Christchurch has a Hagley Park and a port of Lyttleton. 

▸    Augustus Frederick Arthur Sandys, 4th Baron Sandys, who lived at Ombersley Court, a fine 18th Century house North of Worcester. The Sandys are an ancient family with a long record of public service, but I have not been able to find much information about 4th Baron. The present 8th Baron is also the Marquis of Downshire, who inherited the Sandys title from a distant cousin, and may live in one of his other properties.

There were of course many other great houses in Worcestershire in 1900, occupied by wealthy landowners who not members of the aristocracy. They included the Chateau Impney (now a hotel), Hanbury Hall (now National Trust), Hindlip Hall (now a police headquarters), Lea Castle (now demolished), Stanford Court, and Westwood House (now split into flats).

So, as far as I can tell, Viscount Cobham is the only descendent of all these aristocrats who  still lives in his historic country seat. This is no easy undertaking with such an old building. In an article in the Birmingham Post in 2013, the Viscount estimated that it costs £200-300,000/year to maintain Hagley Hall. I wish him all success - I have happy memories of watching a performance of The Barber of Seville in the long gallery of the Hall.

Trapped in the university

Much of popular anger with politicians comes from a belief that they fail to successfully tackle the major challenges facing our society. Since many members of the public regard political leaders as all-powerful beings, they can only ascribe this failure to weakness or mendacity. This leads to a demand for politicians who exhibit strength of purpose and/or personal morality. Unscrupulous candidates for office (as now in the USA)  respond to these expectations with blustering statements of their ‘toughness’ and tedious personal expressions of piety.

Yet when we read the autobiographies of the most senior politicians, it becomes clear that they struggle hard to achieve anything. Organisations, even in authoritarian societies, are now so complex that there are multiple points of resistence to any amendment in policy or day-to-day practice. Instead, complex organisations carry on doing what they have always done, in the way they have always done it. As a result, our leaders find themselves trapped, often reduced to the role of becoming spokesmen for decisions that seem to have been made by no one person, but which have somehow become inevitable.

I experienced this sense of being trapped in a small way when I was head of the Division of Neuroscience in Birmingham Medical School. I attributed my lack of effectiveness to personal incompetence until one day, together with other senior managers in the School, I attended a management development session. One of the tasks set by the facilitator was for each of us to prepare a montage showing our view of our role in the University. We were provided with a board, various newspaper colour supplements, scissors and glue. We set to work. When we had finished, I looked round at what we had produced. Every board without exception included prominent images of railings, iron bars and other signifiers of imprisonment. In other words, all of us felt trapped in the university.

The management training session taught me that my colleagues also experienced a sense of powerlessness. Perhaps their appearance of competence showed not so much that they were better managers than me but better actors. I tried thereafter to act the role of a competent manager, but I do not enjoy acting and after a while I ceased to bother. After five difficult years as Head of Division, I retreated to thankful obscurity.

Your New York policemen are wonderful

It must be difficult being a policeman in New York. A complex multi-national city - part of a country where some people worship guns more than God. And then there are the English schoolgirls to deal with. The picture above shows my daughter Rosemarie on a school trip to New York when she was at Worcester Sixth Form College ten years ago. The tolerance and amusement on the faces of the policemen is striking.

Rosemarie is now an artist and her work can be viewed at:
www.etsy.com/people/Cumella

The Great Housing Mystery

Everyone in England agrees that we are in the midst of a housing crisis. The scale of the problem is shown in the estimates for ‘household formation’ issued every year by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). These estimate that between 2012 and 2037, a total of 5.2 million new households will be created, each of which will be in the market for somewhere to live, whether purchased or rented. New households are formed not just as a result of normal population growth (the excess of births over deaths) and net immigration (families and single people who will migrate into this country minus those who leave), but because of the increasing number of single-person households. There are more of these because people live longer than in the past, resulting in more widows and widowers living alone, and because more marriages and similar such relationships end in separation and divorce, so that one household splits into two.

The DCLG uses its estimate to calculate a figure for ‘housing need’ - currently 220,000/year for England as a whole. Unfortunately, far fewer new dwellings are completed each year - only 155,000 in 2014 plus another 25,000 converted by subdividing larger properties. Since some houses were demolished, the net gain in the number of dwellings was 171,000. The result of this kind of shortfall each year is a faster rise in house prices in England than in any other country, such that the ratio of houses prices to average earnings (the P/E ratio) has doubled in the last 30 years. The great housing mystery is why are so few houses built when demand is so high?

The answer to this mystery is that the supply of housing in this country is determined by a small number of very large development corporations, each of which control all aspects of the building process, from land-acquisition, planning-permission and construction, through to sales. This is time-consuming and expensive and no money comes in until the houses are sold. So the development corporations tend to be risk-averse, and will certainly avoid building houses they can not sell. How many they can sell at any particular time depends on the number of people who are able to get loan finance and afford the deposit and monthly repayments. These factors are in turn determined by the general state of the economy. This creates an interesting paradox. The chronic shortage of houses raises their price, which increases the P/E ration, which means that fewer people can afford to buy a house. This in turn means that less are built, which further increases the price.

In the past, the gap between houses needed and houses built was filled by local authorities and (to a lesser degree) by housing associations. But government policy in recent years has instead been to secure the supply of lower-cost houses by imposing a requirement on developers that 40% of the new houses they build will be ‘affordable’. This term has usually designated houses that are rented from housing associations or are sold at 80% of market rates. The aim of this policy is to avoid segregating the population into owner-occupied and rented sectors. However laudable, this policy means that the supply of new affordable housing is determined by the number of market-priced houses that the development corporations decide to build. So in times of recession, when fewer people can afford to buy a house, the development corporations naturally reduce rates of construction, which means that the number of ‘affordable’ houses for rent also falls.

Even in more prosperous times, it pays for the development corporations to maintain the supply of new houses below demand. This pushes up prices and profits, but also has political benefits. The development corporations use the housing crisis to argue that the Government should respond by ‘freeing the market’, which means relaxations in planning controls, building on greenbelt land, and freeing the development corporations of the obligation to build affordable homes. Such measures would massively increase profits, but the arguments are utterly spurious. There is no shortage of land designated for housebuilding in England. At present, planning permission has been granted for 450,000 houses which have not yet been built, while the development corporations own land available for another 300,000 dwellings in their ‘land banks’. Other land for housing will become available during this decade as the supermarket chains offload sites because of the rapid rise in home delivery.

There is therefore no ‘housing crisis’ for the four large development corporations in England, which all report higher sale prices for their houses, increased profits and larger bonuses for their managers. The crisis is instead felt acutely by those who need to spend an ever-higher proportion of their income on renting cramped rooms and flats.