David Bennett

Guilty Men

Guilty Men is a slim book – just 125 pages – written in 1940 by ‘Cato’ – the collective nom de plume of the journalists Michael Foot, Frank Owen, and Peter Howard.

It is an attack on the governments of Baldwin, MacDonald, and Chamberlain of the previous ten years, arguing that they had failed to prepare Britain for an inevitable war and describes how the actions of these governments led to the debacle of Dunkirk.

The book cites Churchill as the man who had consistently warned of the dangers and who was the right man to be in charge of Britain’s future in the war years.

It was a runaway bestseller and the principal author, Michael Foot, went on to become the leader of the Labour Party in Britain.

I bought a copy from a second-hand bookshop after learning of the existence of the book while reading Nehru’s The Discovery of India. I zipped through Guilty Men in a couple of sittings and more or less believed every word of it.

The benefit of 70 years hindsight is pretty good at testing the truth of what was said in the book. I recommend it to anyone who wants to read the story of Britain in the lead up to its darkest hour.

Where The Title Of the Book Came From

The Preface to the book states:

On a spring day in 1793 a crowd of angry men burst their way through the doors of the assembly room where the French Convention was in session. A discomforted figure addressed them from the rostrum. “What do the people desire?” he asked. “The Convention has only their welfare at heart.” The leader of the angry crowd replied. “The people haven’t come here to be given a lot of phrases. They demand a dozen guitly men.”

Who was Cato?

There were several people named Cato in Roman history, but I think the one who fits the best description was Cato the Younger. He is described in Wikipedia as being remembered for his legendary stubbornness and tenacity, as well as his immunity to bribes, his moral integrity, and his famous distaste for the ubiquitous corruption of the period.

The Bladders In Turner’s Paintbox

In June 2014 Tamara and I went to an exhibition at the National Gallery in London entitled ‘Making Colour’

It examined the way artists have used the distribution of colour in paintings to bring out their brilliance. It is a science; a science of the colour wheel and of primary colours and complimentary colours.

One of the exhibits that caught my eye was Turner’s paintbox. It was divided into square compartments and in each of them was what looked like a small bottle.

However, each ‘bottle’ was misshapen, as though it had been squeezed and deformed. And the neck of each container was bound with twine.

I asked the staff whether they knew what the containers were made of and left the question with them, and subsequently received an email answering my question:

Thank you for completing a Comments Form on 19 June 2014 regarding Turner’s paintbox in the Making Colour exhibition.

I have been in contact with the Director of Collections and Curator of the exhibition Ashok Roy who has provided me with the following response:

The traditional method for storing prepared oil paints before tubes were fully commercialised from 1841 was in ’pigs’ bladders’, by which is meant a bit of intestine (like a sausage casing), tied off with twine.

The paint was squeezed out through a hole made by a metal tack, and re-sealed with the tack. This is the form of the paint container in the Turner box.

The Road Not Taken – A Cautionary Tale

‘The Road Not Taken’ – a poem by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Some years ago I met someone who had studied this poem at university. He thought that Frost was mocking himself. I hadn’t looked at the poem much and didn’t do so then. I said something or other in reply – and I defended ‘the road less travelled’ probably because it is the more romantic and adventurous road.

Being aware of my defensiveness on that occasion made me look at the poem again, recently.

The Road Not Taken

So, he stood a while thinking about which road to take. And for a reason that was part of his makeup he decided to take the lesser road, precisely because it was the lesser road.

And having taken it, now he sees that a long time in the future when he is old, he will say that taking that path made all the difference and he will say it with a sigh.

Why a sigh? After all, he is seeing all this having taken the road.

Will he sigh because it doesn’t matter which path he takes, ever?

Will he sigh because once again he spent too much time thinking about paths?

Will he sigh because he feels the weight of his own makeup leading him down wrong paths?

He believes he can’t turn back – he explained already how ‘way leads on to way’ – that there are consequences and that when a fateful move it made, there is no going back.

Is that even right that one cannot turn back

I don’t have to be so literal. Frost is a poet. It doesn’t have to be an actual wood. The wood can be a metaphor for life. And the paths can be paths between any choices. A choice to get fit or not to get fit. To take a job in a bank or become an artist. To get off here or continue to the usual bus stop. The list is endless.

C Is For Creance

When my wife Tamara was reading H Is For Hawk by Helen MacDonald, the story of the author’s life with a goshawk, she asked me whether I knew the meaning of the word, creance, which she had read about in the book.

I didn’t but I guessed that it might mean the act of behaving well. I guessed it from miscreant, which is the name of course for someone who does wrong.

Tamara told me that a creance is the long piece of cord that a trainer uses to maintain control of a hawk in training.

It got me thinking that there may be a connection with miscreant, so I looked up the etymology of the word.

And it turns out that a micreant is not only a wrongdoer but also someone who lacks faith.

And creance, which originated in the late 15th century comes from the French word créance which mean ‘faith’ – and describes the cord used to retain a bird of peu de créance – of little faith – a bird which cannot yet be relied upon to return to its handler.