Dear Maeve

by Maeve Binchy

  There are growlings, too, among many ordinary British Catholics; why did she have to have a cardinal do the receiving into the Church bit? Wouldn’t an ordinary priest have done? I don’t find a great difficulty with that. If you accept that it is a class-dominated society, and that she’s in the top drawer and that he is a prince of the church, it is probably the correct diplomatic procedure. Anyway, she knows him and he is a friend and he’s not out looking for more limelight at this stage in his life. What I do object to is the way everyone is reading so much into it on a political, social and tribal level. We have to assume that these people read some of the papers some of the time. I’d like to think that she might find peace and hope, and would wish that for anyone who makes a decision based on faith. I hope that she will be able to ignore all the ballyhoo, and stories of the Gunpowder Plot, and rumours of her being a Pied Piper about to lead all the other confused members of the royal family on the road to Rome.

  Horse Laugh

  “Stewards with Attitude have run things for far too long”

  The ludicrous and upsetting farce when the Grand National did not start at Aintree might have some good results if the control of the whole thing can be finally wrested from all these pompous, self-important people in hats who prance around, delighted with themselves, until something happens and then fall apart like broken biscuits.

  Racing, which is meant to be democratic, a good day out for all, a sport enjoyed by rich and poor, is in fact nothing of the sort. There is a class structure in racing which would make the hair stand up on your head if you were to think about it. From the gear they wear to the price of tickets to the various enclosures, from the different bars for different drinks to the railed-off areas for royalty over there, and corporate entertaining over here, how can anyone think it’s an egalitarian outing?

  There was a time within recent memory when divorced people couldn’t go into the Royal Enclosure at Ascot. Admittedly that was before such a ruling would exclude almost the entire royal family, but this was an example of the pretentious and repressive legislation that those who ran racing were able to get away with.

  Stewards with Attitude have run things for far too long. Last week their cover was blown and it’s time for the people who actually do give the public what they want to take over their own sport.

  God knows I’m not an enthusiastic gambler, as the State of Nevada could tell you – it didn’t lose serious money until I went to Las Vegas and drank the drink and watched the lavish spectacles without consigning anything significant to the slot machines or blackjack tables. But I have been to the races in all kinds of places and I’ve enjoyed them in spite of bullying-looking people with badges and bowlers and serious sense-of-humour failure.

  The guys who are meant to run things are the only people who appear to be having no fun at all at the races. They have a particular gesture. It’s an outstretched arm and a pointing finger, a bit like generals. They move in twos and threes, pointing, hissing, frowning. They seem to know everything and disapprove of most of it. When races do start, which is most of the time, they sort of glower after the departing horses as if they were letting the place down.

  When races don’t start, like last Saturday, they turn ashen white and start pointing and gesturing and opening rule books and shouting and reading out rules to people in the aggrieved tones of tyrannical schoolmasters who can’t believe that the Lower Fourth are a crowd of dunderheads. Then they go into conclave and come out shouting a totally different decision from the one they had pointed out previously with such pained and speaking-to-slow-learner delivery.

  This is a deeply silly class of person and should not be in charge for much longer.

  Even those of us who had only put a pound each way on Kildimo for the sociability of it all, who had come in, drawn the curtains against the bright April sunlight and sat down to watch the race, could see that we were watching the dying whimper of a breed that will be less credible than any of the strange dinosaurs recreated for us these days.

  Gesturing and arrogant, they were unable to admit that anything had, or could possibly have, gone wrong. Later they searched like mad for a scapegoat in the form of a man with a flag, a figure who seemed to step straight out of the past – when he would have run in front of the horseless carriages to give the news that a machine was in the road.

  Maybe it needed that shambles to show what a pathetic set-up it all was. But it was a hard price to have to pay. I found myself in tears with John White and, in the usual fit of parallelism I get about almost every aspect or life, I thought myself into the position of being bent over the neck of Esha Ness and going ba-doom ba-doom ba-doom past the winning post, saying to myself won’t Jenny Pitman be pleased and isn’t this great and I wonder why the crowd are booing instead of cheering?

  And then I thought myself into the position of being one of the ones who didn’t start and saying to myself: “Well, Maeve, aren’t you the bright little jockey. Now we only have to run nine of us and maybe I’ll win in a smaller field.” Because that’s what the nine were told would happen.

  The Jockey Club is not really the Jockey Club in anything except name; it’s not a trade union for jockeys. The whole language of this sport is very suspect. They talk about my head lad, and the stable lad and I know, I know they will say that these are the terms, these are official titles with their own dignity and I am just splitting hairs and not understanding - but words have a history, and I don’t think you can talk about racing, the sport of the masses, if it has such a hierarchical structure.

  I remember objecting to the words of All Things Bright and Beautiful once because of its theory that God made everyone and gave them a position to be in: the rich man in his castle and the poor man at his gate. People said it was just a hymn, that was all. That made it 20 times worse to me, and it doesn’t improve the class-ridden vocabulary of racing when anyone says it’s just the jargon and everyone loves it.

  The horses don’t have much say; the people who ride them and who train them and those who own them all claim to love these animals and I’m sure they do. The people who handed over those staggering millions, that we are all trooping back to the bookies to collect, claim to think it’s a great sport and well worth anyone’s investment.

  Let them rise against the Hats, the gesturers, the pointers, the people who are too steeped in tradition to put in a screen or a Tannoy or something from the 20th century that might let the horses and their riders know what’s happening. We probably needed the raw hysteria and naked disappointment – making people babble inanities about Ireland being a Third World country and still being able to stop a horse race – to show what a farce it is to let old-fashioned nobs run things because they have always done so.

  It’s a bit hard on the few who were responsible for the particular cock-up on Saturday, but only a bit hard. Their day had to come and it was fortunate that it came so publicly, causing such rage and reaction. There’s nothing left for that lot to defend. My advice is that they should come out sobbing with repentance from the inquiry and declare a new era for racing.

  And maybe the backward little country here could give them some pointers about the way to go.

  Retiring Types

  “Maybe Des O’Malley means it when he says it is time

  for young people to take the helm”

  Most people agree that women retire much more positively than men. It has nothing to do with gurgling grandchildren, coffee mornings or hours spent sitting down, doing tapestry. It has a lot to do with attitude. With the exception of Margaret Thatcher, who never lived a real life anyway and so hangs on in there pathetically like an old actor who won’t leave the theatre, women see work as a phase in their lives. They don’t see retirement as a yawning emptiness; they see it as a beginning.

  Perhaps men of this generation are beginning to see the light and maybe Des O’Malley means it when he says it is time for young people to take the helm. It would be cheering if he does mean it and if he isn’t l
ooking for new helms to hold on to. It would be a positive inspiration if he decided not to root for some other job, if he were to make a statement that life was not all about work and power and achievement; cheering if he could be a man who does not define himself by his work.

  Because men have been very guilty of doing that. The job c’est moi mentality has destroyed the lives of many men who should have had a perfectly happy 20 years or more after their retirement date but who instead believe that they have been somehow cast adrift when they still have a lot to contribute.

  Of course they have a lot to contribute. It would be barking mad to get out the slippers and the secateurs and long woolly cardigan, but why does the contribution have to be only in the workplace? It’s a pretty poor definition of life and hope and the time we spend between being a baby and dying, if the only meaningful bit of it is actually spent away from the home, the chosen mate and the children that resulted, away from them in a competitive scoring work situation.

  I know Des O’Malley is young; he’s a contemporary of my own for heaven’s sake. We started out in UCD on the same day. He is, by our standards, very young indeed. He has always been vastly energetic; even at College he seemed to be involved in everything. There was nothing languid about Des. He doesn’t need to have another job to define him. He is the sum of what he has done. Those who admire him, and I am one, will continue to admire him. And isn’t being a TD enough? Most of us would consider that a fairly energetic way of spending dawn to dusk.

  Why does there have to be huge speculation about what job he will have next, whether it’s Europe or a series of directorships? Why does there have to be such analysis about his motives for going now, as if only a raving lunatic would leave a position of power unless prodded firmly by the threat of a coup?

  Everyone is wailing about how the young have to emigrate and how we are educating the country’s youth and have no jobs to give them. Would it not be a very positive example indeed if those who could afford to do so, and who truly believe it’s time to let younger people in, actually did let them in? But for this we need a change of attitude and maybe Des is of the right generation to start that change.

  Years ago, you never saw a man wheeling a pram in Ireland, you never heard of men taking paternity leave, you never believed that a man might change his job and his place of living because his wife got promoted. These things happen now all around us and we take it for granted.

  Des O’Malley and I were born into a world where girls cleaned their brothers’ shoes, where a man felt threatened if he could not provide for his family and he had to send his wife out to work. We have lived through decades during which the family was put under enormous strain all over Ireland because men had to work too hard and too long and were not able to enjoy their leisure. Retirement was always celebrated in a singularly inappropriate way by the presentation of a clock or a watch to mark the time that would now tick slowly past, since the meaning of life was over.

  People are living longer; they don’t want to go into their dotage the day they leave a job. Sensible workers are already planning schemes much more enthralling than the old-style image of making home-made wine in a potting shed and shuffling off to a local pub at lunch-time to bore everyone rigid with tales of how it used to be in the old days. Des O’Malley was always proud of what he considered to be breaking the mould in Irish politics. Let him try to do the same for Irish lifestyles as well.

  No sane person would think that 54 was old, or past it, or time to settle down into some kind of reminiscent phase. But equally, no sane person would think you have to have another and better and more thrusting and eager job to be still considered an important person. If he really wants to break another mould or two, then perhaps he might consider spearheading a campaign that says you are not your job.

  Lady in Waiting

  “It’s very hard for a hyperactive person to be quiet”

  Margaret Thatcher used to be terrifying. I’m talking serious fear here. On the one occasion I had to ask her a question at a press conference, I was awake all night clearing my throat for it and when I did get the words out, I heard a roaring in my ears and couldn’t make out what she had replied.

  Heads of other governments, her own ministers, the royal family, people in showbiz all reeled backwards in terror of her. I once saw a waiter fall out a window – and only saved from death by a strategically placed flower box – when she was power-walking through a dining-room looking to left and right of her with demon intent.

  But now it’s over. Now she should be doing something else. I’ve often had this fantasy that she would consult me about her next career move. That she might phone me and ask me over for a bit of girl talk. I would be offered one Scotch whisky and English Malvern water. No nasty European habits like wine.

  And she would look at me with burning sincerity and want to know what would I do now, if I were her. And I’m such a big softie I’d try to give her genuine advice. I’d suggest that we look at a video of the House of Lords debate where she seems to be taking part in a sort of a pantomime.

  There she was in her blue suit. Like the old days, the well-coiffed blonde hair, the mannered gestures, the total conviction that she was right. And she was talking and talking and laying down the law and booming about diminishing democracy and substituting bureaucracy. Her eyes were getting that dangerous glint as she talked of Eurospeak and drivel and fingers being burned. But, though all the lights were on, there was every sign that there was no one at home.

  The House of Lords was full and, as the camera went from one face to another, they all looked embarrassed for her. Shifty almost. There they were – blasts from the past. People that you thought were dead. All the people she had raised up and then clubbed down with her handbag. Willie Whitelaw, Geoffrey Howe, Norman Tebbit. All of them shaking their locks regretfully at her.

  Of course she lost the vote. And she lost a lot of friends. For the first time in 34 years she voted against her party. They won’t like that.

  But it’s no use telling her she shouldn’t have done it. It’s done. It’s like the times when a friend has been very drunk: you don’t say she should have drunk more water in between the glasses of wine to avoid the boiled eyes and thumping head, she knows that so well. The question is: Do you give her a Bloody Mary, get her to sign the pledge or help her write the letter of apology?

  What do you do for Lady Thatcher? Ask her to do the thing she’s worst at. Tell her the only hope is to lie low. Even the newspapers that used to stand up for her are full of criticism these days. Increasingly they use words like manic to describe her.

  She was always manic, but they didn’t see it; it’s just that it is entirely inappropriate to be manic if you’re not running the shop any more.

  You’re meant to be gracious. Resigned, weary, sad, head-shaking, but not ranting.

  It’s very hard for a hyperactive person to be quiet. It’s hard for a bossyboots to let other people run things when she thinks they’re running it all into the ground. Let nobody mention things like having a nice rest, or gardening, or being a proper granny, or having time for her friends to Lady Thatcher. She would look at you with mystification. She still thinks there’s going to be a chance to lock horns with someone, stand like a prow, being Joan of Arcish about something, or start a good war.

  No, I think if you were her friends, and had her interests at heart, you would tell her that there was something big coming up on the horizon and she should save her strength for it.

  And in a way, for her, there is something coming up. Her memoirs. Called The Downing Street Years, as if nobody else had ever had any. Downing Street Years will be published on October 18th. If she had a titter of sense she would go into hiding now until the book comes out.

  There will be some interest in it when it appears. To be fair, there will be considerable interest. People will want to know what she thought of others. They will read it to find out if she justifies every single thing she did or actually acknowledg
es the odd mistake. They will rake it for a hint of a private life or a passing involvement with her twin children anywhere along the line. They will hope that she says something cheering about Denis and not too much about Ronald Reagan.

  But there are three months to go. And if she’s going to be popping up burning ever more brightly, and always more meaninglessly about Europe, she’s going to diminish her currency and weaken her appeal.

  She doesn’t need a rest. The woman only sleeps four hours a night as it is. She’d be dead in two minutes if you sent her to bed. She needs something to do to keep her from driving everyone mad.

  I’d advise her to go on a three-month tour of Europe with the intention of writing a book about how much she hates everything – frogs’ legs and paella and bouzouki music and Dutch cheese and Bernini statues. She’d have a great time. No one would know where she was and, when she came back to do her dinner circuit and to flog the book, they would have all forgotten how embarrassing and silly she had been this past week in the House of Lords.

  In fact while she was gone, fuming up and down the Alps, muttering on Autoroutes, grumbling on Paradors, Major might have dirtied his bib more and they’d be thinking she wasn’t as bad as they remembered.