Book of Obituaries

by Ann Wroe

  When I am in my grave and dead

  And all my sorrows are past and fled

  Transport me then into a fish

  And let me swim in a jug of this.

  The songs he wrote himself he dismissed as “garbage altogether”, never to be compared to the old words and melodies he wanted to preserve in live performance. But a few he was proud of, and none more so than “Four Green Fields”, in which “a fine old woman” – Ireland – sang of her fourth field, Ulster, that was still “in bondage/ In strangers’ hands, that tried to take it from me”. In America his audiences, largely third-generation Irish ofthe diaspora, would weep and sing along until, according to the New York Times man, they were “ready to go out and die for Ireland”.

  All told, Tommy Makem’s choice of songs was fervently nationalistic: children’s rhymes about “King Billy”, or rebel songs such as “The Wind that Shakes the Barley”, in which the hero’s sweetheart is killed, as they caress in a glen, by a British bullet. And most stirring of all, in a voice with an edge like a knife, he would sing “The Patriot Game”:

  Come all you young rebels, and list while I sing,

  For the love of one’s country is a terrible thing.

  It banishes fear with the speed of a flame,

  And it makes us all part of the patriot game.

  Bob Dylan adapted this for his great anti-war song “With God on Our Side”. But Tommy Makem tried always to separate his love of country from the horrors of sectarianism. As Northern Ireland slid into the Troubles after 1969, he kept away from politics – a task made somewhat easier by staying in America, where he went on singing to the end of his days. In the dark low-ceilinged bar he bought in New York in the early 1980s, the rule of the house was tolerance and good fellowship. And the slow dawning of peace in Northern Ireland was celebrated by the founding in 2000 in South Armagh of his International Festival of Song, a deliberate declaration that singing could lead men out of darkness, just as Finn MacCumhail at the top of Slieve Gullion found the doe he was following transformed into a beautiful young woman, who smiled at him.

  Michael Manley

  Michael Norman Manley, an islander with a world stage, died on March 6th 1997, aged 72

  The Michael Manley who visited the United States in 1990 had cast aside his Che Guevara bush jacket in favour of a suit. The free market had replaced his party’s “ten steps to socialism”. President Bush was happy to bless a sinner who had apparently repented and he went out of his way to praise the “first-class job” that Mr Manley was doing as prime minister of Jamaica. It takes style and gall to change sides successfully, and Mr Manley had plenty of both. He turned on a reporter who seemed puzzled that the old leftie had become a free marketeer, and said: “Is your outlook on everything the same as it was ten years ago?”

  The conversion of Michael Manley meant more to the Americans than the simple falling into line of a politician from a small neighbouring island. Mr Manley sought to be an international figure. In the non-aligned movement and the United Nations he could rise above the little politics of Jamaica and use his accomplished oratory on a world-class audience: Indira Gandhi of India, Nyerere of Tanzania, Kaunda of Zambia, but also Canada’s Trudeau and Germany’s Brandt. He talked of a “new international economic order” with a redistribution of the world’s wealth. Capitalism had to be demolished “brick by brick”. Fidel Castro’s Cuba was an “interesting experiment”.

  With stuff like this, whether he actually believed it or was just appeasing Marxists in his party, it was inevitable that opponents called Mr Manley a communist. But his inclination was more towards the democratic socialism invented in Britain called Fabianism. His teacher at the London School of Economics was Harold Laski, the mentor, for better or worse, of numerous students who became politicians in Britain’s former colonies. Mr Manley called himself “the most privileged man in Jamaica”, and there was some truth in this throwaway phrase.

  He was born into Jamaica’s mixed-race elite. His father, Norman Manley, a barrister, piloted Jamaica to independence in 1962. His mother, born in Yorkshire, was a sculptor. The need to outdo his dad may have been a spur. And, in his day, Mr Manley commanded the sort of attention accorded to Lee Kuan Yew, another visionary politician from a small island. Sadly for Mr Manley, Jamaica, unlike Singapore, could not be held up as an example of a well-run and prospering nation.

  Not all of Jamaica’s poverty was Mr Manley’s fault. Oil prices jumped, sugar prices did not. But he deserved much of the blame. In 1980, at the end of Mr Manley’s first eight years as prime minister, the tourist hotels were almost empty, and so were the supermarket shelves. Much of the middle class had moved to Miami or Toronto. Almost 900 people had been killed in the run-up to the election, partly as a result of warfare between gangs allied to political parties.

  Mr Manley’s party was decisively beaten by that of Edward Seaga, a conservative. The foreign aid that had been cut off was resumed, but the economy still did not prosper. In 1989 Mr Manley was back in office but without his old ideology. He did as the IMF told him, liberalised foreign exchange and speeded up the

  privatisation of state enterprises. He stepped down in 1992 with failing health, and grew roses and orchids and watched cricket.

  By one of the coincidences of history, another Caribbean politician who once worried the Americans, Cheddi Jagan, president of Guyana, died on the same day as Mr Manley, March 6th. He was 78.

  Cheddi Jagan was not “privileged”. His parents had come to what was British Guiana as indentured labourers from India. But young Cheddi, the eldest of 11 children, did well. With a few dollars in his pocket he made his way to the United States, got into university, supported himself with part-time jobs and graduated as a dentist. Back home he founded a political party,which had huge success in elections under the colonial regime.

  Dr Jagan seemed the likely leader after independence. But the Americans feared that he was a communist. Recently disclosed documents show that America fostered race riots in the country aimed at discrediting Dr Jagan and persuaded Britain to delay independence until voting arrangements could be fixed in favour of his opponent, Forbes Burnham. However, Mr Burnham turned out to be a nasty: an authoritarian with links to the Soviet Union. In retrospect, it seems likely that Dr Jagan would have been a far more desirable national leader. Mr Burnham died in 1985. After holding his party together in opposition for 28 years, Dr Jagan became president in 1992 in the country’s first fair election since independence. Yes, he said, he had been a Marxist but “I was a Gorbachev even before Gorbachev”. His politically-active wife Janet, an energetic 76, may stand for president in the election likely to be held this year.

  With the deaths of Mr Manley and Dr Jagan, the Caribbean will seem a duller place. Only Fidel Castro remains to give the American State Department an occasional sleepless night.

  Esther Manz

  Esther Schuland Manz, American pioneer in the slimming industry, died on February 26th 1996, aged 88

  Success for Esther Manz could be measured in human flesh. In 1995, it was claimed, the members of her organisation in America had collectively shed some 740 tons. Slimmers tend to be desperately optimistic. What comes off may quite quickly go back on, with a few pounds added. Mrs Manz agreed with St Matthew that the flesh is weak even if the spirit is willing. But tackling obesity was a battle, she said, that could last a lifetime.

  This never-ending battle is the basis of a rich industry. In America alone it is estimated that about $30 billion a year is spent on slimming. Europe is catching up. In Britain, where, according to one study, about a third of the population over 15 wants to slim, the figure is $225m a year and growing. Diet books (more than 300 in print in America and Europe), videos, magazines, drugs, health farms, the surgeon’s knife – all seek to combat the nutritional temptations of the rich world.The clothing industry sees that joggers dispense their sweat in expensive style, and that yoga slimmers contemplate the infinite with elegance. In the anxiety busine
ss, diet consultants are a profession rivalling that of psychiatrists.

  Mrs Manz might be blamed (though, her supporters would say, unfairly) for having given a push to all this back in 1948, when she founded what was probably the first of the weight-watching organisations, called TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly). She did not invent dieting. Discontent with the human body probably started in Eden. In the 19th century an overweight London undertaker, William Bunting, slimmed down on lean meat and dry toast, a diet that still has advocates today, and published a highly popular book about it. In the 1930s, Gayelord Hauser made a fortune from ten-day diets based on his “wonder foods”, helpfully promoted by the bone-thin Greta Garbo.

  The no-nonsense Mrs Manz saw obesity as a disease. Its sufferers should not have to face their malady alone, she said. Mrs Manz conceived the idea of fatties forming mutually-helpful groups, just as drunks gain support in the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. A “weight goal” would be set by a member’s doctor. Esther Manz established a new approach for those who seriously wanted to be thin.

  The story that Mrs Manz’s colleagues like to tell is that the first meeting of the organisation, consisting of the founder and three friends, took place around her kitchen table. Mrs Manz, a former teacher in a rural school, was pregnant with her fifth child and, in her view, noticeably overweight. The “confessional” system used by alcoholics was adopted at that meeting. Mrs Manz confessed that as a child she pleased her mother by eating up any piece of pie or cake left, so the dish could be washed. She continued to be a human waste-bin into adult life. By the second meeting of the group the four reformed women had between them lost 28lb.

  As the movement grew, various incentives were devised. Those who lose weight are, in Mrs Manz’s words, “treated like royalty”. Those who do specially well are crowned “kings” or “queens” at well-publicised ceremonies. A bad offender in one group was called “Queen Pig”. It may sound yucky, but the system of praise (and withdrawal of praise) has been widely copied or adapted by other slimming groups with apparent success. The most famous is Weight Watchers, founded in 1963. With its diet foods, cookery books and other products, Weight Watchers is a highly profitable business. For the past 18 years it has been owned by Heinz, a food firm. It sounds like a perfect business partnership. But any back-sliders tempted to nibble tasty titbits (a process that the food industry happily calls “grazing”) are no doubt sternly rebuked at the next meeting. TOPS people say they feel “nothing negative” about Weight Watchers. But they note that their organisation was first and that, unlike Weight Watchers, it is not run for a profit. TOPS does not sell or endorse diet products. Any money left over from the modest dues of its 300,000 members around the world is used for research into the causes of obesity. So far, the group says, $4.5m has been contributed to obesity research, much of it to a medical college in Milwaukee, the town where Mrs Manz founded the movement.

  One of the research projects TOPS is supporting is into the role of genetics in obesity. Mrs Manz hoped to find a “cure” for obesity. However, opponents of dieting believe that genetic research will eventually torpedo many widespread beliefs about fatness. Being heavier than the average should not be a problem, they say, any more than being above average height is a problem. You are born that way. Dieting, they claim, can actually make you fatter, because the body reacts against this assault. Stop fussing and get on with your life.

  This argument is political as much as medical. Anti-dieters say that ordinary women (and men, too) should not be bullied into looking like fashion models with anorexia, just because the skinny look is the vogue of the moment. The robustness of this view would no doubt have appealed to the sensible Esther Manz. But, as one of her equally robust colleagues argues, the lifestyle of the rich world is on a collision course with our genetic make-up. Look at the growth of heart disease. But look at the growth of anorexia, say the anti-dieters. The debate continues.

  Stanley Marcus

  Stanley Marcus, purveyor of extravagance, died on January 22nd 2001, aged 96

  There comes a time in the life of the average billionaire when money ceases to be important. Suddenly it no longer seems to make the world go round; it has become quite boring. Stanley Marcus was sympathetic to the problem and sought to rekindle interest in possessions among those who wanted for nothing. “The people who come here actually need very little,” he said with the air of a kindly doctor dealing with a particularly difficult patient. What Mr Marcus set out to do at his shop Neiman Marcus was to turn the sufferer into a “wanter”.

  Sometimes there was a quick success, especially if the patient were male, and billionaires usually are. “I’ve never found a man who needs a necktie,” said Mr Marcus. “But he may be fascinated with the colour, or the design, and he wants it.” But few cases were that simple. What about private aircraft? Got one, got several. But Mr Marcus was offering his and her matching aircraft. They would be the talk of the billionaire set. His wife would be charmed and especially attentive. They could keep boredom at bay for a week.

  His and her aircraft, introduced in 1960, were followed by his and her miniature submarines, hot-air balloons and matching camels. Mr Marcus acquired two Egyptian mummies, established that they were male and female, and they too were resurrected into modern commerce. He sold Chinese junks and solid gold needles whose eyes no rich man could enter. His barbecues were silver plated and came with a live bull. His bathrobes were made of ermine. He is said to have discovered the shahtoosh, a sublimely soft scarf made in its original form from the neck hairs of Himalayan goats, and which in less exotic material has since become widely popular in high street shops. He never let up in his mission to save the very rich from the wasting disease of boredom.

  The first Neiman Marcus shop was in Dallas, Texas. Cowboys and Indians were among the shop’s first customers. From these rough beginnings Mr Marcus sought to make the firm an American symbol of luxury living.

  His father, uncle and aunt, of German Jewish stock, had started the shop. Young Stanley went to Harvard and on his return at the age of 21 became bookkeeper, salesman and much else besides. In his autobiography Minding the Store Mr Marcus gives the impression that he was not all that keen to settle down in a hick town after having been given a glimpse of a wider world of books and ideas at Harvard. But having decided to be the dutiful eldest son he set about transforming the family business into something beyond the confines of 1920s Dallas.

  He started with the considerable asset that Texas, a state of oil and cattle, was wealthy, and growing wealthier by the day. The scruffy girl in gingham could be the daughter of a suddenly wealthy oilman. Today she was buying another cotton dress. Tomorrow she would want fashion. In those days Mr Marcus’s challenge was not to alleviate the boredom of the rich, but to keep up with the demands of Texans newly flush with money.

  His weekly fashion shows were among the first in the United States. Eventually he introduced to Texas the great names

  of European fashion, Chanel, Courrèges, Balenciaga. The bookish Mr Marcus became an attentive pupil of the masters, particularly Balenciaga, the Spaniard who was himself the mentor of many famous designers. “He will enhance your beauty,” Mr Marcus assured the matrons of Texas, “not dress you in ugly things, like some newer designers.”

  At the same time as promoting high fashion Neiman Marcus expanded from a speciality shop into an all-providing department store. When in 1969 the Marcus family sold a controlling interest in the company to a conglomerate, Carter Hawley Hale, sales were more than $62m a year (equivalent to $300m today) and there were Neiman Marcus stores in cities across the United States. Under the deal Mr Marcus ran the business until his retirement in 1975, and continued to beinvolved in it into his 90s.

  In later years Stanley Marcus became a much-interviewed guru of retail selling. It was almost like being back in Harvard, but now he was a professor, dispensing erudition, occasionally raising a chuckle from an attentive audience. “I have the simplest taste: I am always satis
fied with the best.”

  So where would you find the best, professor? Not, it seems, these days in department stores.

  Department stores have become cumbersome and dull. They have lost their sense of excitement, of adventure. If you blindfolded a woman and dropped her from a plane into a shopping centre in America she wouldn’t know whether she was in Indianapolis or Minneapolis or wherever. She would see the same big stores, the same merchandise in the windows. A new fashion in Italy is faxed over from Milan to New York or Miami and it is knocked up and appears everywhere and becomes stale before it is even able to walk. Department stores are waiting to be re-invented. Starting out again, I’d learn from the boutiques, the small speciality shops that offer individuality.

  It suddenly sounded as though Stanley Marcus was back in the 1920s, preparing to take on the world from Dallas.

  Princess Margaret

  Princess Margaret Rose died on February 9th 2002, aged 71

  If the life of the British royal family is the world’s most brilliant soap opera, as some regard it, Princess Margaret was its most enduring and creative performer. In her prime she never failed to provide some new and intriguing twist in the script to beguile the less privileged millions as they faced another wearisome day. The competition was sometimes fierce. In the republics of Europe there are many who cling to their obsolete titles, countess this, marquise that. “First ladies” tend to adopt royal airs but their reigns abruptly end when their political husbands lose their jobs. For editors of newspapers and television, fierce guardians of the gates to fame, Princess Margaret was the real thing, an authentic living royal; moreover, and this was the important thing, she had a happily uninhibited streak. Our picture is of the princess at a London nightclub.