One of the Proms I went to this year had me weeping with pleasure. It was a beautiful performance by the National Youth Orchestra, made up of teenagers as young as 13, giving their all to Mahler’s First Symphony. One hundred and sixty youngsters marched down the aisles, and filled the stage and boxes, making the old Albert Hall rock with joy. Many of the young musicians were from difficult backgrounds, but on that glorious night, their faces shone with pride that their hard work and creativity had made people applaud and respect them.
When I got home, the television was showing footage of youngsters taking part in this summer’s riots. Their faces were consumed by rage and hatred, their mission was destruction. I was desolate at the contrast. Tangible evidence of our divided society.
A few years ago, I was doing a television series that took me to Stoke, the city where the riot I saw on the screen was happening. It is a city with a rich working-class industrial history, as portrayed in the novels of Arnold Bennett, as well as the innovation of Moorcroft and Clarice Cliff.
The crew arrived at the chain hotel to be greeted by a young receptionist with defiant pink hair saying, “Welcome to the shit hole.” And he was right. The area around the hotel was desolate, with boarded-up shops and a general sense of neglect and inactivity.
I have been shocked by the dilapidated condition of many state schools. Most private schools have theatres, music rooms, lecture halls and sports fields. I recently did a workshop in Newcastle with some kids whose school had been evacuated because of the Raac concrete disaster. They spent months trying to study in freezing cold portacabins. I think Eton would have made more comfortable arrangements. And faster.
There is also a dire lack of specialist staff, resulting, for example, in my grandson being appointed his school’s head of music, in order to tick a box. His knowledge of the subject is mainly gleaned from Reading Festival. Great of its genre, but limited.
Some old people will need to be helped, but I don’t need their handout.
Some people have questioned the cutting of pensioners’ money whilst increasing that of doctors and teachers. It is hard, but a priority must be to rectify the lamentable inequalities of our education system, as illustrated by the disparities across the country in recent exam results. Neglect leads to some people feeling unfairly treated, and open to incitement to misguided blame.
Some old people will need to be helped, but I don’t need their handout. The government is welcome to increase my income tax and grab what’s left for inheritance tax, if it will pay for opportunities for all youngsters to develop their talents, whatever they may be.
School should not be just a stepping stone towards getting a job. It is possible modern technology will increase our leisure time. We need education in how to live. What to cherish, and what to discard or reject. It is teachers who led me to the things in life I most value— books, music, art.
Culture is occasionally mentioned by the new government—and as for the last one, Nadine Dorries wasn’t an ideal culture secretary. How different it was in 1951. The Labour government initiated the Festival of Britain to rouse us from the tragedy of war and its after-effects. Imagine the bravado it took for a bankrupt, depressed nation to hold a country-wide celebration of creativity, design and science. Clement Attlee, the prime minister, opened it by saying: “We shall show we are not just a nation of shopkeepers but a people who appreciate and practise the arts.”
My mother, who worked in a shop, might have been hurt by his disparagement, but the festival was just what we needed. Opposition was savage but, led by Herbert Morrison, the whole country rejoiced in our collective brilliance.
In London we should be grateful for the Southbank Centre, which grew from the seed of the Royal Festival Hall. I remember, as a gloomy teenager scarred by the ugliness of war, being blown away by the splendour and imagination. It is worth Googling the event to see what magic a devastated country could achieve. Sadly, I can’t imagine arts being celebrated in this way now.
The word “culture” frightens some people, but I have seen examples of how it can bring people together. At the Proms, Arab and Israeli musicians played alongside one another in the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. In Belfast, at the height of the Troubles, I led a group of actors who performed Romeo and Juliet, that heartbreaking story of divided families. Our provocative name of the Royal Shakespeare Company meant we had to be protected by armed guards, but at the end of the show, people from both sides of the divide were hugging us, and each other. My daughter creates plays with youngsters from many different communities in Shepherd’s Bush, and the discipline and excitement of putting on a show breaks down all barriers.
We live in dangerous times, when the whole world is divided. In a previous frightening time, Lord Latham said: “In view of the terrifying possibilities of the atomic bomb, the common bonds of culture will be the greatest insurance against further wars.”
I too believe in the power of sharing the best of mankind. That’s as true between nations as within them. Bigger and better weapons don’t seem to be working. The arts are worth a try.
