One must admire Dame Jenni, who embodies all that is good about BBC Radio. I admit to personal bias in that she is one of the few BBC celebrities to reply to a personal email. Several years ago, I criticised the way that Woman's Hour had reinforced the Western view of Thailand advanced in The King and I. She replied in person, patiently explaining that she and the programme team had been aware that there were other aspects to the story, but had been unable to secure an appropriate expert in time for the story.
So it was not surprising that she showed her passionate attachment to the European dream of lasting peace after two world wars which had their roots on the continent. In an extract from a book about the arguments for and against the European Union, reproduced in the Yorkshire Post and the i, she recalls her mother's bitter memories of World War Two and declares:
to my generation, the prospect of peace in Europe and an entente which would bring us together in a most cordial manner didn’t seem to be about trade and economics, but a way to break down barriers and end the ‘little England’, ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ mentality which encouraged the Brit to consider him or herself superior to ‘Johnny Foreigner’.
and tells the following story
My most vivid memory of feeling thankful for being European came about during a visit to the theatre with some friends. I must have been in my early 30s and my companions were David, now my husband, Nancy, a friend from New York who was living in London and Uwe, her German banker boyfriend.
The play we saw was Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, subtitled A Parable Play and written in 1941. It charts the rise of Hitler through the satirical story of an ambitious, fictional Chicago gangster who learns to speak effectively in public, goose step and make the notorious ‘Heil Hitler’ raised arm salute from a famous actor. He needs no training in how to use his ‘boys’ to bully his constituents into submission. The play ends with Ui on a high platform proclaiming his power to his public. The ‘Actor’ enters the stage to deliver the epilogue and speaks the chilling words: ‘The bitch that bore him is in heat again.’
After the play, the four of us went to a pub for a drink. These two young men looked at each other and said what we’d watched must be seen in a strictly historical context. Yes, some 40 years ago, they, an Englishman and a German, would have been trying to kill each other. “But now,” they agreed, “it simply couldn’t happen. We’re all Europeans now.” “No more war, Tommy,” said Uwe with a smile. “No more war, Jerry,” said David. And they hugged as if to underline the point.
I hadn’t thought about that incident for a long time and, as the years have passed, we’ve gone our separate ways – Nancy to America and Uwe to Germany and David and I have raised two sons. They were both brought up as Europeans. They’ve travelled freely throughout Europe, learned the languages, enjoyed the reciprocal free healthcare and neither has so much as a hint of racism or xenophobia. It was primarily for them that I wept when the result of the referendum was announced on June 23, 2016 and Brexit became the mot du jour.
I regret that the political, as opposed to the economic, aspects of our membership of the EU did not play a part in the 2016 referendum debate as they had in 1975 (people who tell a different story were either not alive, have a defective memory or are downright liars). I doubt that the result of the vote would have been different, but at least it would have led to a more rounded debate.
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