Ah, so Tony Benn did get something right ;-)
Thanks RP, a very good programme. Loved the letters being read out from "disgusted of Royal Tunbridge Wells" (or more probably Surrey) who had clearly no understanding of the bigger picture.
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Been listening to the series. Interesting and informative.
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Agree Hman - the first one was especially educational (for me) and moving when it explained that before Roland Hill became involved and started the "Penny Post" postage was charged both to send and receive letters according to distance the post travelled. Many people were so poor, and receiving charges so high (often a month's or sometimes even a year's wages) that when postman arrived at their door they could not raise enough cash to receive the letter. Imagine the anguish of having a letter arriving at the door from a son away at some foreign war and not having enough dosh to actually receive and read it. This also occurred, of course, (I say that now!) during times of mass migration to the cities to work in factories so more and more families were separated.
My wife has just asked me what I am posting and, (of course again!), she already knew all this!!
There are some considerable gaps in my education! - must get reading more books and listening to more "educational" programs - time is running out and I don't know enough, so many books I want to read!!!! The kindle is helping though!!
Phil
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I read Benn's diaries a while back when they came out. Fascinating. I'm convinced there's a high degree of self delusion and post-rationalising in most memoirs, but I had a sense of that being minimal in Benn's; the main reason being being that they were essentially transcripts of contemporaneous recordings he made every day as he went along.
One of the most entertaining bits was the account of when he was made Postmaster General. His arrival at his office caused great consternation amongst the staff who were puzzled as to what he was doing there - his Conservative predecessor had only dropped in once a month for lunch.
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He had a genuine passion for the white heat of technology, modernisation, and he grasped the technological future he shook the post office (and the BT part) up. He never got to grips with the fact tho that it was paid for by the removal of workers. He thought you could do both.
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>> he white heat of technology,
'The white heat of the technological revolution' I think. A phrase he coined as junior minister for technology in the first Harold Wilson government.
In that role he also backed Concorde, an impressive bird all right but a bit of a financial white elephant. Of course the Bristol Aircraft Company's Filton works were in or near enough his constituency, almost certainly the real reason.
I raised Concorde when I interviewed him because it wasn't obviously his sort of thing, a gas-guzzling airliner to enable very rich people to go to New York for lunch and come back in time for dinner, costly and unlikely to really pay for itself. Wrong sort of technology, I thought.
Can't remember what he said but I do remember a slight frown and hesitation, as if the question put like that gave him pause. I also said he reminded me of David Owen by pausing only in mid-sentence, never between sentences, to prevent a polite hack like me from getting a word in edgeways. That almost annoyed him. He's a terrific English chauvinist too. 'The red flag was first flown by the English in Bordeaux' whenever it was. Good guy and nice cat nevertheless by the standards of his profession and perhaps by better ones than those.
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That settles it the world would have been a poorer place without Concorde and Benn !
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The world might have been a poorer place but the UK taxpayers would certainly have been considerably better off without the two of them.
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He actually laid quite a good base for the growth of technology in the uk, as it happens.
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A lot of good came out of Concorde, much technology flourished, Airbus Industries was its great grandchild.
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>> A lot of good came out of Concorde, much technology flourished
That's more than likely I have to admit. Indeed one who might, if pushed, defend F1 racing with the same argument would be a hypocrite to deny it.
Concorde wasn't exactly democratic though, any more than F1 racing or indeed existence itself when you get down to the fine detail. That's why ideologies are just whistling in the wind when people start believing in them.
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>> Concorde wasn't exactly democratic though,
Advances or breakthroughs rarely, if ever, are. You need some blind ideology, even the wrong sort, to shakes things up.
Or a war.
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There were huge changes in ship design after the Falklands War - there has been a revolution in the way infantry fight since the Afghan war, from small modifications to the SA80 rifle to changes in the design and procurement of armoured vehicles. Cutting edge medical procedures from both conflicts sadly.
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One of his early actions, c1978, as Minister with responsibility for aerospace was to relaunch the BAe146 STOL airliner. Most successful British jet airliner of all time.
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One of Tony Benn's legacies.... - zippy
