The Member musing segment is kindly provided by the members of the Athenaeum, any views shared may not be reflective of the institution’s.
Plane Mystery
By Philip Whitfield
What’s in a name? Mine’s normally shortened to Phil… an icebreaker talking to terrorists in the Arab world. How come? Fil in Arabicmeans elephant.
I’m not sure what they’d have thought of my nickname before long pants. Pip, my Mum and Dad would say to encourage. Philip, to scold.
Normally my walk through the Mystery in Wavertree is uninterrupted. Why’s it called the Mystery? In 1895 an anonymous well-wisher bought The Grange, a large merchant’s house and its grounds, presenting it to Liverpool for children to play.
Who’s the anonymous donor, people asked? It’s a mystery, they were told. Hence the name.
On this day a model glider lands at my feet, bringing me to a halt beside a hummock. A kid, no more than nine or ten, approaches tremulously down the grassy mount.
He approaches to pick up his toy cautiously, caressing it as gently as a mother cuddling her infant.
Am I a threat? I should reassure him.
Lovely plane… yours?
A single word reveals all.
Barnardo’s.
In the late 1800s a Dubliner Dr John Barnardo founded homes for destitute children, then as now waifs whose innocence was lost: abused, trafficked, enslaved in prostitution drugs and thievery.
Bardardo’s is in crisis. In the weeks immediately after Covid-19 struck 2,500 children were referred to Barnardo’s for fostering… a euphemism for abandoned. That’s forty per cent more than normal.
The response? Only a hundred and sixty-one people inquired about becoming a carer, down fifty per cent on the same time last year.
Why isn’t this on the news? The London media is getting a kick out of Liverpool’s Third Degree, chasing down people who’ll argue over who and how many can chat to whom, inside or out.
I used to think bubbles were in baths. Turns out they’re couples in bars.
The north/south divide is as embedded in the media as in politics. When before did Fleet Street and the TV Centre flood the city with crews?
Aren’t homeless kids a bigger story? Yes, but not one that cultivates big audiences. Instead we’re lured into a jingle jangle of discordance. Mostly speculation.
Imagine the country’s reaction if a newsreader had said Sources close to Winston Churchill say we might fight them on the beaches… we might never surrender?
Listen to the news critically. You’ll hear why I don’t bother with it.
The lad in front of me in the Mystery is blissfully unaware. As he grows up he’ll figure out that self-centredness pitched him into precariousness. I hope playing in the Mystery will be remembered with affection.
Albert Einstein said it much better than l can. The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
Proprietor Philip Whitfield was a BBC correspondent covering wars and insurgency in the Middle East and North Africa, Vietnam and Ireland.