Hate the war, not the warrior

MAYBE it’s because Coldstream is only a mile or two down the road from my home that I took in the death of the latest British soldier in Afghanistan with a heavy heart. Perhaps it’s because he was a local lad.
Whatever it was, the news of Acting Sergeant John Amer, proud Coldstream Guardsman from Sunderland, husband of adoring wife Sue and the father of a young daughter who will know her father no more hit me harder than most.
He was the 99th British soldier to die this year; the 236th to die since we invaded in 2001. But the statistics are nothing compared with the loss his family – indeed a whole battalion of grieving families – is feeling as this awful conflict escalates.
I hate this war with a passion. Any right-minded person in a civilised society would lament the passing of these brave young soldiers – and they are all young people of my son’s and daughter’s age – as well as regretting the toll of civilian casualties that is being inflicted.
Trouble is by the time our despair at the never-ending casualty figures – desperately badly wounded men and women as well as the dead – and our growing opposition to the war reaches the front line it translates into a lack of regard for the men and women who are fighting OUR conflict and whom WE sent to that barbarous land.
Make no mistake: I hate this war and its horrifying consequences. But I’m proud of the lads and lasses who answered the call unhesitatingly.
There is an opportunity to communicate our pride and thanks to those serving men and women: next Tuesday, more than 200 men and women from the Second Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers are to march through Ashington and Morpeth to celebrate their homecoming after a six-month tour of duty which has seen seven of their comrades killed and a dozen badly wounded.
I am proud to say that men and women from my village and from the surrounding area are travelling south to raise a cheer for our returning heroes. I will try to be on the streets of l unchtime Morpeth to see them home.
It is a small act of homage I urge you to make, moved as was I by the words of John Amer’s grieving widow:
"John was the best father our daughter could have wished for. This cruel world has taken a hero . . . the pain of losing him is overwhelming."

SCIENCE is playing God again. For the first time, meat has been produced in a laboratory from a pig’s cells as boffins struggle to play biblical one-upmanship by feeding the five billion.
Lab chops, anyone? Or a portion of Shepherd’s Pi, perhaps?

WHEN the Acer computer I bought at John Lewis developed a fault I took it back to the store for repair under their two-year guarantee.
But after nothing had happened for five weeks I called to complain.
John Lewis were wonderful: they tracked my computer through the Acer repair system – then hit a brick wall. Acer had moved their call centre off-shore to India and even John Lewis couldn’t get a reply to their inquiries,
After eight weeks they called to offer a refund or a replacement. I chose a substitute computer: “Anything but an Acer,” I pleaded.
Sure enough, my Dell replacement has arrived with all the bells and whistles I wanted . . . and one small hitch.
ANOTHER call centre in India!

SHADOW foreign minister David Lidington was outraged when Iran detained five British sailors who had strayed into Iranian waters (I use the term ‘sailors’ loosely for a bunch of yachties sailing in war-torn waters with no GPS, no engine spares and – to my mind – no bloody sense!).
“It is completely unjustifiable!” thundered the Tory tyro. “There was no justification for them being arrested.”
I can’t wait to hear what he has to say next time five Iranians beach their raft on Brighton’s British sands!

First published in The Journal, Newscastle upon Tyne, December 4 2009