Memory Lane: interviewing people looking for work in 1975

Those nice people from MACE, the Media Archive of Central England, have just posted a television report I did for 'ATV Today' (the news programme that covered the English Midlands) on 25 July 1975. Interviewing people in Birmingham looking for work https://www.macearchive.org/films/atv-today-25071975-unemployment-crisis

Memory lane - The days I interviewed Margaret Thatcher

During my time as a television reporter at ATV Today in the Midlands (1973-77) I interviewed Margaret Thatcher a few times. Of course, in those days, she was leader of the opposition before she became prime minister.

She was also quite a nervous and often reluctant interviewee. This is perhaps the most interesting of our encounters. As I doorstepped her during campaigning for the Walsall North by-election in 1976, Mrs Thatcher attacked the Labour government for allowing unemployment to reach 1.4 million. Fun fact: during her Conservative government, unemployment went over 3 million.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzqaguv27o8

The previous year I caught up with her as she toured the Royal Crown Derby factory in Derby, to get her reaction to the Labour government's plan to rescue troubled car manufacturer British Leyland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6qGYJ5MOAw

The world's worst dam disaster

Yesterday I blogged about Britain’s worst dam disaster. The world’s worst happened in China in 1975.

As part of his ‘Great Leap Forward’ designed to enable China to become a major industrial power, Chairman Mao encouraged peasants to go off and build dams, which they did with great enthusiasm, but also with a Brexiter-like disdain for experts. So the structures were jerry-built, and within a couple of years, they were collapsing. A hydrologist who tried to sound a warning was purged for being a ‘right-wing opportunist’.

In August 1975, storms dumped heavy rain on Henan province. On 9 August, the Shimantan dam collapsed and half an hour later, the Banqiao dam gave way, unleashing a wall of water 20 feet high. In all 60 dams burst, flooding an area of 4,000 square miles.

China tried to hide the disaster from the world’s gaze, and it was 30 years before the truth began to emerge. The authorities admitted that at least 26,000 had been killed, but other estimates put the figure as high as 85,000 killed by the floods, with another 145,000 from the famine and disease that followed.

For the full story, see my book A Disastrous History of the World.

Brexitwatch: the blog that foresaw the future.

So I was proved right, though I would have preferred to be proved wrong. 

This is what I posted on 10 June 2015

WEDNESDAY, 10 JUNE 2015

David Cameron and Europe - at last the truth

Like me you probably thought you were seeing things a couple of days ago when David Cameron suddenly seemed to develop a backbone as he declared that anti-European ministers would have to, er . . . follow government policy or resign. Indeed we were seeing things, and normal service was resumed within a couple of hours as Dave caved in to the anti-European fanatics.

I did warn that if the Tories won the General Election in 2015, Britain would leave Europe. It is not what Cameron wants. He and George Osborne understand it would be a disaster, even if the rest of their party do not, but having the courage to say so is, of course, quite another matter.

It’s clear that Cameron’s plan is to follow Harold Wilson’s recipe from 1975. Lace your speeches with plenty of anti-European rhetoric and agree to a referendum to placate the extremists in your party. Carry on a ‘renegotiation’ with your European partners. Gain a couple of cosmetic changes that you sell as major concessions. Win the referendum to stay in Europe by a comfortable majority.

I covered the 1975 referendum, and here is why Cameron will fail:-

1. Harold Wilson was one of the sharpest political operators Britain has ever seen. Cameron is simply not in his class.

2. The newspapers in Wilson’s time covered Europe reasonably fairly. Now the papers with the biggest circulations spew out an unremitting stream of anti-European bile.

Brexit looms. Will the last businessman to leave the country please turn out the lights.

Tales from the European Referendum - of 1975. No.3. EC Commissioner Sir Christopher Soames

Today Europe gets the blame for most things - immigration, our inability to export successfully, preventing too many wars, etc etc. 1975 was the same. On this particular day, the issue was food prices. 

You can understand why British politicians would want to blame Europe. After all, what is more likely to advance your career, saying: 'Sorry, it's my fault' or saying 'It's all Europe's fault'?

Here I tackle one of the UK's European Commissioners, Sir Christopher Soames, on whether Europe was to blame for rising food prices:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB5iUEOeWxU&feature=youtu.be

Tales from the European Referendum - of 1975. No 2. The voters speak.

Here I am ‘vox popping’ people in Birmingham in the run-up to the 1975 vote on Europe asking them how they think it will go. Interesting how many people did not seem to know we were already in Europe, and to hear the same complaints you get today that they do not know enough to make their minds up. Perhaps that just confirms that this is a very complex issue, and more suited to being decided by a general election than a referendum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBsycaKZGMU&feature=youtu.be

Here is my interview with former Prime Minister Ted Heath featured in my post of May 20.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjWLZpCKK6o&feature=youtu.be

Tales from the European Referendum - of 1975. No. 1. Ted Heath

Here I am interviewing former Prime Minister Ted Heath - the man who took Britain into Europe - during the referendum campaign of 1975. If you're impatient to hear my dulcet tones, they start at about 1 minute 15 seconds in.

 http://www.macearchive.org/Archive/Title/atv-today-05051975-edward-heath-in-birmingham/MediaEntry/23086.html

In those days, the Conservative Party was solidly pro-European. How did they morph into today's little Englanders?

A shame Heath is not still around. He would have injected a bit of much needed fire into the pro-Europe camp. I would have loved seeing him lay into the Tory antis' Infamous Five - Johnson, Gove, Fox and a couple of others whose names escape me. 

Memory Lane

Back in the 1970s, I used to be industrial correspondent at ATV in the English Midlands, appearing mainly on ATV Today. Two of my film reports from that era have just appeared online:-

The effects of the British Leyland toolmakers' strike on supplies of the Mini in 1975 - 
http://www.macearchive.org/Archive/Title/atv-today-11031975-british-leyland-toolmakers-strike/MediaEntry/22814.html

The British hot rod team practising in 1974 - 
http://www.macearchive.org/Archive/Title/atv-today-21111974-british-hot-rod-team-practising-at-hednesford/MediaEntry/22279.html

David Cameron and Europe - at last the truth

Like me you probably thought you were seeing things a couple of days ago when David Cameron suddenly seemed to develop a backbone as he declared that anti-European ministers would have to, er . . . follow government policy or resign. Indeed we were seeing things, and normal service was resumed within a couple of hours as Dave caved in to the anti-European fanatics.

I did warn that if the Tories won the General Election in 2015, Britain would leave Europe. It is not what Cameron wants. He and George Osborne understand it would be a disaster, even if the rest of their party do not, but having the courage to say so is, of course, quite another matter.

It’s clear that Cameron’s plan is to follow Harold Wilson’s recipe from 1975. Lace your speeches with plenty of anti-European rhetoric and agree to a referendum to placate the extremists in your party. Carry on a ‘renegotiation’ with your European partners. Gain a couple of cosmetic changes that you sell as major concessions. Win the referendum to stay in Europe by a comfortable majority.

I covered the 1975 referendum, and here is why Cameron will fail:-

1. Harold Wilson was one of the sharpest political operators Britain has ever seen. Cameron is simply not in his class.

2. The newspapers in Wilson’s time covered Europe reasonably fairly. Now the papers with the biggest circulations spew out an unremitting stream of anti-European bile.

Brexit looms. Will the last businessman to leave the country please turn out the lights.

The worst floods in history

The worst natural disaster ever happened in 1931 when the Yellow River and the Yangtze burst their banks in China, flooding an area nearly as big as England. Up to 3.75 million people lost their lives in the flood itself, then in the famine and disease that swept through the country in its wake. The second deadliest natural disaster ever was another flood of the Yellow River in 1887, which cost up to 2.5 million lives.

In fact, the Yellow River burst its banks an estimated 1,500 times over three millennia, to be given the name ‘China’s Sorrow’.  Another of its floods in 1938 (pictured) cost the lives of up to 800,000 people, but this was a man-made flood, as the Chinese Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, ordered dykes to be blown up to slow the advance of the invading Japanese army.

Floods come in many shapes and sizes, and China was also the scene of the world’s deadliest dam burst, with the collapse in 1975 of a number of Gerry-built structures erected as part of Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward, at the cost of up to 230,000 lives.

We usually think of rain causing floods, but the culprit in Peru in 1941 was a heat wave. It caused a huge lump of ice to fall off a mountain into Lake Palcacocha, making it overflow and sending a torrent racing through towns and villages, drowning 7,000 people.

*For the full story, see my new book, Flood: Nature and Culture (Reaktion Books) ISBN 978 1 78023 196 9. It also includes chapters on how so many religions have stories of apocalyptic floods, how floods have been portrayed in literature, art and films, how some of the most ambitious structures ever built by humans have been erected to protect against flooding, and how climate change may now be making humanity more vulnerable than ever to the waters.

** Here's a review of the book. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-35616955.html

Get a radio, stop a disaster

Simple lack of warning and information is often a factor in increasing casualties from a disaster.   Now Bangladesh, one of the poorest, most low-lying and most densely populated nations on earth is trying to harness the power of radio to improve things.

Six local community stations have started broadcasting, another 8 have been approved, and applications are in for 22 more.   Bazlur Rahman, chief executive officer of Bangladesh’s Network for Radio and Communication, says most people in the countryside are illiterate, but that they ‘can easily understand weather bulletins and other instructions' when they are broadcast in local dialects.

A local fisherman said crews are encouraged to carry radios with them, so they can return home quickly if there is any danger.   One community station plans to provide a free solar-powered radio to each cyclone shelter so people can receive safety instructions while they are sheltering there.

In 1970, Bangladesh fell victim to the most disastrous storm in history, which killed up to a million people.  Most had no warning of what was happening until huge waves crashed upon them.

*From those nice people at the MACE archive - a report I did on the death of Imperial Typewriters at Leicester in 1975.

http://www.macearchive.org/archive.html?Title=22712

Peacetime ammunition explosions

At least 32 people have been killed in a series of explosions at munitions depots at an army base in Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam. The blasts at the Gongola Mboto base went on for several hours.

Most of those killed were people living near the base, as debris flew through the air. The explosions caused panic because residents had no clear information on what was happening. At least 4,000 are said to be sheltering at the National Stadium.

Two years ago, explosions at the Mbagala army base, near Dar es Salaam, killed more than 20 people.

An even more devastating explosion at an army base was the one that ripped through the Ikeja cantonment, near Lagos in Nigeria, on 27 January, 2002. Houses were flattened, and shells, grenades and bullets set off. Perhaps 2,000 people died. For more details, see A Disastrous History of the World.

*This is a television report that I did in 1975 that has just turned up on the net!

http://www.macearchive.org/Media.html?Title=23148#

China - secret disasters

In China an activist who has been investigating the Sichuan earthquake of 2008 has been jailed for five years for inciting subversion. Although the charges against Tan Zuoren did not formally relate to his investigation, human rights groups claim they were the real reason for the prosecution.

He was arrested while preparing a report into the collapse of school buildings during the quake. In many areas, schools seemed to have fared worse than neighbouring buildings, and parents alleged that corruption had led to poor building standards. Altogether 80,000 people died.

A Hong Kong television crew was prevented from attending Tan Zuoren’s trial, and had their hotel room searched for alleged possession of drugs.

China has a record of secrecy in the aftermath of disasters. After the great Tangshan quake of 1976 it took two years for the authorities to announce that 242,000 had been killed, and many still believe the true number was much higher, while details of the Henan floods of 1975 – caused by shoddily built dams – were suppressed for nearly 30 years. Human rights groups believe that more than 200,000 people died.

Dam bursts

At least 58 people, and probably many more, have been drowned after a dam built of earth burst south-west of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. The waters of the Situ Gintung lake rose because of heavy rain, then overwhelmed the dam, which gave way at two in the morning when most people were asleep. The waters swept away cars and brought down telephone lines. The dam was said to be up to 100 years old.

The world’s worst ever dam burst happened in China’s Henan province in 1975. As part of his “Great Leap Forward”, Chairman Mao had ordered villagers all over the country to build home-made, and home-designed, dams with whatever implements they could lay their hands on. After days of exceptionally heavy rain, more than sixty of them burst, and floods spread over 4,000 square miles.

Whole towns were washed away, and more than a million people were trapped by the waters, but the authorities tried to keep the disaster secret, and it was only in 1995 that the pressure group Human Rights Watch began to reveal its full magnitude. It was another decade before the Chinese authorities started to lift the veil of secrecy, saying that 26,000 people had been killed. Others believe the toll was much higher, with Human Rights Watch putting it at 85,000 in addition to the 145,000 who died from starvation and disease in the aftermath.