An apology to the young. We have let them down.

It is, surely, part of the human condition for each generation to aim to leave the world in a better shape than they were born into. We want peace, prosperity, and joy for our children and grandchildren.

I was born not long after the War. There was still rationing. Times were tight. But it was also just after the birth of the NHS and the Welfare State. No longer would the poor and the sick need to struggle by themselves. National insurance payments would provide a safety net for everyone.

It was an idealistic response to the deprivation of the 1930s and then the horrors of War. But it was also built on a belief that we can, and should, create a world in which peace, mutual respect and care for the frail and vulnerable is possible without judgement. 

The 1960s built on that. We were the generation who could, and would, make it all happen.

But now I am ashamed of us.

My education was subsidised until I was 24. I emerged without debts, and a qualification that led to a job. I could save for the deposit on a house. I was healthy, and I was educated. Of course, there was still a long way to go - there was still hardship and deprivation. Racism was rife. But we had made a start and pressed on optimistically.

Thatcher did her best to scupper our efforts. Her cult of individualism bred selfishness that hasn’t helped. Blair made a start on turning that tide, and then wrecked it by invading Iraq. 

And from then on ... we have seen all we believed in and fought for eroded. Education is precious - and yet now only the wealthy can take it for granted. Those working in the NHS find their efforts to keep us healthy and care for the sick undermined by a government who can offer nothing but glib, meaningless statements. We had forged peaceful links with Europe, found a way to end the fighting in Ireland - and that’s all being dismantled. We recognised the scourge that is racism and have challenged it in every corner - but only an outcry in the press has made the government pause in its efforts to deport brown people. There is more poverty, more homelessness ... I could go on.

How can we look at our children and grandchildren in the eye? I hope they rise up in a rage and protest. We have let them down.

There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Kathmandu

Is it just me, or was this one of the lines somehow edged itself into your memory during your childhood?  I think my father quoted it from time to time, though he didn't know the rest of the poem. (For those who don't know it - it's here.)

It's a lovely line - in the sense that it bounces along, presents an instant image, leads the reader into the narrative behind the poem. I came across it again the other day - written during the days of the Raj, it tells the tale of a militiaman in love with a young woman, her ethnicity unclear but the implication is that she is Nepali (Kathmandu being the capital of Nepal).

It's a poem of its time. The young woman asked for the eye of this little idol as proof of love, but the idol haunted the man for years afterwards. It wouldn't, at the time, have raised an eyebrow - especially as the lovely rhythms of that first line carry on throughout the poem.

Now - in the twenty-first century - it feels patronising - even racist. The jaunty tone of the poem contradicts any suggestion that this might be a love poem, even implies attraction between people of different ethnicities is slightly comic.

In addition, this yellow idol - diminished as it is by the loss of an eye - bears no relation to any of the Hindu deities I came across in Nepal.

Does this matter? Maybe not - it's a poem of its time. We've moved on, and surely anyone reading it could recognise that times have changed. And yet that sing-song rhythm lingers. I've come across people who, when I mention I've been to Nepal, quote this line. For some it seems to include all they know about the country.

I don't want to suggest we cull every Victorian poem that celebrated the Empire. But I wonder if we need to read them with one eye (yellow or not) on the times in which they were written and another on the wonderful opportunities we now have to celebrate our diversities and our commonalities.