To robe, or not to robe?

I don’t go to many civic ceremonies as a councillor - most are held during the working day - but the one I make every effort to attend is the Remembrance Sunday service held at the war memorial on St Giles, in the centre of Oxford.

(Incidentally, the one year I was absent, like so many of my colleagues, earned some little local notoriety in the Oxford Mail. Since when, attendance has much improved…)

It is, of course, important to honour those who lost or risked their lives defending the liberties that we too often take for granted today. One of the warmest rounds of applause during each year’s procession is reserved for the surviving veterans of the last world war.

In the last couple of years, there has been the added poignancy also of realising quite how many of our troops are currently in operational service - 22,700 of them are, as of now, located in:

• Afghanistan (5,800);
• Bosnia and Kosovo (900);
• Iraq (7,200);
• UN missions (300); and
• Northern Ireland (8,500);

with a further 27,390 on non-operational service in Germany, Cyprus, the South Atlantic Islands, Gibraltar and Diego Garcia.

It seems only right and proper that, one day each year, I should think how lucky have been the post-war generations not to be conscripted into military service; and all the more appreciative of those who voluntarily sign up so that I don’t have to.

There is one decision I consciously make each year, though - and that is to dispense with the robe which, as a councillor, I am entitled to wear on such civic occasions. This is an entirely personal decision, but one I have stuck to since I was first elected, back in May 2000.

I dislike such ostentatious ceremony, the point of which appears to be to show that councillors are separate from (perhaps grander than) those we represent. For sure, it is part of the city’s tradition, and maybe the spectacle of civic dignitaries in funny clothes is what the public wants, what they expect. But I am uncomfortable with outward displays of hierarchy which appear to exist for their own sake, and which symbolise the ‘them and us’ perception of politics among the public.

So I dress smartly and appropriately, as this photo from today’s service demonstrates (I’m fourth from the right). But I shall continue to eschew my robe.

And of course I stay silent during the singing of the National Anthem - I have no problems with God saving the Queen (though others are probably in greater need), but have no wish to lie through my teeth in His name by asking that she is ‘Long to reign over us’.

As every thinking schoolboy should, I became a socialist and a republican aged 16. I soon realised my juvenile mistake, allowing my socialism to lapse, then be converted into liberalism. However, my republicanism remains entrenched (albeit pretty dormant).

The pity of war, the pity war distilled

Strange meeting

It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall;
With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
"Strange, friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said the other, "Save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something has been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now ..."

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)