Soapbox

It never ceases to amaze me when I overhear conversations, either of peoples own sad and sorrowful situations or of general conversation about 'The State of the Nation',  why are people surprised at the cut-backs, for me the only surprise is that they have come so late.


The High Tech War that is being fought in Afghanistan is costing the country millions of pounds each and every hour, the cost of the war by far exceeds that which is available through the general public, cuts in policing, health care, education, the selling off of assets, most recently the channel tunnel link, it is innevitable that there has to be a source of funds to keep our troops in Afghanistan, the reality of life at the moment is that this country is slowly but surely heading toward total bancruptsy, add the cost of war to our National Debt and the mathmatics is simple, we are spending much more than we can afford., current war cost estimated at around £2.5billion weekly, The National Debt around £960 billion, The Gulf Wars around half a trillion pounds, where is the money going to come from, why are people surprised at cutbacks, even if every person in the UK donated their entire months wages to the Government we would still be in Debt.

for a good idea of the financial cost of war, although now historical and out of date you can well imagine where we are at in the present
The Hidden Cost of War

The situation for the general public is worsening and is not so far from our heading into a situation where the homeless figures will rise and continue to rise until such a time as we see that, as a nation, we are as  impoverished as peoples in what was once referred to as ''Third World'', now called Developing Countries, while we ourselves are failing to 'develop', in the past 24 hours I have had one person knock on my door for a coffee, not because he wanted to share my company but simply that he had run out of electric and gas and was cold, another only yesterday saying that she was in a situation where she was now forced to sell her home because she could no longer afford to keep up the payments on her home.

To name but a few, we have mothers days, fathers days, we have smoking awareness days, a whole list of days where we should take stock, on the recent announcement of a Royal Wedding a Public Holiday has been quickly promised, there is no Homelessness Aware Day, not in this country, in America yes, in Australia, yes, but not here, Homelessness is a growing problem and one that will continue to grow and grow as the financial plight of this country increases; SHELTER recently announced that the Government was targeting the poorest and most vulnerable of society, this is true in one respect however in another, it is truly the poorest and the most vulnerable that now make up a majority group within our modern society; more can be taken from this majority group than the small number of disgustingly wealthy individuals, it is simply mathematics that govern a country and as much as the government hype professes to 'understand and be emphathise with the sad situations of peoples lives there truly is little that the government can do.

Homelessness will increase as will poverty as long as people take little notice of what is going on in the bigger picture and bring drastic change to their lives, in some respects the homeless minority are fortunate, they have nothing to lose and there truly is only one direction that they can go, for the remainder of society it is time to tighten their belts and to respond to the homeless situation as it now stands, they may themselves one day need the services that are currently in operation to help.

References
http://stopwar.org.uk/content/view/2129/1/
http://www.debtbombshell.com/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/13/afghanistan-iraq-bill-british-military

thoughts at the end of a chapter of life

Final Video 11 minutes, or there about!
warriors walk final film cut [HQ]

The cards will all come down today though my inner self would like to see them remain in situ they have done their job, fantastically,  the comments from the public, the press and the Royal British Legion have been more than enough to leave me lingering between humility and embarassment.

I have no doubt that from today, the number of poppies on people lapels will slowly start to diminish as will, though not entirely, the strength of their emotions regarding the the sheer weight of loss that this country burdens in relation to our lost heroes, the grieving for the families will go on in the background as the country settles back into their own lives and personal issues.

Sad though it is it is a fact that there are few in this great country of around 70 million people who do not live their lives without one problem or another, each one battling their own issues in modern day stressful lives. while I move on from one awareness programme to the next I know that I will have to work as hard to tear people away from their perception that their problems are the biggest and most important in the world, how fickle, selfish and inhumane man can be when they who suffer the most are ignored as individuals get back to their own job, the pursuit of personal gain, of personal growth, a journey that is, for the most more than many deserve or will ever achieve, while their dreams. of bigger homes, of a fatter bank ballance, of a new car, of promotion, for sure many will never achieve their dreams for dreams are borne of hard work and sacrifice.

some people are never satisfied, and never will be, destined instead to grow only toward a bitter and lonely old age while for some, even a sleeping bag would be the best christmas present in the world.

I can not leave the plight either of veterans or of our lost heroes behind for that is a part of me, my loss of friends and my own post war experiences make it so, for the now however I must leave that fight of recognition to the organisations whose resources are geared to that job knowing that I will return to that fight next year, for the now my attentions turn toward the veterans who return and end up in a different category of statistics, that of mental illness, of alcoholism and drug dependancy, most of all, the homeless;


3 years ago I produced 1000 minature homeless veterans borne of the statistical quote of marketing which suggested that ''On any given night there are 1000 veterans homeless.''

Three years on the quote for today is ''one in four homeless people are veterans.''  although there are no difinitive figures for this countries homeless a provisional search suggested a figure of more than 65,000 homeless people in the uk, to me that represents around 15,000 + homeless veterans, almost as many as have been killed since the cease of hostilities in 1945 which is around 16,000.


watch this space.

video clips of warriors walk

the time it takes to download the film clips of the day to Blogger is so very slow that I publish this blog merely to notify and to direct you to my facebook site, having a camera does not make me in any way a film maker, nor can I even aspire to having the basic ability to grasp the intricasies of video editing software, so little in fact that I found it impossible on this occasion to splice the clips together for publication,  still, in the words of a great artist whose name escapes me at present, ''I am always trying something new in order to learn how to do it.'' truly the story of my life ...........

Film editing in the old days was, for me, far less time consuming and fun, there were little frames that you ran the film through cutting and splicing together tiny strips of cellulose with small sticky bits of sellotape, then, back to the monitor to wind the film through with a small handle to make sure you had cut and spliced at the right frame, absolute fun.

last night, after three hours of struggling with buttons, clips, images and text, captions and transitions, rolling credits, cutting and pasting, transferring from hard drive to software,,,etc etc etc,,, I lost everything, everything that is except the original clips, the fight with editing software goes on while the warriors walk event continues to be a daily success, 

currently the local gazette is trying to establish who was actually responsible for the installation, it is the event however that is important at this moment in time moreso than the person responsible.     

less said, here is the link to the third clip, others are at the same location.


warriors walk III [HQ]

Warriors Walk

The catalyst for the installation was a flippant and ingnorant comment overheard in a shopping quiere, while two women argued over a donation to the 'help for heroes box'.                                  '' ..... they joined [the services] knowing what they had coming, it serves them right!"
My slant on this very different of course, not just an ex serviceman myself but moreso, a brother who has been in every conflict since and including, the Balkans and a son who has just joined the Royal Artillary, my slant was that by that simple act of knowing, or at least having some idea what they might be getting into was an action that which separated the men from the boys, noone, not even an experienced battle hardened soldier can know what ti expect;, rather than get into a conversation where two opposites would never find common ground, it set me off in search of some retaliation, what does an artist do if he wants to make a point, he does it visually and with such impact that the weaker of the argument is forced into submission, the Warriors Walk was spawned through that overheard conversation.

Initial discussions regarding the Installation allowed for several locations, up ginnels, on the parish Church Gates, on trees or along the river bank, it was the latter that captured my immagination, over 800 metres of fence, a busy thoroughfare where many people walked on a daily basis and, as it turned out the final agreed location.
For the next few weeks it was finding fotos of fallen heroes on the internet, nominal rolls, rolls of honour andvarious other military and emotive images to depict, how to mount them, protect them from the weather and with six weeks only to decide and execute we had set ourselves a tough target, 6th November to be completed and to  take action as to ensure that they were completed by the allotted time, originally agreed to be the saturday 6th Nov, one week before remembrance Sunday.

There have been 5 documented wars and operations that have dominated post war contemporary society since 1982  and it was decided to alott each a ribbon significant to the war, sadly we had to leave Northern Ireland out of the project as all of the information needed would have meant that installation would not have been ready on time, they, I will have to work with at a later date perhaps in a way that is dedicated toNorthern Ireland alone.

GOLD
for the Falklands, the jewel in the crown where training and equipment were absolutely for the era of training and the tactics of historical warfare.
WHITE
for the Balkans, as british troops were there on Peacekeeping missions
BLACK
for the Gulf Wars I and II , the colour of the ribbon symbolic of the oil discharged across the dessert like snakes from the air meandering along the easiest path.
RED WHITE AND BLUE
for the afghanistan war where the British Troops fight a war with significant autonomy in an international coalition
and RED,
for Operation Barra, a less heard of battle where SAS and 150 troops from 1 PARA with their Red DZ Flashes were drafted to Sierra Leone in 2000 in a rescue mission for the Irish Rangers held hostage by rebels,

There were two lost lives lost in Op Barra, a small number some would say however, combined with all of the others there were 851 Ribbons and cards that had to be found, printed, laminated, cut, holed and threaded with a ribbon.

The entire task took some days, as the day of hanging drew close as did the information that the local council were having a clampdown on posters and advertising material being hung on ''street furniture'', why did we not seek permission some asked, it was simple, artistic licence, freedom of speech and of most importance, why would or should we need permission to lay a personal tribute to the troops who fight bravely while others at home languish in relative comfort and safety and moan about their trivial woes, no, there was no permission needed, even if applied it would have not arrived by the due date, my skeptisism dissalowed the commitment of the local council who do not even fly a flag either at full mask or sadly at half mast when the troops are killed weekly.

the first obstacle was how to write a personal message on the back and retain full dignity for the man or woman and their families, even in the first few cards emotion set in as the dates of death were quickly abandoned in the realisation that for every fatal report there are another 800 or more families who would feel their grief again, and again,,,, all cards therefore indicated that they were killed   TODAY... for that is how it is for the family.

Posters were sent around the Town, the Library one being taken down as it did not represent a charity and one other shop not putting it up deeming it, by virtue of its not appearing in the window, as  unimportant, perhaps a boycott is in order.  by the day for hanging there was talk of the council having their prechristmas clampdow on illegal use of their street furniture so a decision was made to hang them the night before.

We started to hang, accompanied by two friends at four pm and finished, unbelievably, at 6, it had started to get dark at around five pm and, with the darkness, came the fire works, not enough for a show but sufficient to bring a startle each time there was a bang as I buried myself in the task and my associated thoughts, but finish we diid, over 800 metres of fence and 851 cards and ribbons, with a few left over we walked back along the path to hang the final few at the beginning where there were a few extra fences, can you imagine the pain as we realised that in the two hours it took to hang all of the ribbons, around 20 or so had been removed at the start point, abandoned I can only imagine, into the river;  a job that started based on an ignorant comment had ended in the same way, through ignorance and disregard to any respect to the servicemen, I was less horrified than the others, for me it simply justified the statement I was making as an arrow toward the ignorant.

A revisit today found a few more gone, random ones over the entire length of the fence, perhaps by souvenir hunters, the public support remains great, one comment, though the gentleman had no idea he was talking to the instigator,   '' a lot of work has gone on here, and what a great way to demonstrate such a huge waste of life, thankyou sir, you make me know that it has been worth it for I am sure many more share his views

Job done
thanks to Tim for suggesting the location, Sheila for works contributed and Andrew who helped us hang, most of all the local media for giving us hourly reports throughout the entire day.