Caring about men and boys. This is a longer than usual Christmas episode; it includes the final part of the International Men’s Day parliamentary debate and a very special Christmas ‘good guys of the week’ feature that expresses the quintessential heroism of men. Days before Christmas, on the 19th December, almost 40 years ago in 1981, the Penlee lifeboat and it’s eight men crew as well as eight crew members and passengers on the Union star, were lost off the south west Cornish Coast.
Caring about men and boys. This is a longer than usual Christmas episode; it includes the final part of the International Men’s Day parliamentary debate and a very special Christmas ‘good guys of the week’ feature that expresses the quintessential heroism of men. Days before Christmas, on the 19th December, almost 40 years ago in 1981, the Penlee lifeboat and it’s eight men crew as well as eight crew members and passengers on the Union star, were lost off the south west Cornish Coast.
MP, Ben Bradleys’s International Men’s Day Speech: Working Class Boys at the Bottom of the Pile. Part 5
This is a longer than usual Christmas episode; it includes the final part of the International Men’s Day parliamentary debate and a very special Christmas ‘good guys of the week’ feature that expresses the quintessential heroism of men. Days before Christmas, on the 19th December, almost 40 years ago in 1981, the Penlee lifeboat and it’s eight men crew as well as 8 crew members and passengers on the Union star, were lost off the south west Cornish Coast.
Charlotte Nichols, a Labour MP for Warrington North responded to this debate on behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition. As shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, she did not want to pit the problems of men and women against each other but aspired to raise outcomes where one is below the other.
She felt reassured that members were still continuing to emphasise the important issues but at the same time, concerned to note that they still needed to be raised.
She reviewed, as other speakers had, the disproportionately high male suicide rates, particularly during Covid-19; she commended the work of CALM, the Campaign Against Living Miserably, Rethink, Mind and the other organisations that had been highlighted. She also reminded Members that the Samaritans could be phoned at any time of the day or night, on 116 123.
While saying, unhelpfully in my opinion, that men should feel able to talk about their problems with friends or professionals, she did add again helpfully in my opinion, that society should accept and embrace a more open understanding of men’s feelings and concerns; she included men who may be gay, bisexual or transgender who feel alone or scared about those identities. There wasn’t a mention though of more understanding of identities based on traditional masculinity.
With regard to prostate cancer, she had some good advice, encouraging men to discuss this with their doctors at age 50, and black men, or men with a family history of prostate cancer to discuss it at 45. She encouraged more self-testing for testicular cancer and noted that men are more likely to die prematurely than women, including of diseases that are considered preventable.
In order to address boys’ underachievement in education, Charlotte Nichols suggested that more male teachers, more male role models or closer support and attention to alternative teaching methods should be considered
She told us that men are still more likely to be victims of violent crime in the UK, nearly twice as likely as women; and that among children, boys are more likely than girls to be victims of violence, while more than two thirds of murder victims are male. She acknowledged that men are less likely to speak out or confide in somebody about their experience of domestic violence and added that they should not be forgotten.
She repeated the statistic about 86% of rough sleepers being male and said that huge numbers of people were having to choose between a cold winter on our streets or the threat of catching Covid in an overcrowded shelter.
She ended by noting that globally there were thousands of boys being forced into becoming child soldiers, and how gay men in particular are all too often oppressed with threats of violent death. Finally, she hoped that speakers in next year’s debate will be able to report on progress in these many important areas.
The last speaker I’m going to report on is Kemi Badenoch, Conservative MP for Saffron Walden and Minister for Equalities.
In her introduction, amongst other things she said that it was sad that it seems to be mainly Members on the Government side of the House who felt interested enough to speak; and that it highlighted the fact that this is an issue that many people believe is not important enough to speak on. She hoped that next time, the hon. Lady, Charlotte Nichols, would speak with her colleagues across the House to rectify this. And personally, I’d like to invite you to write to your local MP and ask them what they are doing for men and if they will commit to attending the International Men’s Day parliamentary debate next year?
Kemi Badenoch discussed how the Equality Hub, which is part of the Cabinet,
will consider sex, along with other factors such as race, sexual orientation, geography and socioeconomic background to ensure a levelling up across the country.
She repeated that men have been disproportionately impacted by Covid and that, after age, sex is the second largest single risk factor and, that the chief medical officer had commissioned an expert group to develop a risk model to help everyone assess their own individual Covid-19 risk.
She acknowledged the serious impact on mental wellbeing that Covid had had and suggested that anyone experiencing distress, anxiety or feeling low could visit the Every Mind Matters website and gov.uk for advice and tailored, practical steps to support wellbeing and manage mental health during this pandemic.
At this point, Sam Tarry, Labour MP for Ilford South asked the minister if the Government would also consider the Samaritans’ research that talks very much about middle-aged men, who are often missed by community-based support when facing a mental health crisis, and that this can often lead to suicide? He suggested that perhaps the Government could factor that in, so that those people, who are not so visibly at risk, can also be supported at times of crisis.
Kemi Badenoch completely agreed and noted that this week, the NHS had launched its “Help us help you” campaign, a major initiative to encourage people who are struggling with common mental health illnesses to come forward for help through NHS talking therapies. Personally, I don’t think it’s enough to just keep repeatedly asking men to speak up about their mental health issues or to come forward! It reminds me a little bit of the ‘just say no!’ war on drugs campaign that was popular in the eighties and early nineties; this project was similarly overly simple and failed to acknowledge the deeper underlying factors of the issue. We need to be much more creative in our thinking about helping men with mental health issues rather than thinking we can only help men if they become more like women, that’s what we’re saying, and stop repeating a worn out, ineffectual message.
A few more bullet points of the minister’s contribution included
· how the “Help us help you” campaigns have sought to increase the number of people coming forward who are worried about cancer symptoms, including testicular and prostate cancer.
· She spoke of how on the 18th of July, the Next Steps accommodation Programme had been launched making £161 million available to local authorities and their partners to prevent previous rough sleepers returning to the streets; helping them to deliver 3,300 units of longer-term move-on accommodation in 2020-21
She closed by asking members to take a moment to celebrate the contribution that men and boys make to our society; to celebrate our fathers and our sons, our brothers and our friends, and, indeed, our colleagues and the progress the government has made in supporting them. She gave the example of how since 2010, we have seen the introduction of shared parental leave, allowing mothers and fathers to share the highs and, indeed, the lows of caring for their new babies; and that this Government is also committed to making it easier for fathers to take paternity leave; and that, subject to further consultation, they are committed to introducing measures to make flexible working the default for men and women unless employers have a good reason not to.
Philip Davies then asked the minister if she would look at making it easier for absent fathers to have access to their children and to speed up the process through the family courts, which is often a tortuous one that causes so much heartache for so many fathers?
Kemi Badenoch agreed that was something they could look into. She recognised Philip Davies’ work in raising awareness of fathers’ feelings of alienation from losing access to their children. She reminded him that the draft statutory guidance to be issued under the Domestic Abuse Bill currently recognises parental alienation as an example of coercive or controlling behaviour and acknowledged his influence in that fact.
She thanked Ben Bradley for organising the debate; she acknowledged that he had taken issue with the way the Equality Act is interpreted – that protecting particular groups may not be as helpful as protecting individuals with particular issues. She said she would raise the issue of a minister for men with the Minister for Women and Equalities and the Prime Minister on his behalf.
Ben Bradley concluded the debate by thanking the Minister for her response and for the work that she is doing to get the equalities agenda right, and particularly the work of the hub that she mentioned; he was pleased he said that socioeconomic and geographical factors had been included for the first time. He thanked all the other contributors and ended by saying that the support men and boys need is needed every day and should be available every day; that we should all be helping men to reach out and seek help, and to be continuing to raise the many issues around mental health, suicide and our services, not just on International Men’s Day, but when this day is long gone.
Good Guys of the Week
For once, a drumroll seems highly inappropriate at the beginning of this most sombre report, as does the usual applause at the end.
If you are Cornish born, or have lived here for 39 years or more as I have, every year, just before Christmas, we remember the Penlee lifeboat disaster. At 6.00 p.m. on the 19th December 1981, I was a week away from my due date with my oldest daughter and the Falmouth Coastguard received a call from the coaster, Union Star.
One of the Union Star’s fuel tanks had filled with water, making an engine restart impossible. The backdrop to this was a fierce storm with rough seas and powerful winds; a hurricane force 12 gale was blowing, and the vessel was fighting against 90-knot winds and up to 60 foot waves. The coaster had been blown to within two miles of the notoriously treacherous Cornish coastline.
Initially Falmouth Coastguard called in a Sea King helicopter to rescue the crew of eight. However, the Union Star was rolling and pitching so violently on the wild seas, that it was feared that her mast would collide with the aircraft’s propellors and down her.
At the same time, in the Cornish Village of Mousehole, near Penzance, word spread that their lifeboat stationed at Penlee Point may be needed and the Solomon Browne was put on standby.
A dozen men answered the call for crew that night, but only eight were needed. Two hours after the first alert, the boat was finally launched. It headed out to sea to the powerless Union Star which had, by then, lost one of her anchors but was desperately trying to hold position so that she could be helped by the lifeboat which for half an hour was valiantly fighting the harsh breaking seas attempting to come alongside her.
The Sea King helicopter pilot, Lieutenant Commander Russell Smith observed how the rescue vessel was apparently stranded for a few seconds but then, as the Union Star listed in the waves, incredibly, in an awe-inspiring display of seamanship, the Lifeboat's coxswain, William Trevelyan Richards, used that momentum to tuck the lifeboat alongside the Union Star. The lifeboat crew, stood against the railings, threw their lines across to pull themselves alongside and waited, as the ocean exploded around them; they stretched out their arms and urged the children, women and men aboard the Union Star, to leap for their lives. They rescued four of the eight people onboard. Having achieved that, the lifeboat crew didn’t turn back to shore; instead, they made a final heroic attempt to rescue the two persons who remained aboard and two who had fallen overboard.
In a radio message to the Falmouth Coastguard at 9.21pm that evening, the lifeboat's mechanic, James Madron, said: "this is the Penlee Lifeboat. Penlee Lifeboat calling Falmouth Coastguard. We got four men off – look, er, hang on – we got four off at the moment, er, ma… male and female. There’s two left on board…’
James never got to tell Falmouth Coastguard about the two overboard. His message was interrupted by a loud thud and screech, as the lifeboat was either dashed against the rocks, or smashed against the hull of the Union Star.
And then, the radio fell silent.
Big sigh.
Lt Commander Smith of the Sea King helicopter would say later that, the manoeuvres he had witnessed were the greatest acts of courage he had ever seen, and was ever likely to see, and that they were truly the bravest eight men he had ever seen, men who were totally dedicated to upholding the highest standards of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute.
A public inquiry concluded that the loss of the Solomon Browne was a ‘consequence of the persistent and heroic endeavours by the coxswain and his crew to save the lives of all from the Union Star’. The inquiry noted, ‘such heroism enhances the highest traditions of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in whose service they gave their lives’.
The men who gave their lives were
· Coxswain Trevelyan Richards
· Second Coxswain and Mechanic James Madron
· Assistant Mechanic Nigel Brockman
· Emergency Mechanic John Blewett
· Crew Member Charles Greenhaugh
· Crew Member Kevin Smith
· Crew Member Barrie Torrie
· Crew Member Gary Wallis.
Coxswain Trevelyan Richards was posthumously awarded the RNLI’s Gold Medal for Gallantry and the rest of the crew were awarded Bronze Medals.
I’m so pleased to say that every year, on December 19, between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. all of the famous Christmas lights at Mousehole are dimmed in memory of the 16 people who lost their lives in 1981, all lights are dimmed except the single installation of the Cross and Angels shining down across the village and out to sea.
Instead of the applause that usually honours my good guy or good guys of the week. I’d like to share with you, something that more appropriately honours the courage of traditional Cornish men, their official/unofficial anthem.
I hope you will enjoy this wonderful rendition of ‘Trelawney, performed by the fabulous shanty group, Fishermen’s Friends, based in North Cornwall.
I include a link to Fisherman’s Friends’ performance and to the lyrics of ‘Trelawny’ in the episode notes; I hope that this powerful Cornish anthem will encourage you to exercise your independence, to do your own risk assessment, and have the Christmas and New Year rituals that represent that.
https://youtu.be/3KRDP680VgE
Trelawny
Lyrics by Robert Stephen Hawker (1804–1875)
A good sword and a trusty hand,
A merry heart and true!
King James's men shall understand
What Cornish lads can do.
And have they fixed the where and when?
And shall Trelawny die?
Here's twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why!
And shall Trelawney live?
Or shall Trelawney die?
Here's twenty thousand Cornish men
Will know the reason why!