In praise of paper, and in memory of Lionel Cuffie

Having listened with half an ear this morning to Richard Coles, JP Devlin, et al. discuss the superiority of paper books with Margaret Mountford (of Apprentice fame) on Saturday Live, perhaps I was extra alert today for some love token to mark my long histoire d'amour with the book.

Margaret Mountford, as you may have been able to guess, is also a fan of the book - and made an interesting observation about not being able to remember so much when she reads text on a screen; her brain is trained to remember that something is at the top of the left-hand page, etc. - and I think mine is too. It transpires that Margaret gave up the glamours of meting out judgement to Bright Young Tycoons to complete a PhD in Papyrology - she had been doing it part-time and wanted to complete it within the allotted time without having to request an extension (these rather mundane details fascinate me - I do wonder how many other successful corporate lawyers would display her genteel attitude to education).

Well, the books decided to remind me why I love them this evening, with the above epistle from an old copy of Santayana...

Just as I love reading "Acknowledgements" sections, I also find inscriptions and bookplates fascinating; I never erase or cross out the names of those who have previously owned my books - instead I add my own - and I hate being given a book with a blank front page (the legacy of a family who would scrawl and draw long dedicatory inscriptions on every book we gave) -- and to the man who once RIPPED OUT the front pages of all of the books I had left in his house, because my name was written on them: there is a particularly unpleasant corner of purgatory reserved especially for you.

One of my favourites is a copy of Isadora Duncan's autobiography which was once owned by Corin Redgrave, and I found out about a whole set of mid-century Cambridge feminists all because one of them had once owned my Edna St. Vincent Millay "Conversation at Midnight. Tonight, however, I was re-reading Santayana's "Genteel Tradition" and - procrastinating but also interested - decided to look up the "Lionel Cuffie" of Harvard who had previously owned my copy. Was he now a writer himself? - or an academic, or lawyer, or politician? - for a man who had been at Harvard forty years ago, the possibilities seemed endless.

The answer, unfortunately, was none of these: Lionel Cuffie died in 1985, from AIDS. He did, however, do remarkable things: in 1969 he founded the "Rutgers Student Homophile League" (only the second student organisation for gay men and women in the US): "I founded the league on impulse from my conscience, I thought it was my moral duty to bring other people to the same realizations that I had come to over the summer -- that we, as homosexuals, are an oppressed minority." 

 

Remember Jason Donovan; or, How the SNP embraces homophobia

You may not have heard of Kenneth Gunn - indeed, you most likely have not heard of Kenneth Gunn. I had forgotten I had heard of him until yesterday, driving home through the Yarrow valley, in the aftermath of last week's local elections, we saw a fluorescent SNP placard in a farmhouse front garden; along with the SNP symbol (I have never known what it is meant to represent - a ribbon?) it bore the injunction, "Gunn". I asked my Borders-based friend if this was the same Kenneth Gunn I had come across a few years ago (he and his wife have done some very impressive charity work). It was indeed.

My Borders friend then made a passing comment to some past Selkirk scandal involving Kenneth Gunn and homophobic comments he had made. This immediately made me curious, and led me to this Southern Reporter piece from August 2009. It transpires that during a BBC Radio Scotland phone-in (about an interactive Glasgow exhibition which invited participants to write in and on the Bible, in an effort to 'write in' to it those who have traditionally been 'written out'), Kenneth Gunn got a little homophobia-happy and was slightly too open about his opinion of "so-called gays" (love that phrase) and atheists:

"Just look where this country has gone over the last 40 or 50 years. When we all went to church on a Sunday morning and we all prayed to the Lord Jesus Christ every Sunday morning, this was a much better country. Look where it is going now. We have got so-called gays who are really very sad people and we have non-believers and heathens, you know, running the country and running down Christianity."

The full transcript can be found in the Southern Reporter - if you read it, you will see that it is not the most vitriolic of homophobic religious rants that we have been subjected to over the last few years. Indeed, it is not the language or subject-matter of Gunn's tirade that I find interesting; what I find interesting is the reaction, or lack of it from the SNP.

There was absolutely no action from the SNP, other than to state that the "comments are a personal matter" and to ask Gunn to apologise that his comments had caused "offence". Other than that, Gunn has continued to represent the SNP, and to stand as their candidate at a number of elections. This sends a very clear message that the SNP not only tolerate homophobia, but are happy to be associated with it (rather like the issue of their refusal to condemn or even seriously engage with the sectarian violence associated with Scottish football, they are afraid to alienate what they see as their key electorate. What happened to politicians with ideals who wanted to make the world a better place: Wilberforce, etc. I know I sound naive, but seriously, this is low - exploiting homophobia, sectarianism, etc. in order to maintain support).

I couldn't help but be reminded of another homophobic incident involving another SNP-er - this time an MSP: Alasdair Allan. Allan is the MSP for the Western Isles (and - incidentallty - originates from Kenneth Gunn's own stomping ground) and, in 2008, was accused (by a political enemy) of "walking hand-in-hand" with "his boyfriend [...] enjoying the beautiful weather" (It was also suggested that this show of decadent perversion took place on a Sunday - not being an inhabitant of the Western Isles, I'm not sure whether breaking the Sabbath is more or less sinful than sodomy).