Saudi Arabia's hostility to Al Jazeera

The demand by the Saudi Arabians that Al Jazeera be closed is deeply ironical  as they were unwittingly responsible for its original very successful launch.

I was managing editor of the original BBC Arabic TV channel in the mid 1990s. The Saudis objected so strongly to our output that they shut us down by taking us off the satellite that they owned. At around the same time, Qatar was trying to get Al Jazeera off the ground, but with little success. This was chiefly because they could not get the right sort of staff, but with the sudden closure of the BBC channel, they had the pick of more than 150 talented BBC-trained Arab presenters, writers, producers and technicians. So, in November 1996, the channel went on the air, staffed chiefly by ex-BBC people who had taken with them the corporation's ethos of balance, fairness and honesty. In addition, Al Jazeera was able to buy at bargain-basement rates all the documentaries and features that the BBC had not had a chance to broadcast.

I have no doubt that if the Saudis had not crushed the BBC channel (not restored by the corporation until 2008), Al Jazeera would have struggled to become the political and social force that it so quickly did.

More on this by going to my website archive. You will find the articles HERE.

For those who care about how and what they write...

Have you made a flagrant error, in confusing your alternative choices? The legendary Fleet Street newspaper editor Harold Evans has this glossary to solve your language dilemmas. Well worth reading here.

And you might find my own list of misused and unnecessary words instructive. The link is here

God's Triangle update: how a lost grave was found.

Soon after I started researching my book God's Triangle some years ago, I began the hunt to find the grave of my great aunt, Florence Martha "Florrie" Cox, the central character in this true story.

It was easy to establish that she was buried, along with her parents, Arthur and Elizabeth Cox, in the Boroondara (Kew) General Cemetery, one of the oldest cemeteries in Melbourne, Australia. The cemetery was able to provide me with the grave number and the fact that it was in the small Primitive Methodist Section, but I soon learned that it bore no memorial headstone or any other form of identification.

During visits to my homeland, Australia, over the years I made a number of unsuccessful searches of the cemetery for the grave. Then I struck it lucky: I discovered the wonderful people in Friends of Boroondara Cemetery. They got digging (so to speak) in the files and found the grave some distance away from where I have been vainly looking for so long.

I am now delighted to report that Florrie Cox's grave no longer lies unidentified and untended. Last month, there was an informal plaque-laying ceremony, attended by the Friends president Pauline Turville and secretary Elaine Race, my cousin Alan Cox and wife Elizabeth, my cousin John Mole, and myself and wife Rosemary. As you will see from the photograph, Pauline and Elaine had kindly tidied the grave in advance of our little ceremony. 

It is no wonder that I couldn't find the grave. The photograph above shows how it was squeezed between two rows of graves in what I suspect was originally intended to be a footpath. I have not been able to establish why the grave was left unsealed and unmarked. After all, when Florrie died in 1950 and was the last person to be added to the grave, three of her siblings were still alive and should have been able to arrange for it to be sealed with a memorial added. The fact that it wasn't is a mystery and will probably remain so.

Next step is to establish the cost of permanently sealing the grave. I hope this work can be carried out before too long. Meantime, CLICK HERE to read a very nice article (with a stop press) from the latest edition of the Friends of Boroondara Cemetery newsletter.

"Fantastic cracking spy thriller"

THE MORTAL MAZE

The words of Australian Broadcasting Corporation producer and book reviewer Rob Minshull when talking to Mornings anchor Steve Austin on ABC Radio Brisbane: Listen here

Amazon has paperback and Kindle copies of  The Mortal Maze:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mortal-Maze-Ian-Richardson-ebook/dp/B014E9KHAU

The paperback is also available in Australia through Booktopia

Two wars: one religious, one military. Which was the most important?

     While sorting out my files today I came across this item discovered when I was researching my non-fiction book God's Triangle. It's a letter written by an Australian Baptist missionary, Miss Edith King, to the missionary magazine Our Indian Field. It recounts what she saw and thought when her steamer was returning her to India, and came across a huge convoy taking Australian Imperial Force volunteers to the Middle East in the early stage of The Great War, later to become known as World War 1. 
    
    The letter, although passionately patriotic, also displays a fascinating ambivalence towards the relative merits of defeating the Germans and their Turkish allies and converting India to Christianity. Read on...

     On board the SS Osterley five of us [missionaries] were literally on our way to the front to fight for our King [our Lord] and for the extension of His kingdom. On board the forty odd vessels we passed just after leaving Fremantle, were the thousands and thousands of Australia’s young men, on their way to fight for King and country.

      It was just about evening time when we reached these troopships. What a sight they were -- travelling almost in even lines one behind the other, we counted 41 in view at once -- there were others, too, for we could see the smoke. At the four points were the warships on guard. We saw the [cruiser] HMAS Sydney very distinctly; if we could see her now she would have even more cheers than we gave her that day.

      How we cheered -- as we passed six ships one after the other; we were so close that we could see and hear the soldiers distinctly. We cheered, sang the National Anthem, “Rule Britannia,” etc., as we passed each ship, and they responded right royally. The bands played, the soldiers cheered, and waved their towels and coats, etc., and joined us in singing, “God save the King.” It was a sight we shall never forget. Many of our fellow passengers had Union Jacks, and every handkerchief was in evidence, so we did our best to give our soldiers an enthusiastic reception.

     We were travelling much faster than they, so before morning had left them far behind. Among the vessels we passed very close to were the Ophir, the Omrah, Star of Victoria, Beltana, containing WA. troops, and two others whose names I do not remember.

 One of our passengers saw her son standing on a tin waving his coat; they recognised each other at once and great was the excitement. On the way to the front  -- strong, brave, light hearted men, some of our best, prepared to give their all even to life itself, for their country.

     Twenty thousand volunteers, to fight for the honor of their King and country on their way to the front. Four thousand to fight for Christ and India’s emancipation. For this in round numbers is the total of missionaries in India.

     Is this our best response? Is this all we can spare? Where are the volunteers for India? Great the need for our soldiers to proceed to the front, but greater, infinitely greater, the need for more men to proceed to the mission field.

     Great the honor to fight for King George, but greater, infinitely greater, the honor of fighting for Christ in India. On their way to the front -- God grant that speedily many more of our best young people may hear the call of our King, so that the four may be multiplied into many on their way to the front, to win victory for Christ and His Gospel.

The story of God's Triangle 

How a missionary scandal in Australia and India was covered-up

About God's Triangle by the author, Ian D. Richardson 

This is the true story of Florence M. Cox. "Florrie", as she was widely known, was my great aunt. She died in Melbourne, Australia, in 1950, understanding little of the circumstances that destroyed her marriage and her life as a Baptist missionary in East Bengal (now Bangladesh). It is also an account of an establishment cover-up of the scandal surrounding her failed marriage, and of how her husband, the Rev. Frank E. Paice, and his mistress and second wife, A. Olga Johnston, erased a whole chunk of their past to become pillars of society in Australia.

      The story reveals much about the social constraints of an age when strict Christian virtues and rigid social taboos reigned supreme over intelligent open discussion and a realisation that life's problems must not be viewed simply as black or white, or Christian good versus evil.

      God's Triangle is about my search for the truth surrounding my great aunt. The story would have remained a secret, had it not been for my mother casually showing me a photograph that excited my incurable journalistic curiosity.

      I was brought up in a staunchly-Protestant environment, but I am no longer a believer, nor have I been since my late teenage years. Hence, this story is viewed through the prism of an atheist, but I hope believers will accept that I have done my best to tell the story with honesty and fairness.

      My great aunt and her fellow Christian missionaries in India were mostly kind souls who genuinely believed that they had a God-given mission to link "doing good" with spreading the word of the Lord and obtaining conversions, heedless of the cost to themselves or the converts.
      As part of the cover-up some years later, most of the related official documents were lost or destroyed by the Baptist Church. All that remains in the church records are a few cryptic minutes from board meetings of the Baptist Foreign Mission Board in 1918 and 1919.

      The families involved in events that I will recount also destroyed their records, or at least hid them where they hoped they wouldn't be found. Had it not been for old copies of the missionary magazines, The Southern Baptist, Our Indian Field and Our Bond, held in Baptist archives in Melbourne and in Oxford, England, it would have been impossible to get to the truth. The magazines themselves did not refer to any scandal, of course, but they did provide vital dates and other clues that helped my wife and me assemble a jigsaw.

      A jigsaw is a perfect analogy for how our research progressed. Not all the pieces could be found, but we were able over the years to put together a reasonably complete picture. Sometimes, we would go weeks or months without finding a piece of the jigsaw and even when one was located, it wasn't always possible to know where it fitted. However, since the first edition was published, further information has emerged, requiring an additional chapter in this edition.

      It would have been nice to assemble the God's Triangle jigsaw in an orderly manner, say, bottom up or top down, but it was never going to be like that. Sometimes we would find a big chunk of the picture but not fully understand what it portrayed. And sometimes we would fail to spot the obvious, or would be led off on a false trail.

      A vital part of the jigsaw was provided by the divorce file for Great Aunt Florrie and Frank Paice. But as you will learn, the divorce papers were part of the cover-up and far from easy to obtain.

      The depth of the embarrassment and anxiety that erupted around Florrie Cox, Frank Paice and Olga Johnston cannot be overstated. Worst of all, it tore apart the Paice family and spilled over into my own branch of the Cox family, even though Great Aunt Florrie was arguably an entirely innocent party.

       © Copyright Preddon Lee Limited, London W5 5QB, United Kingdom. All Rights Reserved

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Buy the paperback or download the ebook here: God's Triangle

Reba Rangan, the forgotten Australian opera star

Back in the first half of the 20th century, Melbourne-born Reba Rangan was one of Australia's most famous opera singers. She was a frequent performer in the United Kingdom and Australia, sometimes appearing with Dame Nellie Melba. But her hopes of international stardom were hampered when she needed to return to Australia to become her elderly mother's carer. And there are questions about the circumstances of her death, with an assertion that she was effectively murdered by a surgeon. 

Few Australians - even opera lovers - now remember the name Reba Rangan. Learn more about her life in this biographical summary. The web version is HERE and the 20MB printable copy can be downloaded HERE.