Juliet Townsend

The twin graves lie side-by-side in the Protestant cemetery in Rome, much visited, much photographed; one decorated with the lyre of the poet, the other with the palette of the painter. Beneath the first lie the remains of one of England’s greatest poets, who died at the age of 25. Beneath the second lies a minor artist and consular official who survived into old age, and whose stone is inscribed: ‘Joseph Severn, devoted friend and death-bed companion of JOHN KEATS.’ Severn’s grave would be forgotten and unvisited if it were not for the pilgrims who come to venerate Keats. In the same way, his life would be forgotten and unvisited if it had not been for his association with the poet.

One day in 1941 an officer on exercise in the Cotswolds looked down from the brow of a hill and saw a cluster of stone buildings in the valley below. On closer inspection these turned out to be a deserted farm, with a beautiful Elizabethan farmhouse and great cathedral-like barns. It was in a derelict state, but the soldier, the Bertie of the title and Xandra Bingley’s father, was undeterred. ‘We will rise above any minor problems... we’re not about to start playing windy buggers. Not when we’ve found this heavenly place... No siree.’ His, or rather his wife May’s, money bought it, and it was in this idyllic though primitive setting that Xandra Bingley spent her childhood.

The word ‘Wahhabi’ entered popular consciousness at the same time as ‘9/11’ and is now about as loaded as the word ‘Nazi’. But whereas ‘Nazi’ is understood by all, ‘Wahhabi’ has crept into the vocabulary of modern global terrorism with little explanation other than that it and ‘Wahhabism’ are considered part of the mindset of men like Osama bin Laden. It goes without saying that the Western world needs to know all there is to know about Wahhabis, so when a book comes along that claims to be the first serious study of the man who gave his name to this particular brand of bigotry we should take it seriously.

The other day I came on an old exercise book dating from the early 1940s in which my brother, then aged nine, had embarked on one of his many unfinished novels. The missionary looked out of the window of his little hut deep in the African jungle. ‘The savidges are attacking, Mary,’ he cried. ‘Quick, pass me the Martini Henry rifle and then the elephant gun. I will show them what happens when they attack the servant of the true God!

This year my village school, like hundreds of others, is scrimping and saving to afford that Holy Grail of modern education - the Computer Suite. Of course computers are an essential part of every child's world, and will presumably be even more so in the future. Yet there is something rather soulless about the rows of mesmerised little figures staring into their screens while skilfully manipulating an army of mice. Somehow that world needs to be balanced by introducing children to the very different pleasures of the book, and there has never been a time when children's books were so varied, well-produced and such good value as today.

In any discussion about the English judicial system with foreigners, they are always amazed to learn that more than 90 per cent of the criminal cases in this country are tried by unpaid lay magistrates. In a society where an applicant for the most unskilled job is required to be able to produce some paper qualification, the magistracy sails on with a magnificent disregard for such irrelevancies. Its requirements are simple but demanding: good character, common sense, fairness and good judgment, and it expects and largely succeeds in finding these qualities in people from widely varying backgrounds. Magistrates have never had a good press. People identify more readily with juries, knowing that next week they could find themselves serving on one.