Matthew Parris

In the great days of the Daily Telegraph’s Peter Simple column, when I was a youth, that acid but hilarious satire on contemporary Britain had a cast of imaginary characters of whom one of my favourites was the Very Reverend Dr Spacely-Trellis, the ‘go-ahead Bishop of Bevindon’. Spacely-Trellis was a ‘modern’ Anglican of the sort disposed to question the Virgin Birth, the divinity of Christ, and quite possibly the existence of a deity. Most of those interludes featuring the left-of-centre bishop ended with him in the pulpit and in full cry about the evils of the hour, concluding ‘We are all guilty!’ as his despairing flock dived for the nearest door or window.

Look out. Here comes a column banging on about something that, in the grand scheme of things, really doesn’t matter. But I’ve just turned 70 and surely among the compensations for old age must be the right to have a jolly good grumble from time to time. Mine, here, will be about the new hard train seats. ‘They feel like sitting on an ironing board,’ passengers are complaining. Since the beginning of last year, and all over the country, rail operating companies have been rolling out (hallelujah! — a chance to use this ghastly expression entirely appropriately) a new kind of railway carriage. First it was Thameslink; then it was GWR; and last week I suffered in one of these carriages going all the way to Leeds. My buttocks ache at the very recollection.

Our involuntary responses know us better than we know ourselves. As I left King Charles Street in Whitehall last week and passed under the archway into the great court of the Foreign Office — and before I knew where it came from or why — an old and familiar feeling inhabited me. Dejection. This is where I started my working life as an administrative trainee, and those two years were a wretched time: a gradual understanding stealing upon me that I had no talent for this job. This courtyard was the opening scene of my every working day. It struck misery into my soul then, and 45 years later it still does. I blame myself, however, not our Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

My voice is often recognised by people who don’t know me. My face, which is unmemorable, less so. But once I open my mouth it’s not uncommon at railway stations, on buses or at the supermarket till for someone to approach and ask me to confirm I’m Mr Parish, or Malcolm Parris, or whatever. I make no boast: anyone who appears from time to time on radio and television gets recognised a bit, and over many years this has been my experience too. But something has changed in recent months, something I can’t ignore. In the past, the enquiry ‘Are you Matthew Parris?’ was made mostly out of curiosity.

‘Life pours back in.’ A score of us, listening to Charlie Burrell at the Knepp estate ten days ago, will always remember his words: so palpably true. We could see just what he meant as he took us through his work ‘re-wilding’ the estate in West Sussex where he and his wife, Isabella Tree, live at Knepp Castle. The family have owned and farmed these 3,500 acres for more than two centuries. Sir Charles, 10th Baronet, and Isabella are giving their all to this brave project, for which they have become pioneers, leaders, opinion--formers and evangelists. And the religion is spreading. Everyone in the world of environmentalism talks about re-wilding now.

Please don’t suppose I’m unaware I’ve been an idiot. I recount what happened to me last week without expecting your sympathy or understanding, and this account carries only the very slightest plea in mitigation: the suggestion that it could happen to you too, even if you don’t think you’d ever be so stupid. Because I certainly didn’t think I was. I’m not IT-illiterate, I’m not particularly slow-witted, I’ve attended ‘take online security seriously’ lectures, and I do know about the new ways thieves steal from the unsuspecting these days. I’m forewarned. So I thought myself proof against such attempts when the landline phone rang on Friday morning.

‘Too tweedy? Goodness gracious me!’ Rory Stewart sounded startled. A contender for the Tory leadership, he was being interviewed by the BBC’s Paddy O’Connell last Sunday morning on Radio 4’s Broadcasting House. O’Connell asked the MP for Penrith and the Border how he responded to the criticism that ‘the Conservative party is too tweedy’. A short discussion of the relationship between 21st-century Toryism and tweed followed, during which Stewart revealed that in his rural constituency ‘quite a lot of us wear some tweed’. Only ‘some’ tweed, mind you: Stewart sensed he was on tricky ground here. Leadership candidates in all parties get used to being asked if they’ve ever smoked weed — but worn tweed?