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Dr Sebastian Kraemer |
Grim task of
protecting children
AN eminent child psychiatrist at Whittington Hospital where Baby P was treated for a short while shared his thoughts with me on the case this week.
Dr Sebastian Kraemer believes social workers need to talk more informally with colleagues about individual cases – but are prevented by “confidentiality” rules.
If care staff could discuss their case loads it would help in the tough task of removing children from abusive parents.
He said: “It is easy to forget what a horrific experience it is to go into someone’s home and say ‘We are taking your baby’. Anyone who has ever had this unwelcome job will know about the fierce and aggressive denial that is often the response.”
Unsurprisingly, there is a high turnover of staff in social services. Apparently, 70 per cent of local authorities find it difficult to recruit staff.
I wonder how uncomfortable Councillor Janet Grauberg, a dedicated woman who runs children’s services in Camden, may be feeling at the moment.
She must know that one slip by any of her staff in the frontline – and the roof can fall in especially in today’s climate.
Whatever her responsibility for Baby P’s death, the life of the ex-head of Haringey’s children services Sharon Shoesmith has become hell. Demonised by the press – her image stares at you from newspapers like that of Myra Hyndley – she has virtually ended up guarded day and night by police.
The night Bob spoke to the Great Creator
BOB Latham didn’t have far to go from his Mornington Crescent home to pick up an award.
The former Labour councillor, who has been named Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year by his fellow beaks, wigs and gowns, received the gong at the York and Albany restaurant – just a few yards from his home on Monday evening.
Accepting the award he told guests – among them were Cherie Booth QC – of the variety of work he did as both a lawyer and councillor.
After becoming a councillor in 1982 he was visited by a stressed constituent who had won a long-running case with the Town Hall over repairs to his home. But he believed Camden had put tenants suffering from mental health problems next door to him as an act of revenge.
One used to strip naked and run up and down the street, while the other believed he had created the universe.
“One night, this constituent rang on my door and said the man who thought he was the creator was stressing out because his benefit cheque had not arrived. I ushered him away and promised to look into it.
“Ten minutes later the doorbell went again – and there was the man who was having trouble with social security. He seemed quite impressed by the fact I was aware of his problems in advance of him turning up on my doorstep.
“He seemed quite lucid – until he revealed he was in fact the Great Creator and had built the universe. As he was leaving, I found myself asking him why, if he was the Great Creator, the world was in such a mess. He replied: ‘You try running the universe on £30 a week’.”
Thou shalt make wisecracks
HEARD the joke about one of the Ten Commandments that you shall not “covet” your neighbour's wife?
Probably not because you don't normally hear jokes of that sort.
Certainly not in a place of worship.
So, I laughed my head off when Stan Freed fired off a wise-crack about that particular commandment – in, of all places, a house of worship, the West Central Liberal Synagogue, and, at the end of a service on Saturday.
Minutes earlier Rabbi Julia Neuberger, a guest speaker, had explained how more than 2,500 years ago the Ten Commandments had been rearranged so that a commandment of not “coveting” a neighbour's wife had been placed before that of a similar injunction regarding a neighbour’s house.
Stan Freed, a leading figure of the synagogue in Maple Street, Bloomsbury, thanked everyone for making such a success of the special service held to dedicate a new plaque of the Commandments sculpted by Terry Jones.
Then, Stan, deadpan – and sounding like Groucho Marx or Jackie Mason – quipped: “But I’m not too sure about coveting your neighbour’s wife – you wouldn’t want to covet my neighbour’s wife!”
A loud ripple of surprised laughter ran through the crowded synagogues though many congregants probably didn’t know whether to laugh or not.
Stan, a relaxed figure, obviously a born mischief-maker, now in his 60s, told me that he worked all his life as an electrician, nursing a secret passion for music. On his retirement, he started to lecture in music at the University of the Third Age at Hampstead Town Hall.
In his next lecture he’ll be talking about the links between Wagner’s music and that of modern musicals!
Anyone who's heard Wagner must wonder whether he’s being serious.
But he told me that with a straight face – so I’m sure he's not joking!
Or is he?
The synagogue was founded at the end of the First World War by a wealthy aristocrat, Lady Montague, as a place of worship for Jewish workers employed in the “rag” trade then found in a honeycomb of workshops in Fitzrovia.
But there was a problem: how could they attend the key weekly service on Saturday morning if they were hard at work stitching and sewing?
So she built a synagogue that would hold its service only on Saturday afternoon – a rarity among most synagogues today.
But the West Central synagogue is unusual in other ways – its
rabbi is a woman, Janet Burden.
Curious incident of the dog at the concert
WHEN I SAW a dog wandering up and down in the aisle at the start of a classical concert I knew something odd was going on.
But then as I was at a Hampstead concert on Saturday evening to raise money to help save India’s tigers it made some sort of sense.
Dogs, tigers, what difference does it make. They’ll part of the environment, I reasoned.
Amazingly, the dog sat silently at the back of the crowded Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel as the Tigris Players opened splendidly with Mozart’s Piano Quartet in G minor and then Sinfonia Concertante in E Flat Major.
The heavenly melodies filled the chapel, especially the haunting second movement of the quartet thanks to the instrumentalists, Meher Toorkey, Kokila Gillett, Gregory Tsuganov and Ashok Klouda rising to the occasion.
Then Kokila Gillet, violin, and Grigory Tsyganov,. viola, took on the Concertante in E Flat rather matchlessly.
Astonishingly, I discovered later, the players had only been able to rehearse together for the first time just before the concert began.
I wouldn’t have guessed that for a moment.
The extraordinary high standard of musicianship by the Tigris Players made me think of the generous number of classical concerts that can often be found at weekends in the borough – at Burgh House, Lauderdale House, St Mark's Church.
And the dog?
Well, I suppose it had to happen.
Yes, it barked –
fortunately towards the end of the evening. It was one of those
occasions when people pretend nothing is
happening. But it was.
Who did the dog belong to? That remained a mystery to the end.
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