Beware false idols

It is sometimes tempting amid the challenges of our own lives to regard those in the media with awe. Seldom though do we choose to admire the people most worthy of it. A case in point is a lady called Julie Bailey. Her 86 year old mother died at Stafford Hospital in five years ago. Like many of the deaths which occurred there, her mother's was entirely preventable. The night before her mother died, she resolved to do something about the scale of suffering and neglect prevalent at that time. She set up an organisation called "Cure the NHS" and has been steadily paying the price ever since. Since standing up for better patient treatment, she has thus far been spat at, she has had human faeces delivered through her door, she is called vile names in the street and to cap it all, the grave of her late mother has been defaced. Locals have now all but boycotted her cafe in the town and she is now living in rented accomodation. In spite of all this, Julie Bailey carries on undiminished. Determined to see through her quest to change her local hospital for the better, she is being targeted by local people employed there.

When I read stories like hers, I feel very humble. She is a remarkable lady. Her crime is to try to change for the better an organisation which has become complacent. The facts don't change. 1200 people died at that hospital who needn't have done. She is to be applauded for her actions and I hope she succeeds not just because she deserves to but because we will all be the beneficiaries. To his credit, Jeremy Lefroy, her local MP has publicly come out in her defence and highlighted the good she has already achieved. Standards of care at the hospital have improved dramatically since she began her campaign but that is just Stafford. What about your local hospital? Those employed at hospitals don't have a job for life. Neither do they have a right to their job. They have an obligation to provide the highest possible standards of care to the patients on the wards. If the NHS is free at the point of access to us all, the least we can expect is that those being paid to work there do so to the highest possible standards of care and compassion. After all, if like Julie your own mother had died needlessly in great pain at your local hospital, wouldn't you be moved to say something about it?

I began this post by alluding to our tendency to idolise people in the media. For two days now, the BBC has been fixated with the announcement that the football player David Beckham is to retire. Maybe I'm getting old but I really don't understand the fuss. The ex-England winger Chris Waddle today asserted that if a list of the top 1000 players of the past thirty years was compiled, Beckham wouldn't even be on it. For the record, I entirely agree. That said, Chris Waddle seems an eminently better judge than I. He infamously missed a penalty at the World Cup in Italy in 1990. They lost that semi-final against the then West Germany and remain the team who have come closest to reaching the final since the class of 1966. Beckham is merely an example of the demise of the modern game. Big on money and short on talent, the modern game is more about marketing than football. He has been marketed quite cleverly and has squeezed every last penny on offer. He was created by the then Fulham Chairman Jimmy Hill who campaigned for the abolition of the maximum wage in the early 1960s. The then England captain Johnny Haynes became the first player to earn £100 per week and the rest, as they say, is history. Beckham wouldn't have lasted five minutes in the '60s, '70s or '80s because he would have been kicked off the park. He has had one basic talent. He could kick with reasonable accuracy a ball at a goal from close range. That does not constutute a great football player. Famously, he was sponsored by Brylcreem earlier in his career. How ironic!

Ironic because that product will always be synonymous with one of the greatest sportsmen this country has ever produced. His grandson now opens the batting for England. His grandson has a very long way to go before he can be mentioned in the same breath as Dennis Charles Scott Compton CBE. With Dennis, it wasn't just the avalanche of runs which he mercilessly plundered from bowlers of all denominations for nigh on twenty years. It was far more than that. After the war, Dennis gave comfort and pleasure to a lot of people through his batting and his personality. Like Beckham, he was admired for his looks. Unlike Beckham, he was dripping in talent and leaves a trail of achievements the like of which will never be seen again. He scored his first century against the old enemy Australia in 1938 at the age of 19. His 3816 runs in the 1947 season will stand for ever. Averaging 90.85, he scored the small matter of 18 centuries and the touring South Africans couldn't board their boat home soon enough. There was not a petulant bone in his body - even when things weren't going his way. Unlike Beckham. As a winger with Arsenal, he won the league and the FA cup. He has a stand named after him at his beloved Lords cricket ground and fittingly, he died on St. Georges Day in 1997. He only ever played for Middlesex but not for the money. He was from Middlesex. It was people did in the golden age of sport. By comparison, he was afforded a brief mention by the BBC when he died. Granted he made a bit of money out of advertising Brylcreem but neither was it an obscene amount.

When we choose idols, even Dennis Compton must step aside for the likes of Julie Bailey because she is achieving the hardest of all challenges. She seeks to effect change and is quire prepared to go through all the unpleasant repercussions to get there. Well done Julie - keep up the good work.