Something noble about not giving a fiddlers

THERE’S always been that disturbing whiff of something gone off about people who yearn for respectability, and something very (dare I say) noble about those who couldn’t give a fiddlers.

The great English poet Benjamin Zephaniah, below, who died last week aged 65, refused the offer of an OBE from Queen Elizabeth in 2003. Zephaniah, from Handsworth, Birmingham – an area he described as the Jamaican capital of Europe – said at the time: ‘I get angry when I hear the word “empire”. It reminds me of slavery. It reminds me of thousands of years of brutality.’

Despite all the hassle he gave and received as a young fella struggling with dyslexia, including time locked up in a borstal for burglary, Zephaniah displayed an extraordinary resilience.

His death prompted consideration of public honours and those who reject or accept them, such as Tony O’Reilly, former international rugby player, head of Heinz and owner of Independent Newspapers, who accepted a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth in 2001. Why?

In a former life I had the opportunity to meet O’Reilly and one night, emboldened by whatever was to hand, I asked him was I supposed to call him Sir Anthony. He replied: ‘Just call me boss.’

I never could work out whether that was genuine modesty or a concession to my obvious disapproval. Or that he couldn’t be ar**d getting into it.

Notably, at the time O’Reilly owned No 2 Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin, where renowned the 19th century railway engineer, William Dargan from Laois, used to rest his weary head. The difference between these two great men, however, was that when Dargan was offered a knighthood by Queen Victoria he told her where to shove it.

The natural human desire for recognition and honour also overlayered Shane MacGowan’s funeral, with the rebel outsider becoming the hero of creative, artyfarty, establishment elites – the kind of people who’d step over a downand-out Paddy on the streets of Kilburn as the cock crew in the morning in Spancilhill.

Salute to you Benjamin Zephaniah.