A minute’s silence please, for the stiff upper lip

Twenty-odd years ago, I was invited to host a Fleet Street fundraiser for distressed journalists. I began by asking guests to be quiet, to rise from their chairs and take a moment to remember those less fortunate than ourselves.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, will you please join me in a minute’s silence for the daily express.’ there was laughter and outrage in unequal measure — the outrage coming from the direction of tables purchased by the daily express.

All I can say is that it seemed like a good joke at the time. I’m delighted to report that the daily express is still with us. And long may she continue.

But it only occurred to me recently that I had inadvertently anticipated the modern fetish for ostentatious public mourning — even when those being mourned are not actually dead.

Regular readers will remember the circus of grief which surrounded the footballer Fabrice Muamba, who collapsed from a heart attack on the pitch at white Hart Lane while playing for Bolton wanderers against Spurs.

Happily, he survived. But that didn’t prevent an outbreak of self-indulgent Pray 4 Muamba shrines and vicarious sobfests at football grounds across the country. All this for someone who was still alive. If the poor man had died, they would still be holding a minute’s applause for him before the FA Cup Final every year.

(I can’t remember the last time I went to a football match when there wasn’t a minute’s silence/ applause for somebody or other.)

Shortly afterwards, I unveiled the patented Portashrine, a roadside memorial for every occasion — complete with a wilted, petrol station flower arrangement, a tatty teddy bear and hastily scribbled sympathy note decorated with hearts.

ever since Lady di bit the dust in Paris, the British have swapped their traditional stiff upper lip for the trembling lower lip. we now seem to have a national day of mourning for everything from a major terrorist atrocity to a celebrity dying of a drugs overdose.

All sense of proportion has vanished. It’s not enough that people grieve privately. everyone must grieve — and must be seen to grieve. If they don’t, they are accused of not showing ‘respect’. this madness reached its nadir a couple of years ago when soppy parents in the north-east of england dragged their children along to a vigil for a cow that had been shot dead by police after straying on to a busy road and causing havoc to traffic.

I remember thinking at the time: what effect must this be having on the kids? And now we know.

teachers this week complained about the burden being placed on pupils by the proliferation of oneminute silences in schools. one teacher in the South-east said her grammar school had held at least six such silences in the past year, mainly for terror attacks and the Grenfell tower fire.

She was concerned that the children were suffering from grief overload and it was teaching them that the world is a mad, bad and dangerous place. yet when she raised the matter with her superiors, she was accused of lacking — yep, you guessed — ‘respect’.

Parents have protested that these one-minute silences have even been foisted upon children aged just four, in reception classes. what on earth is that supposed to achieve? It is perfectly natural that any civilised society would wish to mourn its dead, especially those who have died in horrific circumstances such as the terrorism attacks in Manchester, London and elsewhere.

But one formal occasion is enough. or, at least, it should be. that’s not how it works any more, though. everybody is living in their own movie. they all have to be in on the act. when there has been a proper public memorial service, there’s no excuse for prolonging the agony. no one needs a rolling carnival of grief.

It isn’t necessary for every school and workplace to hold their own service of remembrance. when that happens, it ceases to be about the dead and becomes all about the living, giving vain exhibitionists yet another opportunity visibly to advertise their confected compassion and empathy.

whatever happened to Keep Calm And Carry on? At this rate it can only be a matter of time before what was once a brief mark of respect is replaced by a Middle eastern-style orgy of weeping and wailing lasting for weeks on end.

Forcing bewildered young kids to take part in a never-ending succession of minute’s silences for people they’ve never heard of is akin to emotional abuse.

It’s no wonder we’ve managed to breed a generation of millennial snowflakes, terrified of the world at large. Heaven help us if we have to fight another existential war — rather than endure sporadic terrorist attacks, however horrific.

not for the first time, I’ve been trying to imagine what my father’s generation would have made of all this lachrymose grandstanding.

WHen they weren’t much older than today’s mollycoddled schoolchildren, they were in uniform, engaged in a life and death struggle. they just had to get on with it.

on the home front, schools were bombed and children were killed. yet as a nation, we learned to laugh in the face of adversity.

no doubt if I’d made my daily express gag today, the twittersphere would be demanding I should be hanged, drawn and quartered for insulting the genuinely deceased.

to be honest, I can’t even claim it was that original. the joke was inspired by a rugby club dinner in the Cambridgeshire Fens which I covered as a young reporter.

After enduring a meal of rubber chicken and vegetables, cooked to within a inch of their lives, I sat with pen poised as the guest speaker, former england captain dickie Jeeps, rose from his seat.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said in a solemn voice, ‘will you please stand and join me in a minute’s silence for the brussels sprouts.’