Everyone inWales starts 2018 as recipients of amazing gifts
COLUMNIST
THIS Christmas my dad gave me the watch his own parents had given him in 1964. It was a complete surprise to unwrap a small box and see it there, ticking away.
But the biggest shock came when I put it on my wrist.
This wasn’t just a timepiece. It was almost part of my dad.
Pretty much every day of my life, until I left home a few weeks after my 19th birthday, I’d seen that watch. It was there on his wrist when he read me my first storybooks; it jogged up and down as I watched him hit the keys of his typewriter and then a succession of early word processors; it was there quietly ticking away during many of the happiest and toughest days of his life.
And yet, on the night of Christmas Day, I wore it.
When I glanced down at it, it was like seeing my dad’s arm.
I felt touched and humbled, but also challenged and inspired. When I think of how he spends his days loving, helping and encouraging family, friends, colleagues and nearstrangers I don’t know how I can match his example.
But, like an actor searching for props to help get into a role, when I put his watch on my wrist I get an inkling of what he would be doing and thinking at that moment. I can imagine the strength and kindness he would bring to a situation.
I’m honoured that my dad chose to give me his watch, but I know he would really want to pass on to me the convictions and practices learned and lived out in a life of faith and faithfulness.
Each generation can give gifts to the next generation, but they have to trust that their children will also carry forward their values.
But let’s not underestimate the power of physical objects to provide contemporary courage.
When Barack Obama was preparing for his 2009 inauguration, he choose to take the oath on the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln had used in 1861.
Many of his predecessors had used the George Washington Bible from the first inauguration.
In geological terms, these Bibles were printed just split-seconds ago.
And if the weight of responsibility of leading a country can seem crushing, it must be comforting to think of flawed but visionary predecessors who also set out on the tough task of turning ideals into action.
When Theresa May is feeling vexed in her Downing Street study, it must embolden her to think of how Churchill led a country through wartime from the same address.
President Obama would have been mortified if the Lincoln Bible had fallen apart in his hands (apparently the Library of Congress had someone ready to whisk it to a conservation laboratory in case repairs were needed), just as Theresa May must hope at receptions that no giddy guest splashes red wine over one of the portraits.
But it would be much more serious if a President or Prime Minister damaged not the office furniture but the dignity of the office.
The worst ending for a politician is not an election defeat, but a loss of honour. Nobody who stands as a candidate wants to have to make the type of post-Watergate confession that Richard Nixon delivered to David Frost in the famous 1977 interview: “I let down my friends. I let down the country.
“I let down our system of government and the dreams of all those young people that ought to get into government...
“I let the American people down, and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life.”
The good news is that a country’s honour can be redeemed, just as a fire-damaged painting can be restored back into a work of beauty.
Generations of British legislators tolerated the slave trade and port cities prospered through the obscene trade in human beings. It is a terrible reminder of how economic convenience blinded educated and powerful people to a moral disaster.
It’s sobering to walk through Westminster Hall and think of Britain’s role in the development of the transatlantic slave trade. But it inspiring to think of the handful of campaigners who harnessed the power of parliament not to defend slavery but to dismantle it.
Any lonely MP leaving parliament for the night after arguing for an unpopular but urgent cause should think of the ridicule the likes of William Wilberforce endured and draw courage that such heroes walked the same streets and changed the world.
Wilberforce understood that the real way to honour Britain’s tradition of liberty was to ensure it lived up to priceless values in his generation – and that meant transforming the present. Likewise, Lincoln realised that protecting the ideals expressed in the US Constitution did not mean avoiding a confrontation with proslavery states but ensuring that freedom was a reality for everyone.
On a world scale, Wales and Britain are blessed with fantastic wealth and institutions of democracy and justice which are the envy of billions, as well as universal health and education services almost unmatched in excellence in human history.
We can look back to the men and women who bequeathed us such treasures with true gratitude. We should ensure these gifts don’t crumble on our watch, but the real test is what we do with these brilliant resources.
What would Emmeline Pankhurst, Aneurin Bevan or Wilberforce achieve with our opportunities? As a new year dawns, the challenge is not just to celebrate the best aspects of our history but to make it.