A poem for people with short memories
Child Protection
Childline was set up in 1986. 121 children in 1987 were taken from their parents in Cleveland, based on the views of two paediatricians. There is some suggestion that the clinicians were influenced by articles they had read in US journals on child abuse.
In Orkney, 1991, parents had their children stolen by social services amid suspected ritual child abuse - based on the evidence of three other children.
An inquiry report in October 1992 criticised Orkney Social Services and produced 194 recommendations for changes in child care practices.
No one noticed that the whole premise of a child protection service needing 194 changes was fundamentally flawed?
Crazy Horse - master tactician
All quiet now, the Icelandic volcano that made everyone stay at home
All quiet now, the Tamil Tigers silent as the grave
All quiet on the Western Front, so are the war poets
Dead as the poppies worn with pride by TV presenters
Dead as the hand that signed the memo that signalled the wearing of the symbol of our missing memories
We remember nothing, we are told to remember
The hard of hearing discuss the Piece Dividend, sliced and diced at the Stormont Carvery by a celebrity chef with taurettes...
Peace you deaf bastard he shouts
Bomb outside comes the reply
McGuinness is Troubled
Not by the blood he spilt but because he can't remember why
The Glorious Rebellion seems so 1968
The police batton charging the students in Grosvenor Square
Soldiers dressed as policeman on the bloody fields of Orgreave
Ian Tomlinson and Jean Charles de Menezes
Cressida Dick shouting "shoot to kill"
These aren't memories they are events...
Don't pretend you remember
Don't pretend you know where you were
The day Kennedy died
Or that you heard Churchill saying...
" Never in the field of human conflict ...
Did so few create such carnage in Omagh"
While the forces of law and order twiddled their thumbs
But you'll have to wait for the truth
That the lying historians tell
And for the keepers of our memories to explain
Why the forces of child protection stole the children
Of Cleveland away from their parents
Did Childline instigate the panic
Can you remember Harringey
Can you remember Peter Connelly
Can you remember when child abuse wasn't a fact of life
"They think it's all over, it is now"
But you weren't there on the subs bench in '66
"it's a funny old game" he said
As he waited 43 years for a winners' medal
About the same time Nobby Stiles
Sold his medal for pennies
Liars construct memories
Blindfold us with their retelling of events
And like fools we hunt for missing fimbles
Like politians out to lunch on expenses
Like Freddy making a mess of the autopsy
Wait for the memories to fade, hold your inquiry
Wait till they're all dead, pay compensation
Handouts and happiness, memories are made of this
Who needs a sense of direction anymore
We're not going anywhere
We just turn up, sign on, and fuck off
Like Lords and MEPs, human cockroaches
Always looking for yesterday's leftovers
Always more appetitizing
If it's happened already you don't have to deal with it
Just start a new thread, a new train of thought
I expect you can remember
When there were no leaves on the line
To interfere with your journey down memory lane
Listening to conversations of old people
Living like foreigners...
Well, that's what they say, the past is another country
It's a worry, soon it will be a panic
Old people the length and breath of the land
Wandering around like zombies with placards
"Beeching, hands off our train of thoughts"
Buggers they remember so much
Can you remember when Time Magazine
Made Joe Stalin the 'Man of the Year'
A moment the whole of America has forgotten
Crazy Horse was the hero of the Bighorn, not Custer
But America prefers Hollywood to History
Not that there's any difference
It's all just story telling
The events of the past put into order
Versions of events