Here is the article I promised you by the year end - just in time I think! I will call it 'Perspectives from Space' if you need a title. A short biog. follows in a separate mail.

I arrived in Russia completely unprepared for the 18 months of cosmonaut training ahead of me. Two of us has been selected for the training and we were given four days notice to resign from our current jobs, sell our cars, give away the house plants, buy thermal underwear for the cold Moscow winter, undertake photo calls with potential sponsors and much more. In the end it was not coping with a new lifestyle, learning about space flight or how to speak Russian that changed me as much as learning about the Russian priorities in life then.

Before my selection as a trainee cosmonaut I had been working for a company which demanded long hours and strong commitment and in return I received a more than reasonable salary. I had bought a small flat on the oustskirts of London and a small sports car and I was working hard to earn more money to buy a bigger flat and a faster car. Suddenly I was catapulted into Russian society in 1989, where people did not own flats or cars. How fast your car goes in that situation becomes rather irrelevant. Instead, conversation was about people: "How are you?" was a question meant to be answered. "Can I help you?" was a real offer. I was beginning to learn that people mattered.

Eighteen months, a rocket launch and two days later I had forgotten what it feels like to have weight, to stand up or to sit down. Floating about in an orbiting space craft was the most natural, relaxed feeling I can imagine.

It was on our approach to the Mir Space station, about 200 kilometres away, that we discovered one of the antennae on our space craft had failed. There was no immediate danger in this because we had been trained to dock manually and anyway, if you miss the Space Station by a mile, you have enough fuel to go round the Earth again for a second attempt. However, if you miss by six inches you may end up with two badly damaged space craft and five dead cosmonauts. (There were three of us who had launched together and two people who had been on Mir for six months already, eagerly awaiting out arrival!)

The docking procedure is slow, much slower than it looks on film. I caught a glimpse of Mir through my window, a brilliant-white T-shape bathed in sunlight, before we oriented our space craft for the final approach. It is really a matter of lining up the two space craft then guiding one into the other. Having ascertained that we could not rely on the automatic system to guide us towards Mir we had to hope that our training for a manual docking had been adequate.

I operated a periscopic television camera so that the commander, Anatole (Tole) Artsebarsky, could see where we were going. The engineer, Sergei Krikalev, worked out which information we could rely on and verbally fed that to Tole. Tole had the joysticks to fire small rocket engines on the outside of the space craft to steer us, literally going 'up a bit, down a bit, left a bit.....'. We worked together, not as three separate people but as one team, a unit which was only viable if each part was successful. We knew that a

mistake by any one of us could cost all of us our lives. We trusted each other totally and absolutely.

Eventually we made contact. There was an agonising thirteen seconds while we rotated our spacecraft until the electric and hydraulic connections were made and then more than two hours until we had checked that we were not leaking air form the seal between us and the Space Station. At last we opened the hatch and floated in towards the other two cosmonauts. Anyone who has been part of a team that has worked hard towards a single goal and has overcome problems in a united effort will understand the overwhelming spirit of closeness and joy that engulfed us just then. We hugged each other and smiled broadly. Even the Russian language with its plethora of lush and emotive words was not

adequate just then. The fact that we had successfully accomplished something was insignificant. What was important was that we had done it together. It was the best feeling in the world.

Looking back at the Earth from space I remember gorgeous deep blue blue seas speckled with snowy white clouds that were so bright it hurt my eyes to lok at them for long. Amongst the dull grey vegetation there were brick red deserts crossed with sandy coloured roads which seemed to have neither beginnings nor ends. However, it is not what the world looks like that made the biggest impact on me.

During my whole time in space I can honestly say that I never once thought about the things which are so often the main point of conversation in a western society: your car; the double glazing still not installed; the latest hi-fi on the market; the cost of a pair of jeans. As we flew over a country in which I knew people I thought of them. My family and friends, people as individuals, became so obviously important.

If you take away everything from your life and put back in those parts you cannot live without, what goes in first? Physical needs for survival apart, I believe other people and our communication and relationships with them are what we really need. I am lucky that I have had opportunities like living in Russia, a problem in space and the chance to look back on life to make me realise what really is important - before it's too late.

HELEN SHARMAN

One summer's day Helen was driving home from work at Mars Confectionery when she heard a radio advertisement. The words, "Astronaut wanted, no experience necessary", caught her attention and while she waited for the traffic lights to change she jotted down the telephone number. It proved to be the moment that was to change her life.

An historic Space Mission was designed jointly betweeen the Soviet Union and a company in the UK to put the first Briton into space. After months of exhaustive tests, Helen found that she was one of the final two candidates to go to the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre. It was here in Star City, north of Moscow, where Helen underwent eighteen months of training. In May 1991 she became Britain's first astronaut, orbiting the Earth sixteen times a day, 250 miles high, at 18 000 mph for the eight day scientific mision.

Helen was born on 30th May 1963 in Sheffield, England where she went to school and university. With a BSc in chemistry Helen left university in 1984 to work for GEC, making cathode ray tubes. During this time she began studying for a part-time PhD at Birkbeck College, London University.

In 1987 Helen joined Mars Confectionery as a research technologist. Her first job was with the ice cream team. She later worked on chocolate!

Since Helen's return form space she has become one of Britain's leading 'ambassadors for science', being involved with a number of organisations to improve science education in the United Kingdom. Her most recent publication is a children's book 'The Space Place' published by Portland Press. She also uses her extraordinary experiences to motivate and inspire businesses by conducting talks and lectures around the world.

FORWARDED MAIL -------

Date: 08 Sep 98

Originally To:

Possibilities Abound as Barbie Turns 40

Yes, it's hard to believe, but in 1999 Barbie will turn 40, just in time

to greet the new century. And they've been 40 full, rich years. She

began as a glamorous airline stewardess when she was introduced at Toy

Fair in 1959.She soared into space as an astronaut in 1974, ran for

president in 1992, and, in 1997, she bore disability bravely, folding

her first-ever bending legs into a wheelchair to become a role model

once again for a newly identified market.

In every incarnation, nationality, and skin tone, she's perfectly turned

out, with accessories galore at her long slender fingertips. She's

Everywoman, she's the Cosmo Girl, she has it all. So, what will Mattel

think of next as the company meets the challenge of Barbie turning 40?

Why fight age? Why not capitalize on it in every way possible? Here are

some ideas Mattel might consider for a past 40 Barbie:

Bifocals Barbie. Comes with her own set of blended-lens fashion frames

in six wild colors (half-frames too!), neck chain and large-print

editions of Vogue and Martha Stewart Living.

Hot Flash Barbie. Press Barbie's bellybutton and watch her face turn

beet red while tiny drops of perspiration appear on her forehead! With

hand-held fan and tiny tissues.

Facial Hair Barbie. As Barbie's hormone levels shift, see her whiskers

grow! Available with teensy tweezers and magnifying mirror.

Cook's Arms Barbie. Hide Barbie's droopy triceps with these new,

roomier-sleeved gowns. Good news on the tummy front, too: muumuus are

back! Cellulite cream and loofah sponge optional.

Bunion Barbie. Years of disco dancing in stiletto heels have definitely

taken their toll on Barbie's dainty arched feet. Soothe her sores with

this pumice stone and plasters, then slip on soft terry mules. Colors:

pink, rose, blush.

No More Wrinkles Barbie. Erase those pesky crow's-feet and lip lines

with a tube of Skin Sparkle-Spackle, from Barbie's own line of exclusive

age-blasting cosmetics.

Soccer Mom Barbie. All that experience as a cheerleader is really

paying off as Barbie dusts off her old high school megaphone to root

for Babs and Ken Jr. With minivan in robin's egg blue or white, and

cooler filled with doughnut holes and fruit punch.

Midlife Crisis Barbie. It's time to ditch Ken. Barbie needs a change,

and Bruce (her personal trainer) is just what the doctor ordered, along

with Prozac. They're hopping in her new red Miata and heading for the

Napa Valley to open a B&B. Comes with real tape of "Breaking Up Is Hard

to Do."

Single Mother Barbie. There's not much time for primping anymore! Ken's

shacked up with the Swedish au pair in the Dream House and Barbie's

across town with Babs and Ken Jr. in a fourth-floor walk-up. Barbie's

selling off her old gowns and accessories to raise rent money. Complete

garage sale kit included.

Recovery Barbie. Too many parties have finally caught up with the

ultimate party girl. Now she does 12 steps instead of dance steps! Clean

and sober, she's going to meetings religiously. Comes with little copy

of The Big Book and six-pack of Diet Coke.

Who knows when Barbie will have outlived her usefulness? From Dream

House to Nursing Home (both new and improved -- wheelchair-accessible

and retrofitted to conform to ADA code requirements), the possibilities

(not to mention the accessories) are endless.

(author unknown)

PAUL BOOTH 

E. Alan Autrey

2333 7th St.

Port Neches, TX 77651

(409)729-1472 -- (Home)

(409)729-7644 -- (Work--Teacher/Coach, Port Neches-Groves High School)

Recycling Ambition

Oh watch night eclipse the far red sun,

A glance toward an ever-running clock,

While late grasses fade to tired dun

And grey invades a tawny lock.

Through the darkening glass brilliant leaves lie spread

Ringing the shade tree barren, appearing dead.

Beyond its frame stand sandy bound shocks,

The harvest of what summer kept green,

And tomorrow, or soon will come hoary wagons, the means

Of methodical pillage, as time reaps us in our stocks

With its minute yet sure encroachments on all forms,

Hoping to end all, even musing, with the worms.

So sink to rest in autumn twilight with this thought,

One with wan words our immortality has sought.

E. ALAN AUTREY

 He is someone who has sent this in and he has not sent me any info about himself. HJN.

31 December 1998

Dear Hero Joy Nightingale

I am writing with eight recent poems, which I hope you'll consider for

inclusion in "From the Window".

THE MAKER

First

I make a

stark monochrome sketch

Then throw the clay

Turning my fingers

To mould four senses

Pedalling the treadle

Last I hang the lips

Hook the nose

I am spattered with clay

Flush with creation

Overnight

The head is put to rest

under damp cloth

I sleep with crossed fingers

Today

Cut from its pedestal

The muscles have stiffened

The mouth pouts

Suddenly I have

Gouged the eyes

Brought my hands together

and twisted the living thing

into a slimy lump

Again the wheel is turning

With the whole of my hands

Drawing the clay tall

My feet under the spell

I am remaking my head

Not with faith

But because I must

ISLAY

On her stomach's flat pan

The otter cracks shellfish

Then whiskers off

To waterproof preen

I turn to the unison strut of oystercatchers

jabbing the strand

and a horseshoe of basalt

where seals snore

You can catch their stink

Morning is running now

The mainland has unveiled

Buoys on the swell

in only a hat of cloud

The winter light is beaten gold

Brief ice

The silence cogent

As our ferry builds smoke

noses into the sound

I am stitching its wake

into this sheet

Feeling the patter of drizzle

The gulls whirling

LIGHTHOUSES

The peat bricks and

cleft wood

burn lavender

Tall

Shadows permeate the solitude

I continue to stoke the small blaze

Lever the firetongs

coax reticent wood

to crackle

A knot spits like a shooting star

extinguishes at my ankles

Out of the window

Over the water

are the rain-stained lights

of another country

The unaltering eye of the lighthouse

crabbed to land's end

In the condensation

With my index finger

I write your name

Fascinated

as the tall letters and arrowed heart drip

When the fire grows flames

The pane clouds

and my other country is folded away

under a wrapper of fog

Your companionable blink put out

I walk to my seat

and sit with winter

AILSA CRAIG

A fang from the sea monstered floor of

the straits

Or the igneous hat of a wizard

ruckling waves

Grown in the swell's accent

Fishermen mystify

A moonwashed beacon in the spring tides

In winter

A gruff sea demon

When gales utter guttural oaths

and north atlantic booms

This giant's toehold

Slides under the world

To become

In evening calms

A basalt pebble in the sea's playground

In the geography of dream

It is always inhabited

A turret struck for birds

A crag to cleave the sun in two

On canvas

Or off the rail of a ship

It is what it always was

Awesome Solemn

CAVES

Faith is secreted in caves

Away from light

Whooping like a pagan

Here stones guard their

most private grief

Water drips from the vertigo

With the virtue of patience

Carved monstrances of rock

The statuary of strange deities

Daubed with the

full stops of the world

are fed shadow

The dark is elephant-headed

Silence has tongue

Here faith

Slays demons underfoot

Calcifies fear as

flues of stone

Where bats are the only reverents

men will block steps

Cut out an auditorium of rock

Bringing smoke music

altars and assuaging gods

Because man must banish forget

The awful irreverence of death

CYCLES

Heat has mummified

The flower's bells

which shake like black castanets

in the earth's drought oesphagus

Over the graveyard

Sun assaults the dead

Dents crucifixes

Cracks marble

Chiselling its own epitaph

White roofs that noon has charred clean

Are like the waterless face

of a clad woman

stirring the dust with her sandals

At her gate

A pack dog is cannibalizing

the blown stomach and muzzle

of a brother

Sight hobbles

To lap a v-neck of sea

between the land's blistered shoulders

In another town

Cloche the bells

of a stricken god

Thonged by light

Soon sky is a torso of blood

and Sun is

humping its crooked back

below the world

Dusk stirs

An acrimonious

Chthonic god

Dogs gather

Man devours

his mate

Then the moon draws

A narrow harelip

and stars hang uncharitably

From the noose of heaven

THE PIER

late afternoon is

wet with light

Two fishermen stroll

the brawling surf

A lizard

decorates a sun-boiled stump

Time has settled on the pier's

dentistry of rotted timber

its bicycles

fishing pots and

Stinking bait

In the idle swell

Sunburnt men

dangle rods

Two mating dragonflies hover

Prehistorical as the

horned monsters

anglers pull in

Reefed up below

Are boats under black canvas

and gulls lashed

to the rocking water

At the curve of the world

Sun is a spitting apocalypse

Stood close to pier's end

A man scans the horizon

for a morsel of sail

and tosses a hissing butt

in the heartbroken ocean

Listening to the

Slosh and

amen of the sea

SNOW

Snow is

Winter's linen

Watch it print

A white page

Convert the firs and

outlandish hills

First snow is amnesia

Lost memories eddying

The flakes settle finally

inducing sleep

Its coma domes the world

In the high country

For cold clenched farmers

The year is finished

The nativity sheep are

bodies to burn

Our Father is a splinter of frost

Against a snow cliff

December dusk bleeds like a sacrifice

Then overnight men feel an uncanny stillness

The air is hoar wrought

Snow utters silently

From lungs of ice

Morning

From the timber church

Bells toll like creation

The thaw scrunches with life

Children scream build

The hills burn like bonfires

in the blue skies

Winter has gone out

The world is white as sainthood

----------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading, and I'll look forward to hearing back from you.

Best wishes, and happy New Year!

Robert James Berry

ROBERT BERRY

Robert James Berry (Dr)

No. 32, Jalan 3/17

Section 3, Bandar Teknologi

Semenyih, 43 500 Kajang

Selangor, West Malaysia

Tel & Fax: 00 60 3 627 5505 Mobile: 00 60 12 332 7936

Robert James Berry was born in Redhill, England in 1960, and was educated in the UK., Ulster, and Scotland. Since 1991 he has lectured in English Literature and Language in England, New Zealand, and Malaysia. He currently lives and works on Penang Island in West Malaysia. His poems have been published in poetry magazines and journals in the United States, England, Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand, Malaysia, Sweden, and Trinidad. Most recently his poems have been translated into German. He was a prize winner in the NST - Shell Poetry Competition. He is married to Ahila. He loves cats, especially his Siamese, Sheba, classical piano, and poetry.

A BIG LOAD OF NIGHTMUSIC

Quick as they get stapled up

all the xeroxed fliers and posters

keep getting ript from walls and

bulletin boards and kiosks

by fans and vandals and teensers

or else by drunks and losers who

fucken HATE the sounds of

metal-torture and wailing

into the funky nightstreets

not for love nor lust but

for the perfect mate, that is,

some rumdum who'll tolerate

assaholic behaviour and abuse

and showing up an hour late

for everything and everybody

letting everybody be reminded

of the spreading rips in the

social fabric and general

deterioration of whatever. Appearing

at gigs with names in-yer-face:

Public Menace - Outta Controll -

Domestic Violence - Shitstorm -

Naked Power Line - Nazi Truth;

You know, the typical shit

can't fake Black, can't fake Brit,

can't fake Country-- so ratchet up the

volume, bust up guitars, moon audience,

let go a drizzly loose one into

the smoky screams.

 Dear Hero Joy,

Here are two more poems that I forgot to inclose in my last submision.

Gawd, but I'm getting to be a Klutz! Anyway . . .

*********************************************************************

EVENING INDIGO

She looks away

from the steaming

kettle-- away

from her baked apples

the warm spice

smells of an old

New England house

the napping old

house cat

the old woman

herself now the

insider looking

outside. Outside

into the chill no

one stares back

into her fading

eyes no one

no longer

to covet her

inner pinkness.

She is a reverse

peeping Tom

a solitary

welcoming

party

and no one

no longer

left out there to

welcome home

*************************************

TIME

The miles of my

continent and

the kilometres of

your ocean's width

drift slowly over our

Sahara of dry and

interrupted sleep

the starts and fits

and dreams no

longer fit within

hard frameworks of

dusty old calenders

or obsolete clocks

nor linear reckon-

ings. We have at

last learned how

to be amused in-

stead of shocked

or scandalised.

****************************

JOHN BIRKBECK

I was born in 1930, and will not tire you with a list of my adventures and exploits. When I finally settled down in lfe, I made my living as a scientific illustrator, and have written poetry only starting when I was in my forties. I've since published two books and a chapbook, and have had poems in numeorus small press magazines and undergound periodicals, in the USA, Canada and France.

Dear Hero,

It was very good to get your letter with its moving enclosures. Your own writing is exceptional. I know you are an extraordinary girl, but your article about yourself is my first experience of the power of your writing. (As a computer illiterate I fear the Net, so can't access your website). You are not mute when you can express yourself like that.

I'm glad the webzine is ticking over and that The Independent has acknowledged it. We saw the feature in the Sunday Times and felt for you and your family; and, of course, both Harry and I had long chats with your mother just after your grandmother died. We're both very sorry the LEA situation hasn't been resolved, but feel certain your own shining spirit will eventually open other windows for you.

Yes, I've become addicted to travel in Africa, mainly Southern and East Africa, and have been there twice in the past two months: to the remote game parks of Zambia for The Observer, and to Kenya and Zanzibar for an STV travel show. The questions you raise about the tourist relationship with these countries are, of course, critical ones - and I've had to confront them on my seven trips to the bush, where I've been generally spared any brush with real hardship. It would take a book, rather than one article, to answer them adequately, but after my second visit to Zanzibar (not a wilderness area) it struck me that its current condition - on the cusp between backpacker's backwater and jet-setter's paradise - is a good example of the tensions inherent in Third World tourism.

I hope the enclosed article is of some use. It certainly doesn't answer all your questions, but it does try to address the spirit of them. With your deadline looming (and a heavy series of deadlines of my own) it's the best I can do. I sincerely hope that some day it will be possible for you to visit Africa yourself, and to discover - as I have done - that despite its huge problems it's not a dispiriting place. Like you, the people have amazing grace in the face of adversity. We'll keep in touch - and I very much hope that somehow yet can go on working with and through music, as well as words. Warm good wishes to Aleric and your parents,

much love,

Julie

ZANZIBAR ON THE CUSP

Tourism. The definitive curate's egg, the pre-eminent mixed blessing, and that's not all: tourism is also host to strong passions. I was back in Zanzibar last month and thought of Nasser K. Awadh, an exceptional operative of the local holiday industry. On my first visit nearly two years ago, Nasser told me how he had recently slapped the face of an Italian visitor to the island.

Biffing tourists is not one of the traditions of Zanzibari hospitality, but Nasser was defending his island's dignity. "I asked him several times to stop throwing sweets at the children, but he went on doing it. So I smacked him."

Never take sweets from a stranger. Least of all from a stranger who tosses toffees in the air and makes you scramble in the dust while he photographs the ensuing scrum of pretty human monkeys. We were standing outside the Persian Baths at Kidichi, a relic of the Omani sultantate, when we saw the same disagreeable device practised by two German men. One sprayed the sweets while the other hefted the lens. This time, Nasser controlled his itchy palm; he scolded the children instead while I scowled and muttered at the Germans.

In a poor country the infants of an infant tourist industry are most at risk. The sugary bribes of the snap-happy tourist nay be the first inducement on a contaminating trail which leads, at best, to a beggar culture and, at worst, to the paedophile beaches of Phuket and Sri Lanka.

The curate's egg. Nasser knows the merits of its good and bad parts. He is much in demand for his guide's eloquence and authority, but he is also conscious that the cultural climate of his island home is on the cusp of change.

Samarkand, Timbuctoo, Zanzibar... fabulous names on the map of the European imagination, fabulous places whose stories, brutal and aspirational, cross the spectrum of human nature. Now they are poised to become what the travel industry calls "coming destinations". Nasser K. Awhad, whose gene pool is Zanzibar's history, who draws his pedigree from the Yemen, from Indonesia, and from the Bantu people of sub-Saharan Africa, knows he is also Horatio at the bridge.

On the other side of the Zanzibar Channel the forces of international tourism are massing. Their advance parties have already penetrated the seclusion of an island whose shameful past made it shifty with strangers. They have endowed it with new attitudes to meet the expectations of a new economy, and the islanders themselves have taken some of the most attractive initiatives.

Zanzibar's history is long, grin and exotic. In the 19th century it was the busiest market for slaves and spices on the eastern seaboard of Africa. The capital's old quarter, the Stone Town, has been called "the only functioning historical city in East Africa", but in the 1980s it was rotting away. Now many of its splendid Omani and Indian mansion houses and airy colonial buildings have been intelligently restored; some have been turned into hotels, others are primed to follow.

At the moment there is nothing slick and nothing packaged about Zanzibar Island's low-key tourist infrastructure. The population is predominantly Muslim and requires the necessary compromises of its visitors, who are invited to "dress modestly". At its points of entry - the tiny airport whose runway will soon be extended, the harbour which admits daily hydrofoil services from Dar es Salaam - Zanzibar feels obliged to remind visitors that away from the beaches bare legs and shoulders are just as shocking to the locals as nudity in a Western high street.

The waterfront Tembo Hotel, owned by local Indians, serves no alcohol "for reasons of religious belief", and its guests are prepared to practise temperance in exchange for the Tembo's romantic situation: from its terraces you can watch spices arriving from neighbouring Pemba Island - cargoes of cloves unloaded before your eyes on the beach.

So far even Zanzibar's white settlers, European immigrants with tourist interests, fall in line with the constraints of religious tradition. The nearest thing to a pub in the Stone Town is a bar called Le Pecheur, whose owner comes from Alsace; but he closes it for Ramadan.

Yet there are intimations of the tourist's taint: beach boys touting trips in dodgy skiffs to offshore islands, warnings about bag-snatchers in the labyrinthine Stone Town, whose alleys make me feel I'm in a scruffy, steamy Venice, urchins who have progressed from scrambling for sweets to asking for "dolla^"; and a new entrepreneurial class called papaasi - hustlers who scrape commission from hotels and transport operators by steering tourist business their way. (The word papaasi means "tick" - the blood-sucking parasite which is one of Africa's nuisances.)

The pre-eminent mixed blessing. Since I was last there these small-time manifestations of tourism's impact have been overtaken by the big-time ambitions of foreign developers. Investors, predominantly Italian, are opening new hotels on the best beaches of the east coast ("Mafia money," the gossips mutter darkly) but the most alarming plan for the island is the potential appropriation of its untouched north end, where 50 square kilometres have been ear-marked for a massive resort development guaranteed to displace its population of smallholders and fishermen and distort their culture.

Tanzania, however, is one of the world's poorest nations and inevitably Zanzibar and the Tanzanian mainland look to the example of their neighbour to the north, Kenya, where tourism is now the lynch-pin of the economy. Unlike the Kenyan coast the Tanzanian beaches are still largely undeveloped, and unlike Kenya's more popular game parks the country's wild places have not been over-run.

But Tanzania would do well to learn from Kenya's experience, which has brought patchy prosperity but which has its downside in high urban crime rates and, in some areas, degraded environments; and when the fickle markets of international tourism are given cold feet by newspaper headlines - as with the factional rioting in and around Mombasa and the bombing of the American embassy in Nairobi - then Kenya's first industry becomes poorly.

Yet what are the options? Other remedies have been tried and found wanting. On Zanzibar Island it's possible to see monuments to the extremes of two economic and ideological systems - the two systems which have dominated the twentieth century. The ugliest buildings were raised not by its supreme capitalists, the ruthless slaver-merchants and despotic sultans, but by the fraternal East Germans and Chinese who were Tanzania's friends in the Nyrere years of one-party socialism.

The East Germans gave the island bunker-esque apartment blocks which no one wants to live in, because they have no provision for cooking over firewood. The Chinese donated a sugar factory which operates at half-cock, because Zanzibar's sugar cane production can't keep it busy for more than six months of the year.

How strange that those who most debased the human condition raised Zanzibar's most beautiful buildings; how odd that those who sought to elevate it raised its most monstrous white elephants.

JULIE DAVIDSON

Julie Davidson is a Scottish writer and broadcaster with a special interest in the tourist industry of Southern and East Africa. ((She contributed a piece on the death of a cat to Mag 1. HJN.)

Subject: From the Window

Date: Wednesday, 11 November 1998 1:11pm

Dear Hero

I did enjoy receiving your letter this morning. Quite woke me up. I'm very immersed in a novel at the moment, so I don't want to think about writing something brand new just now, but there's a piece I wrote for (improbably) The Jewish Chronicle which I'd be happy for you to publish. I'll enclose it (or whatever the email word for it is) with this. I hate writing biogs. Here's the basics:

I am 51 and started writing professionally when I was in my early thirties after a wayward youth drifting around London in a 60's haze of sex and drugs and rock and roll, all fuelled by my capacity for depression. I spent a couple of those years in psychiatric hospitals. Now I stay home (when I'm not going to Antarctica for an even quieter life) and write. I've had seven novels, a book of short stories, a collection of essays and a travel book published. Great good fortune. I wake up each morning and wonder how I got so lucky, because I don't think I am fit for doing anything much else. I have a daughter of 21 who is at university, and an ex-husband of whom I am very fond. I remain bad-tempered and malcontent, but it's hard to maintain under such circumstances.

I spoke to Ruth Padel this morning, who sends you her love. Let me know if the piece is any use. If not, when I'm clearer of the novel, I'll do something else. Or do something else anyway.

Love, and thank you for asking me to write for your mag.

Jenny Diski

I don't believe in God. Actually, that's putting it too fervently. I don't think it's very likely. I'd be surprised. But then I like surprises, so it's possible I have an ulterior motive. Perhaps, all unknown to myself, I'm secretly on the look out for the really big surprise. It's best, I find, never to entirely trust oneself when talking on the subject of God. In fact, it's best, I find, never to entirely trust oneself about anything. What I do instead of belief, is read the labels on the marmalade jars.

Real, honest-to-God, zonking faith is, I suspect, a gift, like a great singing voice, or being double-jointed. As it happens, I am double-jointed, so it would be unreasonable of me to expect to be the beneficiary of more than my fair share of grace. The subject of faith comes to mind because recently I had a very dispiriting conversation with someone on the subject of The Purpose of It All. Not that I'm in the habit of such conversations; I generally expect people I know to know that there is no point, and that for better or worse that is the point. But I did not know this acquaintance well, and it was late when she murmured that she thought there probably was a purpose in life. I should have taken her statement to mean it was time we both went home to bed, but the chair I sat in was comfortable, and the drink I was drinking was only half drunk. It was a limp sort of statement, more resigned than convinced. What is the purpose, I asked. She said she didn't know, and didn't think about it. Whose purpose might it be, I queried. She didn't know that either, but it was probably God, or at any rate, she didn't mind the word being used. She just thought there must be a reason for it all, and that was that. She wasn't a very happy person, but she said she was sure she would be more unhappy if she thought there wasn't a purpose to existence.

Now, it's not for me to argue about what makes people less unhappy than they might otherwise be. It is true, that unlike (as far as I can tell) woodlice and orang-utans, we all of us have moments when we need to find a reason to keep at it - to get up on rainy mornings, to pay the telephone bill, answer a letter, whatever. This is surely because we have great big brains that have far more capacity than is necessary just to get these jobs done. The why is like trapped wind rumbling around in the empty spaces of our thinking apparatus; it's there because there's room for it. I'm pretty sure I and my faintly faithful friend would be less unhappy if we were woodlice or orang-utans. But I don't mean to sound negative. I like the why. I worry about our fellow species having to get on without it. It would be like sleeping without dreams. Bad dreams are better than no dreams at all. And what is more, I'm encouraged by the difficulty - by the very unanswerability of the question.

I wasn't being confronted with great faith here, just someone hanging on by their toenails to what they thought of as something rather than nothing. To believe in a purpose without having the faintest idea what it might be, or wishing to pursue the question, seemed no more than a dull attempt at self-comfort, and a waste of all that entertaining spare brain space. I suggested that pointlessness was much more exciting. Indeed, though I'm not one of nature's optimists, the thought that here we all are after millions of years of evolution, sharing the planet with bacteria and strelitzia, woodlice, orang-utans and camels, and what have you, while getting up most mornings, paying our telephone bills, answering letters, even getting on aeroplanes in the hope that the sun will be shining when it lands, makes me laugh out loud and clap my hands with delight at the absurdity and sheer happenchance of it all.

JENNY DISKI

Jenny Diski is the author of novels and a volume of autobiography called Skating to Antarctica and describes more about herself in the letter above. HJN.

At Sea

Sailing is one activity I guess I never thought I'd get a chance to do - you could say I'm not entirely built for heavy weather rope pulling heaving and ho-ing stuff, but I was to find out that in a lot of ways it's handy to have just one arm and one leg aboard the sort of limited space you find on boats.

As a child my Grandpa and Mum used to take us out on little row-boats. We'd all take turns on the oars, including me with a partner on the left hand side. I used to love the sound of the little waves shurring against the sides and the little gurgles the bubbles would make under the boat. Grandpa seemed the font of all wisdom as he'd instruct us in how not to gouge the oars deep into the water - "catching crabs" he used to call it and Mum had the most delicate touch on taking the wooden dinghy past rocks and fallen trees without tearing holes in it.

It was such humble beginnings I contemplated as I set out on my first major voyage on a yacht, twenty years after learning how to row. I was at Mackay Harbour, halfway up the Queensland coast, and I was with two friends - Virginia the skipper and Roni the second in charge, loading up the 40' fibre-glass hulled "Pisces" with provisions before setting off. We were headed for the beautiful series of islands that lie off the coast, the Whitsundays, famous for their tranquil aqua seas, fish and bird life and whale-watching.

The day was perfect for a sail - some breeze, some sun and very clear - and I watched in some awe as between them Roni and Virginia manipulated the ropes and cast off from the jetty. The rigmarole of starting the motor and getting the yacht well away from the obstacles - other yachts, ropes, the moorings festooning the harbour - was obviously something these two had done many times before - you should have seen them work together! It was most inspiring.

Virginia deserves a story just about her alone. She's in her early 50's and is a tiny wiry woman with the energy of a blowfly in a bottle - very surprising considering that every day of her life she's battling a life-threatening illness. Virginia was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis when she was in her early 20's. It's a disease of the muscular system which renders its sufferers incapable of breathing, swallowing or digesting, making all other muscles heavy and weak as well. When she found out the prognosis was very negative, Virginia was determined to fight on and conquer the disease. She has largely done so, but subsists on a steady diet of cortisone and steroids to keep the disease at bay. She says if she stops taking her medication she'll die within about three days. After a childhood spent messing about in boats, including racing yachts, she returned to the sea full-time about 15 years ago, in an attempt to manage her disease by staying mobile and active and in temperate climates all year round.

When she first returned to the sea, she was wearing a tracheotomy tube in her throat, from life-saving surgery after her most recent health scare. Virginia knew that falling into the water could kill her but she would not be deterred. And these days she says she's glad she took the plunge because her health's never been better. Roni however is a wild woman originally from California who was a bikie's moll and funster who remained just one step ahead of the law. She ran off to Australia to complete her studies and wrote her doctorate on kookaburras. She met Virginia a few years before this story began and fell in love with the whole sailing life. Believe me, we were a very lively crew......

So off we went into the rolling blue waves, bound for the first island in the chain below the Whitsundays, whose name I now can't remember, even if my life depended on it. As a landlubber I was to observe that for me the details and names of all the islands merged and blurred, while for Virginia and Roni, there was no problem keeping their identities separate and unique. Virginia made a habit of sketching and naming each island we stopped at, preserving the moment in coloured pencils while I just drank it in as experience, losing all the fine edges.

How can you possibly describe what it's like to turn off the motor and have the sails fill - that feeling of being taken and directed by the elements - here in a room that's stable and quiet tapping away at a dry keyboard? Quite frankly, it's an experience like no other - the rushing of the water carrying the movement, the smell of the salt, the creaking of the boat and the stretching of the ropes. We heeled over and went on a beautiful long tack, seeing the water so close yet feeling so safe and buoyant, wearing Summer clothes and lots of blockout and hanging on to the seat at the back of the boat that Virginia built so that you could be well above the water, looking down and all around at it from a height.

That first sail was breath-taking - leaving civilisation and shops and streets behind us as we headed out into the wildness of the sea and the spray. After eight hours or so of steady sailing we came to our first stop, dropping the anchor not far from a few other yachts and settling in for the night. As the rocking lulling of the boat slid into my heart and soul I drifted off to sleep, blissfully soothed by the motion. I was to find sleeping in that gentle rocking the most wonderful gift of the entire voyage. Somewhat womb-like, somewhat lover-like, the motion was to creep into my dreams, bringing me technicolour fantasies of flying carpets, riding whales and pirates' galleons.

In the morning I crept out at dawn to watch the sunrise and to my surprise interrupted a brown-backed sleek dugong, or sea cow, frolicking near the boat. I watched as it slowly loped off, rolling its curved form through the shallow water, looking for seaweed to munch. The other boats shifted gently in the tide and clanked a bit, like giant wind-chimes. By the time the others woke up, I was convinced I was the luckiest girl in the world.

After the first few days I took off my prosthetic leg after determining hopping and crawling around without my leg made my movement easier. It was fabulous to slide up to the front of the boat under the mainsail and sprawl up there, watching from the highest vantage point. It was liberating to feel the air and sun against my short right leg, knowing that my entire body could deal with the pressures of the sailing life, without having to wear my usual technology. Scrambling around the ropes and pulleys was much easier without the leg, but cooking meals was a bit tricky, so while I was whipping up my special pancakes I'd throw my leg back on, to be able to balance in front of the stove.

Goldsmith Island was our next destination, a short hop away. En route we passed another island where we spotted some dolphins playing around in the shallows, perhaps feeding or just playing. Goldsmith was deserted with a long golden beach and we all got into the dinghy and went ashore, because Virginia swore that it was this island that held her favourite lookout spot, a natural throne-like seat where you could see clear across the beach. It was very strange to be on dry land again for me - I half stumbled up the grainy sand, finding my land legs hard to regain after getting very used to the motion of the boat. The water was crystal clear and little stingrays the size of tea-plates swam away from me at my approach. The shallows held little shells and little creatures I could play with, watching as they crawled slowly over the little pearly rocks. If I kept still enough I would be furiously nibbled by little silvery fingerlings who found my skin irresistible. It was like a little sucking massage over my limbs and it made me laugh and splash them away.

It was amazing to be able to go for a walk wearing no clothes and feel entirely secure that there was no-one around to be offended. I walked through a dried up mangrove swamp, whose short roots crackled under my feet. It was almost a bit spooky, because of the gloom from the dead mangrove branches overhead and the occasional rustling and movement I could sense out of the corner of my eye. I knew there were no people around, but I couldn't see what was making the noise at all. The vegetation was kind of weird too - sort of like a set from "Lost in Space" - tall spiky plants and short luscious shrubs in a surreal landscape of hills and valleys. I couldn't bring myself to walk too far into the island, fearing that I wouldn't be able to find my way out. Or maybe fearing something I couldn't quite define, some bizarre creature of my own imagination, manifesting from the dry swamp and the crackling branches...

On we went, stopping at a few small islands before approaching the main group of islands in the Whitsundays chain. After 2 weeks at sea, our provisions were running a little low - that is, the yummiest things were all gone, leaving us staring blankly at some old carrots and potatoes, rice and endless powdered milk. It was time to make it to Hamilton Island to stock up. Hamilton has its own air-strip, marina and holiday accommodation, as well as shops and restaurants. We snuck up to the marina, tying up without paying to do the shopping and nick some fresh water. It was very strange to see people again after spending so much time on our own, let alone negotiating shops and the post office. The marina was chocka with other yachties who were clearly a community of their own with their own etiquette and social cliques.

After surviving our brush with civilisation we set off to find an anchorage on the other side of the bay, settling on a nice spot just near a little reef. I watched in alarm as a school of reef sharks came through, snapping ferociously at anything that moved, clearing the reef of fish in no time flat. That night was full moon and the beauty of the golden orb filling the sky and tracing its pathway across the sea kept me awake. I clambered out of the cabin and crawled up to the seat Virginia had built, relishing the night.

Out of the calm came a great noise - the exhalation of a sea creature. It was a little way off and I started to wonder if it was a turtle because we'd seen lots of them in our travels. In a moment the breath came closer and I was hoping I might see it in the moonlight. Looking down, I heard the breath immediately below. I watched in awe as a giant dark shape moved under the boat, ending in a broad tail. Much to my surprise I had seen a whale go under the entire length of the boat, with scarcely a ripple. It was a magic moment at a magic time of my life.

The islands lie between the Great Barrier Reef, some 30 kilometres out, and the coast, so the water is tidal and fairly flat because the reef holds the ocean swell at bay. Unless winds whip up the surface, the water is very calm sailing. Over five weeks of getting accustomed to this vagabond life we drifted between the coast and the islands often, collecting food and making the odd phone-call to my poor friends in freezing Sydney, buying more blockout and talking to other yachties. Time slowed right down and so did my activities. Something I hadn't been expecting was my enjoyment at having my life so curtailed by the sea. Every day at an island meant only a choice of staying aboard or going ashore, writing, reading, eating, swimming, cleaning up my quarters, dreaming and thinking - that was about it. It felt intensely liberating to be so limited and I can't entirely explain why. I spent hours lying in the cockpit staring up at the clouds snagged on the mast and pondering enormous life-changing questions.

Eventually however I had to leave. We were anchored at Airlie Beach, the famous doorway to the Whitsundays on the Queensland coast. My last night was spent enjoying a fabulous meal of vegetarian crepes and then sitting out on the high seat, dreamily listening to the wind and the waves, the rhythmic lap lap against the hull, not really thinking much at all, just being one with the tide and the water spirits, letting my body soar.

KATH DUNCAN

Kath is a wacky Aussie journalist who has written in 3 previous editions of my mag, zipped over to see me in the UK and is about to welcome me to her home in the northern rain forest of New South Wales. Her previous articles: Mag 1 - congenital limblessness and surgical amputation; Mag 2 - dykes and disability; Mag 3 - driving Cairns to Darwin. HJN.

18 November 1998, 3.04pm

You, me and the universe - reply

Here is a really frightfully dull piece for your mag. It is at any rate quite

long (6,800 words) which may satisfy one of your criteria for

acceptance and I suppose it does contain quite a lot of information about

select commitees etc. But it's not very hot on human interest - never my

strong suit. Do with it as you wish - you may feel it needs editing/cutting

etc.

I have attached it in two formats: MS Word and ASCII (DOS) Generic

Word Processor. Let me know if neither of these is suitable - I can also

send it in WordPerfect.

Matthew

I am a House of Commons Clerk - in other words, one of the secretariat of the House of Commons. We provide non-political advice and support to all 659 Members of Parliament. This can take the form of advising an individual MP on the introduction of a Bill to advising a Select Committee on possible subjects for its inquiries. Like Civil Servants, we are permanent staff, not subject to the vagaries of political fortune like MPs; but unlike the Civil Service we owe our allegiance to the House of Commons rather than the Crown. We are - if I can be portentous for a moment - servants of the Legislature rather than the Executive.

Nearly 1,400 people are employed by the House of Commons. In addition, about 1,800 staff employed by MPs are paid from public funds. Along with the other House of Commons Clerks, I work in the Department of the Clerk of the House (surprise), which has about 260 staff. About 70 of these are Clerks - that is, graduates with good degrees who are recruited via the same process as the "fast stream" in the Civil Service, with the addition of two additional interview processes. Only two (or at most three) appointments to clerkships are made each year and there is generally stiff competition for the posts. The Clerk of the House is our boss; he has the same status as a Permanent Secretary (top civil servant) of a Government Department.

My job is Clerk of the Education and Employment Select Committee. In the rest of this article I will try and concentrate on this. You can get much more information about the House of Commons generally, and indeed the House of Lords, on the Parliamentary Website: www.parliament.uk. This also gives access to the published text of Hansard (the record of Parliamentary debates), select committee reports and other documents.

There are many different sorts of committees in the House of Commons, indeed our motto could be "Committees - we got 'em!" or "Committees R Us". The reason for this is simple. The Commons has a vast amount to do: not just debating topical issues and considering proposals to change the law, but also keeping an eye on Government departments, running its own affairs, and so on. It is easier to get all this done by appointing smaller groups of MPs to do the work rather than trying to get everything discussed and agreed in the full House of Commons. We use this method in particular for examining the details of draft legislation - there is so much legislation each year that it would be wholly impracticable to look at all of it in the House. (This is done by "standing committees".)

The kind of committee I am interested in here are the select committees. There are different sorts of select committee. What they have in common is that they are set up by the House of Commons to inquire into particular subjects, or areas of interest. They can be concerned with the internal working of the House - such as the Catering Committee, which deals with the vital subject of food and drink in the House - or with matters of parliamentary procedure and conduct - such as the Committee on Standards and Privileges. Generally speaking, the best-known select committees are the Departmental Select Committees.

These select committees are set up to oversee the working of different government departments (as you will have guessed from their name). There is (broadly) one committee per government department: Defence, Agriculture and - the one I run - Education and Employment. So it is that, when you hear of a select committee "looking at BSE", it is unlikely to be a one-off committee looking at that subject, but the Agriculture Committee looking at it as part of its general duty of keeping an eye on the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

The formal role of the departmental committees is to "examine the expenditure, administration and policy" of the relevant Government department and its "associated public bodies" - that is, regulators and quangos such as the Office of the Rail Regulator or the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), which carries out school inspections.

Most departmental select committees have 11 members, although some are larger. My own has 17 members, as does the one that monitors the Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions. Members of departmental select committees are nominated for the duration of a Parliament, i.e. once they are appointed they can stay there for up to five years. This means that, over time, considerable expertise can develop among committee members. Members are appointed to committees by the House as a whole, on the basis of recommendations made by (yet another) committee called the Committee of Selection. The party composition of select committees reflects that in the House, so departmental select committees have a government majority.

Committees choose their own chairman. Chairmanships are divided up broadly along party lines in the House, which means that some committees have chairman who are not members of the Government. For instance, the Select Committee on International Development has a Conservative chairman. The decisions about who chairs which committee are made following consultation among backbenchers and the party business managers (known as the Whips).

Committees determine their own subjects for inquiry, gather written and oral evidence (and sometimes information from visits in the UK or overseas) and make reports to the House. The Government subsequently replies. It is important to note that the Government does not have to abide by any recommendations made to it by committees; the committees' role is advisory only.

Oral evidence (where witnesses appear before a committee to answer questions) is almost always taken in public and often recorded for TV. Oral evidence is printed with the final committee report, as is most written evidence. Informal discussions and the consideration of the committee's draft reports are invariably in private.

Departmental select committees have power to send for "persons, papers and records". This means that they can not only invite but, if necessary, summon people to appear before them. It has not been the case for many years that Committees have needed to do this - the implied threat is usually sufficient. It is much more common for individuals and organisations to welcome the opportunity to give evidence.

I have already mentioned that I work for the Education and Employment Committee. As an example of how a committee goes about its work, I reproduce below, in slightly edited form, the guidance we issue to those giving evidence to Committee inquiries.

The terms of reference of the Education and Employment Committee are to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department for Education and Employment and its associated public bodies. It has 17 members.

The Committee has appointed two sub-committees on education and employment issues. This has two sub-committees: one of them, on employment, is run by my deputy and I run the one on education. I also have responsibility for the overall committee. Our current inquiries are: other education side, the work of OFSTED (the inspectorate which inspects schools, teacher training establishments and local education authorities) and highly able children. The employment lot are conducing a rolling series of inquiries into the Government's "New Deal" programme designed to help the unemployed back into work and training; they are also considering the future of the Employment Service (the quango which runs Jobcentres) and the future of part-time working. The full Committee - which deals with those areas which fall between the two sub-committees - is looking at opportunities for disabled people in education, training and employment and at ways of widening participation in education, training and lifelong learning.

The description of committee practice which follows applies equally to the two sub-committees and to the full Committee, except where specified.

Within its terms of reference, the Committee chooses its own subjects of inquiry; some subjects may take several months and give rise to a report to the House; others may consist of a single day's oral evidence, which the Committee may publish without making a report.

When the Committee has chosen an inquiry, it usually announces it by means of a news release, which will call for written evidence. (These are available on the Net.) It is open to any organisation or person to contact the Clerk offering to submit evidence. The news release will normally give the terms of reference of the inquiry, and the Clerk will be able to suggest possible topics to be covered in the evidence.

The Committee will also invite individuals and organisations to give oral evidence to its inquiries. As the Committee's time for taking oral evidence is limited, all witnesses, even those that the Committee expects to invite for oral evidence, are encouraged to put what they want to tell the Committee in writing; this not only makes oral hearings more productive, as Members have the witness's statement in front of them, but also means that if witnesses are not called to give oral evidence the Committee still has the benefit of their views.

Written evidence should contain, if appropriate, a brief introduction to the person or organisation submitting it (perhaps stating their area of expertise, etc), and factual information from which the Committee can draw conclusions (or which could be put to other witnesses for their reactions). It is also helpful to include any recommendations for action by the Government or others which the witness would like the Committee to consider including in its report to the House.

There are no formal rules as to the form written evidence should take; what follows is simply guidance based on what the Committee has found helpful in the past. If written evidence is brief, it can be sent in simply in the form of a letter to the Clerk, but otherwise it is helpful for the evidence to be in the form of a self-contained submission, with any request to give oral evidence, etc, in a covering letter addressed to the Clerk. Submissions should preferably have numbered paragraphs and subsidiary material can be placed in annexes. If a submission is particularly long (say 5,000 words), it is helpful to have a summary of the main points at the beginning, and also a table of contents.

Supplementary material (leaflets, articles in periodicals, etc) may also be sent, but it is helpful if the submission itself is self-contained (summarising the main points made in the supplementary material if necessary). This is because material published elsewhere is not usually reprinted by the Committee and such material is often not easy to photocopy for Members.

It is for the Committee to decide whether written evidence should be published, and the manner and timing of its publication. Witnesses should consult the Clerk if they wish to publish their evidence themselves (there is no objection to witnesses simply outlining the views expressed in their submissions). If witnesses give oral evidence, copies of their written evidence will usually be made available to press and public at the hearing, and may thereafter be treated as being in the public domain. Written evidence which is not the subject of a hearing may not be published until considerably later, or not at all. (This does not, of course, apply to material already published elsewhere which is simply sent to the Committee for information.)

If the Committee wishes to take oral evidence, this will usually take place at the House of Commons in one of the committee rooms, although we have frequently taken evidence elsewhere in the UK during visits to schools and other relevant places of interest to an inquiry. (We also visit places outside the UK, but it is very unusual for a committee to take formal evidence overseas.) The timing of meetings varies, but is announced regularly by the Committee via news releases (which are posted on our website). Entrance to the building is through St Stephen's Entrance, opposite Westminster Abbey; no special passes are required but time should be allowed to get through the security arrangements. (Witnesses should identify themselves as such and ask to be directed to the committee room.) Sometimes the Committee takes evidence from more than one set of witnesses successively at a single meeting; in this case it is helpful if the witnesses to be called second attend the whole of the hearing so that they can be asked for their comments on the evidence already given. We pay travelling expenses of those giving evidence.

In nearly all cases, the Committee takes evidence in public; representatives of the press will usually be there and the proceedings are sometimes recorded for broadcast on radio or television.

If a witness does not have available at the time the information to answer a question, the Committee may ask for further information to be sent in writing afterwards. Equally, witnesses are welcome to submit supplementary information after the hearing to amplify any issues discussed.

Members sit around a horseshoe-shaped table, with the chairman at the centre; the witnesses sit at a straight table at the end of the horse-shoe. There are seats behind them for the public. If you want to attend a meeting, just turn up at the House of Commons in good time. You don't need to reserve in advance, although if it is on a very high-profile subject you may need to get their well in advance to secure a seat. A transcript of the oral evidence is prepared by professional shorthand writers. Oral and written evidence is normally published around the same time as the report to which it relates.

At the end of each inquiry, the Committee (or Sub-committee) will normally agree a Report based on the evidence received. (Reports from the Sub-committees must also be approved by the full Committee.) Reports usually contain recommendations to the Government, which by convention responds to reports within about two months of publication. This timescale is not always adhered to strictly. The Education and Employment Committee has published nine reports since the General Election last May.

So far I have given a lot of detail about what Committees do. What do I, and my colleagues, do? How many are there? The answers vary slightly from committee to committee, but basically there will always be at least one Clerk, who will be in charge of the other committee staff and who is the principal point of contact with the chairman and committee members. Busier and/or larger committees will have two Clerks. In addition, there will be other staff: committee assistants, who handle the administrative side of things, and secretaries, who do many similar tasks but also have responsibility for the traditional secretarial role, including the preparation for publication of committee reports. Committee specialists are appointed on two-year contracts to provide specialist input in the committee's field of interest. For instance, the Education and Employment Committee currently has two committee specialists, on education and on employment.

Departmental committees may also appoint "specialist advisers". Unlike the staff described in the previous paragraph, these are not permanent, full-time staff but work on an ad hoc basis for the committee in connection with a particular inquiry or subject. They will typically be drawn from academia.

The Clerk's job, in conjunction with the other staff, is to advise the committee on possible lines of inquiry, liaise with suitable providers of written and oral evidence, prepare briefing material for the committee, make all the administrative arrangements for committee meetings, follow up issues that arise at meetings, arrange for the printing and publication of reports and evidence, advise the chairman and members on parliamentary procedure, keep up to date with developments in the committee's area of interest, answer queries from the press and public about the work of the committee, organise committee visits and so on. I won't give you a description of a "typical day of", because there isn't one. But my average day includes: a lot of time on the phone, a great deal of reading (eg of evidence submitted to inquiries) and writing (eg of draft reports fro the Chairman and committee) and much planning ahead. This all involves close liaison with the other seven staff on the committee to ensure that they all know what is going on. Equally, they will all need to keep me up to date with what they are doing. The Committee meets at least once a week and (taking its two sub-committees into account) there may be three meetings in a week - sometimes four. Each meeting needs a large amount of preparation, and we have to ensure that Members get full, accurate and impartial briefing for each one.

The work is highly pressurised. Not only do we have to run all the regular meetings of the committee and its sub-committees, we also have to respond to sudden and urgent requests for information from the committee. Life in the Westminster village can be very hectic, and there are not many opportunities to stop and reflect. Hence, if I can slip in an excuse here, this rather hasty and ungripping article (written with one eye on the clock).

Finally: I have mentioned in passing that committees can go on visits away from Westminster, in addition to taking evidence in the committee rooms. We frequently visit schools and colleges in the UK, and on occasion we travel further afield. For instance, earlier this year the Education Sub-committee carried out an inquiry into the role of headteachers. As part of this inquiry, we naturally visited schools in England, but we heard that, in parts of Switzerland, most of the schools did not have headteachers at all. This we found intriguing: if we in England laid such great stress on school leadership as a means of ensuring high standards, how did the Swiss manage to achieve the high standards that they do without heads? We were also interested in seeing other aspects of their education system, so for three and a half hectic days we went round schools in Zürich and also visited other people, such as staff of the Education Ministry, to try and find out how it was done. This obviously involved the staff and Members in more work, but at the visit was very interesting.

What are the benefits of select committee visits? For a start, they can stimulate MPs' thinking on a range of issues: there is nothing like observing a different system for making you think afresh about your own backyard. They can give us useful pointers about how things can be done differently, if we are looking for new ways of doing things. They can also provide examples of policies which have been tried out in other countries and which are now being introduced into the UK: the overseas example can give a snapshot of what a particular policy might turn out like in a few years. All these strands will influence the committee's thinking as it considers evidence and agrees a draft report, and we will often draw on experiences of overseas and UK visits in the final report of an inquiry.

In many cases, committees publish a formal record of what they learned. Below is a slightly edited version of the published note of the visit to Switzerland, which appears in the Committee's Ninth Report of the current Parliamentary Session, and which can be accessed via the Parliamentary Website mentioned earlier.

The Education Sub-committee paid a brief visit to Zürich in June 1998, in connection with the inquiry into headteachers and our forthcoming inquiry into early years education, and also to look at the whole-class teaching of mathematics. Our interest in school organisation in Zürich was initially aroused by Barking and Dagenham London Borough Council, which made the point that headteachers, as they are understood in the UK, hardly existed in the Cantons of Zürich and Aargau, in Switzerland. The Council's Chief Inspector contrasted the generally accepted view in the UK that the leadership provided by the head is crucial in raising and maintaining standards, with the experience of German-speaking Switzerland, which had higher standards than in England, especially in mathematics, without the benefit of headteachers.

However, the government in Zürich is currently piloting a new system of school organisation which will involve greater devolution of budgets to schools, increased use of computers in primary schools and the introduction of the English language into the primary curriculum. The reforms will also introduce a post akin to the headteacher who will be expected to give up part of his/her teaching timetable to administer the budget, oversee provision of IT, etc. This proposal has aroused much debate among teachers and parents and our discussions on this point during our visit proved highly relevant to our inquiry.

School education is the responsibility of the Cantons and it is therefore not accurate to talk about "the Swiss education system" - we were told several times during our visit that Switzerland has 26 education systems, one for each canton. The role of the federal government is extremely weak. Within each canton, administration varies. At the communal level, teachers are accountable to the Schulpflege (a board of locally elected people, roughly equivalent to school governors). The Schulpflege is responsible for e.g. maintenance of school buildings, etc. There are also Schulprasidenten (or school presidents), lay people who have overall responsibility for schools in the area. The nature of the job will vary depending on the size of the commune - it might be more like a chair of governors in an area with only two or three schools, or more like running an LEA in a very large commune. The school presidents are elected by the local population. In the absence of headteachers, class teachers contact the local authority for the services they need. There are very strong links between individual class teachers and parents.

Schools are generally much smaller than in England. The largest we visited, a lower secondary school, had 300 pupils. The primary schools we saw had around 150-180 pupils. This means there are many more schools per head of population than in the UK, and this in turn means that it is easier for children to attend their local school - indeed, most children travel to school on foot.

Class sizes are also generally smaller than in the UK. In the schools we visited, the class size ranged from 18 or 19 to 22. Classrooms were generally fairly spacious compared to those in the UK. No use was made of classroom assistants on the UK model; one teacher taught a single class alone. This was the case even in the kindergartens, where a single teacher could have 20 children for the entire morning.

It is perhaps slightly misleading to talk of "schools" in the British sense. The important unit of education, so far as teachers and pupils are concerned, is the class. The fact that teachers spend several years with a class, and teach them a range of subjects, reinforces this relationship. The school (literally Schulhaus, or schoolhouse) is simply the building where the classes take place. Much of our discussion with teachers about the idea of a headteacher revolved around what impact the creation of such a new post would have on the work of class teachers and their relationship with the children.

In marked contrast to many schools in the UK, in all the schools we visited, there was no noticeable security and access to all parts of the school was completely unfettered. Schools did not generally have a problem with security or with unwanted people coming on site, although there were some worries about what was perceived to be the growing incidence of violence in schools. In the absence of a reception point or school secretary, Sub-committee Members went straight to the class being visited and were met by the class teacher with whom we had arranged the visit.

Pre-school education (kindergarten) lasts for one to three years (ages 3-6); although it is not compulsory the great majority of children spend some time in kindergarten before starting school. Compulsory schooling lasts for nine years, from the age of 6 or 7 to 15 or 16 (varying between cantons); it consists of primary school (ages 6/7 to 12/13) and lower secondary school (12/13 to 15/16). All children attend the same kind of primary school, and normally go to their nearest school. Teaching is nearly always carried out by generalist teachers who will usually stay with the same class of children for several years.

At lower secondary level, there are three main streams: Realschule, Sekundarschule and Oberschule. The Realschule caters for students of average ability (about 35 per cent of the cohort), Sekundarschule for those of higher ability (48 per cent) and Oberschule for the very low achievers (6 per cent). These three streams, although separate, are all taught in the same school building. In addition, the highly academic students (about 11 per cent of the cohort) transfer after primary school to the Gymnasium (equivalent to grammar school). A small number (about 10 per cent) of those who attend Sekundarschule transfer to the Gymnasium after two or three years. (We did not visit a Gymnasium during the visit - they do have headteachers, but the role is rather different from that in the UK.)

As in the primary phase, in the lower secondary phase most lessons are taught by generalist teachers, and they too will take the same class for three years. In the secondary school we visited, pairs of teachers shared two classes - this meant that students would only have two class teachers for the whole of their time in this phase, one of the main differences between the Zürich and English systems. At this school, we were told that one of the main reasons truancy was very rare in Swiss schools was that the children in each class "lived with a teacher" for three years. If they didn't turn up for school, the teacher would call their home. This relationship with the pupils and the home was a key part of the school ethos, of which the teachers were proud.

At the end of compulsory education (the upper secondary phase) most young people undertake vocational education and training, which usually consists of apprenticeships combined with attendance at college. Such training is governed by statutory regulations which are, unusually, agreed at the federal (ie national) level.

The cantons are responsible for training teachers and regulate their employment conditions (salary, number of lessons, etc). At the primary level, teachers are trained in teacher-training colleges. Courses normally last for five years. At the secondary level, there are two basic types of teachers: primary teachers who have had additional training and teachers who have had a university education and have specialised in two or three subjects. Training of the latter teachers can take place entirely in university or be a combination of a first degree followed by training in a teacher-training college. Training can take between 6 and 12 semesters (ie 3 to 6 years). At the upper secondary (post-compulsory) level, teachers are specialised in a limited number of subjects and are generally trained exclusively at universities. The duration of their studies, including their degree course, is at least 10 semesters (ie 5 years).

Given the absence of headteachers, and indeed of the tiers of senior management found in British schools, the management structure in most schools in German-speaking Switzerland is very flat. Thus the idea of 'career progression' as it is understood in the UK does not exist. Teachers, once they have qualified, can expect to spend the whole of their career in the classroom. (Indeed, many teachers we met had spent the greater part of the career - or all of it - in the same school.) This flat structure was not regarded as a problem by anyone we met: there is a strong belief in the centrality of the classroom teacher to the education process, and the status of classroom teachers seemed to be very high compared to their image in the UK - although we heard familiar complaints from some teachers that, 20 years ago, there had been more respect for teachers and that nowadays parents always thought they knew better and tended to take the pupils' side in arguments, not the teacher's.

There are no headteachers as such in German-speaking Switzerland in primary or lower secondary level education, with the exception of the Gymnasium. The nearest approach to the post is the 'lead teacher'. The attitude of the Swiss teachers we met to the UK model of the headteacher was well summed up by one who asked us " what headteachers actually did", as she wasn't sure. Teachers generally elect one of their number to be lead teacher or 'chair' for up to four years. Such lead teachers had certain administrative responsibilities within the school, such as distributing the post, school admissions and contact with the local school board. But we were told firmly in one school that the lead teacher did not organise the cleaners - this was for the local school board. Although these are elected posts, we were told that it was normally the case of getting someone to volunteer. One lead teacher had been doing it for six years, and was hoping to hand over to someone else. Although she was the lead teacher, she emphasized that she worked by consensus. Like other lead teachers, she was paid a little more for doing this work - but this did not seem to be the major incentive for volunteering though, and teachers generally undertook the role because they found it useful experience. At some schools, different teachers shared different responsibilities. Tasks such as lesson planning were not the responsibility of the lead teacher; this was done by the teachers working together as a team.

One of the reasons why schools in Zürich have not needed heads in the past is that schools are expected to do less. There is not the administrative workload created by national testing, or by OFSTED inspections, and as we have noted schools' budgets, maintenance etc. are dealt with by the local authority rather than the school. The prime task of the school, therefore, has been to provide teaching in the classroom, where the individual teacher has great autonomy - in the words of one teacher, "we are all headteachers in our own classroom", or as another put it, they were "little kings in their own classrooms".

We also explained to teachers that in the UK system, one of the important tasks for the head was the monitoring and support of teachers - and identifying and dealing with those who were underperforming. We were told that, if a teacher was not doing well, the teacher who had been chosen to undertake administrative tasks would work with the teacher to improve his or her performance. However, we were told that the Swiss system for selecting trainee teachers, and the quality of their initial teacher training, meant that there were very few weak teachers, so this problem did not arise as much as it might in other countries.

Against this background, the proposal currently being piloted for the introduction of a 'headteacher' post has been met with varying degrees of hostility and indeed confusion. 47 of the 700 schools in Zürich were taking part in the voluntary piloting scheme in advance of their introduction throughout the Canton. Education ministry officials agreed that the introduction of headteachers was likely to change the entire dynamic of a school, especially as it was being accompanied by the introduction of IT. Headteachers would need to allocate computers to classes, for instance. In these circumstances, heads would end up with a considerable responsibility and workload in addition to teaching.

One of the other concerns that lay behind the introduction of this new post was that the education system needed to change. It was not possible to rely any longer on the old framework, which regarded the individual teacher and the class as the most important aspect of the education process. The changing nature of society, and of its expectations about the kind of skills people would need for the labour market of the future - the whole lifelong learning agenda - meant that schools would have to be able to adapt more than they did at present. Teachers would have to work together more, and schools would have to become more involved with their communities. Such issues could not be dealt with solely by the teacher in his or her own class - you needed some kind of central figure, though it might not be the same in every case. Some kind of structure and leadership was needed in the school to deal with problems and raise standards.

Most of the teachers we met were not in favour of having a headteacher who was in charge of other teachers: although the content of the curriculum in the main subjects (eg mathematics) was laid down by the canton, many teachers felt that they had autonomy in deciding how best to pace, structure and teach the material. They were therefore opposed to the introduction of headteachers because of the perceived threat to his autonomy in classroom matters.

The staff of one school we visited told us that they had decided not to participate in the pilot scheme, preferring to stick to the present "democratic" method. They felt that headteachers would undermine the professionalism of teachers - they didn't like the idea of being "managed". Even if headteachers were introduced, the "democratic approach", emphasizing the central role of the class teacher and cooperation between teachers would remain important. For this reason, several teachers believed that the headteacher should be selected by the other teachers at the school, in the same way that the lead teachers were at present.

One lead teacher whom we spoke to believed that giving schools some more autonomy over their work might be a good idea, and accepted that this would involve one teacher having more of a "leader" role than at present. However, in common with other teachers, she did not like the idea of one teacher being superior to the others and being able to tell them what to do.

Another teacher, who had no objections to the proposed introduction of headteachers in Zürich schools, felt that their role as she understood it would be very limited, and would take up less than half a teacher's normal working week. Even so, the major concern of the teachers was that reducing the amount of teaching carried out by the new headteachers would lead to an increase in class sizes. Teachers all told us that they would rather not have a headteacher if it meant having larger classes, as they felt that their method of whole-class, interactive teaching would not work with 25 children or more in the way that it did with 20 or fewer. (We subsequently learned, however, that in some other German-speaking Cantons, such whole-class teaching was successful carried out with larger classes.)

There was some confusion too about whether the new headteachers would be administrators or educational leaders (which echoed the debate which we have referred to in our report.) Education ministry officials felt that the new headteachers needed to have had experience of teaching but would not have to teach a full timetable. It was expected that heads would do some teaching, depending on the size of the school - in a very large school they would not be able to teach and do all the necessary administration. They told us of their concerns that headteachers in the UK did not always have time to observe what was happening in their classrooms because of the demands of management and administration. The ministry did not want to introduce the "management model" of headship into Switzerland but the "pedagogic leader" model. On the other hand, others whom we met felt that the new post should be more of an administrator, coordinating a group of teachers and remaining "first among equals". We were told that, among the 47 schools that were piloting the headteacher model, some had opted for a dual system, with one headteacher for the educational side and one for the administrative side.

The most important thing we learned from our visit to Switzerland was an emphasis on the key role of the classroom teacher. We were thus reminded that the role of the head in raising standards must be to ensure the best possible teaching in the class. The discussions we had with teachers and others made us think about possible alternative models of school organisation - it is always useful to be reminded that the way we have always done things is not automatically the only way to do them. And having to answer the question "what do headteachers do?" was of course highly stimulating.

Overall, it seemed to us that the Zürich model of school organisation has worked well. But we recognise the argument that schools without headteachers, consisting essentially of groups of semi-autonomous classes, have worked for a society with particular habits of mind and traditions - not least a strong tradition of democracy at every level, including the most local, illustrated for instance by the many referendums at both national and communal level. It is clear that this system has worked due to some conditions which are very different to those in the UK - no system of national testing, a much lighter inspection regime, a fairly standardised system of lesson planning and classroom organisation, standard textbooks for each commune, and so forth. There is in short much less for teachers to worry about beyond practising their pedagogical skill.

It also seems to us that such a system may not be in the best position to adapt to changing circumstances - it has been successful in a fairly static educational environment compared to that of the UK. Indeed, this is one of the biggest differences between the UK and Zürich, and we have noted that among some teachers there was an acceptance that introduction of new ideas - devolved budgets, ICT, etc - would require schools to have a different organisational structure and greater leadership.

If you have bothered to read this far, I hope you found it of some interest.

MATTHEW HAMLYN

Matthew Hamlyn is a very friendly civil servant with whom I have struck up a correspondence. HJN.