Respect

As a small boy, I stood in awe and wonder at the sight of an aircraft starting up its engines.

A symphony of sound, smoke and movement. The sound and amount of smoke varied between the life-giving rotations of a Rolls-Royce Merlin and a Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp because the Rolls-Royce, as I well understood, was a V-sixteen, in-line, liquid cooled engine and the Pratt & Whitney was a twin bank radial engine of some eighteen cylinders that was air cooled.

I did not, at that stage, understand the workings of the engines nor did I understand the concept of ‘hydraulic-ing’ on the lower cylinders of a radial engine. All that was to come much later.

Imagine, then, my awestruck little mind when I first saw a Fokker F27 equipped with the very latest engine technology that I should come to know as the Rolls-Royce Dart turbo-propeller engine.

There was no spluttering, there was no loud banging, there was very little smoke.

Just a smooth whine followed by a solid ‘whump’ and then brief resonance as the engine and propeller spun into life.

I could hear the propeller. Amazing.

My respect for aero-engines grew apace after that. The rest of the aeroplane was little more than an attachment—something to put the engines onto to give them an excuse for being there.

I still have respect for engines. I have great respect for the damage they can do to us humans and to me specifically.

Propellers are dangerous if you cannot see them. It means they are spinning and will remove parts of your body with ease. Jet engine intakes, similarly, will remove your life if you wander too close, especially if you wander too close wearing baggy clothes that will fill like a parachute dragging you into the engine where the engine will separate you from your life.

Helicopters have main rotors and tail rotors that will, with equal ease, spoil your whole day and render your wives into widows.

Even the back end of jet engines will not be safe because the temperature of the gas coming out will damage your lungs, skin, eyes and, possibly, melt your clothes to your body. This is a bad thing.

Respect. Even after working on aircraft for over fifty years I still have great respect for things mechanical and electrical. Things that will hurt if you test for them using parts of your body.

I also have respect for people who are older than me. Such people are, obviously, becoming harder to find yet they exist—in ever-smaller numbers, true, but they are out there.

Most of them are infirm and frail. They totter from minute to minute hoping, sometimes beyond hope, that they will be granted another minute of existence before death swoops in unexpectedly and rips their soul out of their bodies.

This respect is dying like fruit rotting on the tree of life. Only today a young lad tried to push me out of the way in his busy desire to accomplish something far more urgent and exciting than I could possibly be purporting to achieve.

He was, I think, a little surprised when he bounced off. I am inclined to the view that he expected this elderly gentleman to be just brushed aside.

There is an arrogance in modern youth. Perhaps it is that they believe that they shall never become old. It may be that us old people are just an irritation in their exciting schedule.

Not so long ago a young neighbour was having trouble with his motorcycle. I could, from my vantage point across the fence, perceive the problem quite clearly. It was equally clear that he had no idea what to do or how to do it.

“Might I offer some advice to you?” I queried.

His upper lip curled in rank disdain, his words reeked with disbelief, “What on earth would you know about motorbikes?”

“Nothing,” I assured him, “Absolutely nothing,” I reiterated over my shoulder as I walked off.

He never got it running properly again.

Respect.

Very recently there has been a newsworthy event. It is not necessarily an interesting event but it has filled the news media and the social pages on my computer.

It was a ‘Royal Birth’.

Much has been made of this. Now there are, I am told, bets being placed on names for the child.

A hoo-haa has raged on for some time that looks as if it will take a while to subside. There are ‘Royal Watchers’ out there who are swooning with bliss at this birth.

The baby will be, of course, my great nephew twice removed so he joins ‘The Family’.

It is nice that people gain pleasure from this moment. Their lives are improved by it even if only momentarily.

The sad part is that there are those who choose to disrespect the event. They use it as an excuse to ‘have a go’ at the ‘Royal Family’ in some form or another. From ‘benefit scroungers’ (which they are, largely, not) to the anachronistic titles they hold. There is also the idea of having, as a result of these titles, to call someone ‘Your Highness’ in this day and age.

It is part of our ancient tradition. It is British. It is the mainstay of our ‘Britishness’. If the Royal Family goes or is abolished then a huge slice of our tradition goes with them. Our ‘Britishness’ will be decreased drastically. We shall have no standard around which to rally as we have done since time immemorial.

Yes, we take the ‘mickey’, yes we sometimes sneer and scoff but the fact remains that we need them. We need this in our lives to give us something to cling to when all around us is decaying and falling apart.

Never mind the income the Royals gain for us as ‘Great Britain plc’. The tourist income from people wanting to glimpse the Royals is huge—far more than the pittance we pay out of our grossly inflated taxes. The employment figures would increase dramatically if the Royals were to be abolished and that, dear hearts, would be a greater strain on the economy than the so called ‘Leeches in State’!

We are losing respect. This is not just a British thing it is global. We are losing respect for each other, for each other’s feelings, beliefs and our place in the society in which we live.

Worst of all, we are losing respect for ourselves. We no longer stand ourselves in good stead. Our confidence suffers and we become less.

Being disrespectful is not being more manly it is being less so. Being rude is not clever it is boorish; being a bully shows weakness. A weakness of spirit because we do not respect ourselves and so we cannot respect others.

Because we have lost the ability and knowledge of respect. Society is rapidly failing and we are letting it slide away from us.

Without resisting.