The ability to take responsibility and to move on

My ambivalence towards the Russian establishment has often confounded my friend. Have I ever visited the country, he asked? No, I said. Do I ever intend to? No, again. So what’s the problem?
It’s simple. My mother lived in Berlin through World War 2 and was 10 years old when the conflict ended. I cannot begin to imagine the horrors she and other members of my extended family faced.
In her later years bits and pieces of information came out when we chatted about the wonderful city of her, and my, birth.
Most of it was heart-warming and inspiring – I was well into my 30s before I found out that one of my great-aunts had hidden her Jewish neighbours from the Nazis. In her hollowed out floor-to-ceiling tile-faced oven in the kitchen. Amazing.
And she never had a really bad word about the French, British or Americans, even going out with a Brit she met during his two years’ National Service in the city in the late 1950s and then moving to the UK to marry him.
But some of her stories left me speechless, particularly about the Russian troops who entered the city after the defeat of Germany. Mum mentioned this to me just the once, in the 1980s, and never spoke of it again.
I refer to all this now because of something military historian Sir Antony Beevor said when he appeared on Desert Island Discs earlier this week.
Apparently he faces prison if he goes to Russia because of his account of the mass rape of German women by Stalin’s armies at the end of the war in his 2002 bestseller Berlin: The Downfall 1945, which led to Moscow passing a law banning criticism of the Red Army.
Sir Antony said: “Technically I am liable to five years’ imprisonment if I go back. The ambassador explained that the [Russian] victory in the war was sacred and obviously the appalling accounts of the rapes undermined the sacred element of the victory.”
The ambassador accused him of “lies, slander and blasphemy”.
Now I have nothing whatsoever against the people of Russia, just as I am certain that the majority of Brits don’t really hate the Germans.
History is littered with examples of man’s inhumanity to man. But what makes us different to other animals is the ability to take responsibility and to move on.

When will our government and the BBC stop going on about the "ageing population" who are putting a "strain" on the NHS? It shouldn’t come as a surprise that people are living longer and therefore need more care.
We members of the “ageing population” are, after all, the people who worked all their lives to pay into the NHS so I think that makes us as entitled to use the service as anyone else. If there is a shortage of money in the NHS, the solution is straightforward – put more in.
And perhaps introduce a small charge for every non-emergency visit to a surgery or hospital. This could then be refunded via a tax rebate every April or May for people who have an NHS number or a tax reference. After all, we’ve already paid for the service via tax and NI.
It can’t be that difficult, in this technology-filled age, to keep a log of people’s payments. And anyone not entitled to use our NHS pay does not receive a refund. Simples?