The Dawn of Error

My active involvement with charity stretches back to 1980 when I modelled knitwear for the Enable catalogue. At the time, my aunt was working as a fundraiser for the charity. Accompanying her to their Edinburgh offices one afternoon, I was inveigled into participating in a photo shoot. For the next three years I was the charity's unofficial 'face'. This role ended when the administrators capitulated to a spate of poison pen letters prompted by the proposal that I be presented to Princess Anne, Enable's recently appointed patron. While this was neither the first nor last co-ordinated campaign to which I've been subjected, it was possibly the most spiteful. "There's nothing actually wrong with you, Hamilton," explained chairman Dr Colin West after the crisis meeting at which it was decided to dispense with my services. "It's unethical to carry on using you just because you look peculiar." Naturally, I accepted the decision, but the entire episode left a bad taste, particularly when I was replaced by Robbie Henderson, the son of director Margaret Henderson. No great graphology skills were required to identify Margaret as the author of seven of the anonymous letters. Unfortunately, my dossier was dismissed unread. It gives me no satisfaction to record that Robbie, ill-equipped for the occasion, suffered a failure of nerve, throwing a bouquet at the Princess before turning tail. His behaviour, I fear, precipitated Enable's demise two years later. Happily, Robbie survived this trauma and currently manages a sports shop in Falkirk.

Undeterred by this rejection, I've badgered on behalf of numerous causes. The entire creed of Coe, after all, is based on the desire to help others. At various times, I've bagged clothes for Oxfam, solicited donations for Mencap and manned the till at Age Concern. The Hamilton Coe archive contains twenty seven letters from other charities thanking me for my participation in fund raising campaigns, while my practical assistance has been instrumental in weeding out unsuitable volunteers. The Hamilton Coe Foundation (which, for reasons beyond my comprehension, has been refused Charity status) has published an employer's guide, a chapter of which is specific to the voluntary sector. Most of the charities with which I've been involved over the years have been riven by internal divisions. Pilfering, threatening behaviour and even blackmail, however, are small beer when compared to the ill-will caused by ideological divisions between pragmatists and dreamers.

After a lifetime peering into the abyss, how could I be anything other than a realist? From the earliest records, humans have compulsively lied, stolen and marched on their neighbours with drawn swords. After millennia of behaviour which, by the most generous assessment, can only be described as poor, what can we realistically expect of our peers? We should be grateful barbarities are at least partially circumvented by a combination of brute force and red tape. The idealist, however, is governed by principles he feels should be universal (as, indeed, they would be if logic had any influence on human behaviour.) In demanding an end to poverty, war, hunger or whatever, he might as well call time on jealousy, anger or wasps. When his expectations are confounded, though, he's inflamed by the same savage indignation that turned the Utopias envisaged by Lenin and Robespierre into gulags.

This was the gist of my response after Muriel asked me to sponsor her for Sport Relief. "Stop being such a pompous ass, Hamilton!" interrupted Christine who has a tendency to miss the point. "She's signed up for a fun run. What on earth's Robespierre got to do with it?" I was on the verge of retorting that, for a twenty a day smoker such as Muriel, strenuous exercise is hardly compatible with fun. The fact that she intended to participate in the sort of civic-minded project at which I would have expected her to curl her lip, however, caused me to bite my tongue. As she eyed me contemptuously from the far side of the room, I remembered when she sought my opinion and breathlessly confided her joys and sorrows. (Breathlessness, I should clarify, caused by exhilaration rather than pulmonary congestion.) How, I wondered, had we reached this impasse of mutual incomprehension? Momentarily overwhelmed by the sadness of estrangement, it occurred to me that Muriel wanted nothing more than my encouragement. "Well, if Muriel's going to run," I said, "I'll run, too...."

Over the course of the next week, my training schedule was disrupted by a succession of accidents. First, a carelessly abandoned skateboard propelled me down the stairs. Only reflexes honed by Cung-Coe prevented me from suffering serious injury. The next day, as I waited for Christine to answer her front door, a falling plant pot missed my head by centimetres. Returning home, I found Spencer nursing a twisted knee having slipped on the icy front path. Closer inspection revealed the danger to have been greatly exacerbated by the liberal application of water. A surveillance operation confirmed my direst suspicions three days later when I caught Muriel in the act of severing the Picador's brake cable. No great interrogation was necessary to extract a confession. "I don't want you to run," she said bluntly. "It would ruin my life."

My enthusiasm for the fun run, I have to confess, was dampened by Muriel's behaviour. "She's just going through a very difficult time," argued Christine without any great conviction. "She didn't actually mean to kill you...." My mood wasn't improved by the appearance of fliers around Drumfeld advertising a charity 'Cage Fight' between me and Glasgow Airport blowhard/scourge of menace (so-called!) John Smeaton. These posters, in which 'The Smeatonator' and I square up to each other, our heads superimposed over massive, tattooed torsoes, were obviously the work of a prankster. This didn't prevent various unsavoury characters from appearing in Drumfeld and enquiring as to the availability of tickets. P.C. Jackson, obviously anticipating trouble, asked if I couldn't "just find someone to fight.... It is for charity, after all" while a persistent and obnoxious sports reporter phoned at thirty minute intervals asking how I intended to nullify Smeaton's 'flying monkey kick'. Smeaton, though taken by surprise when contacted by the Rob McAskill show, was predictably eager to participate. "I'll set about him," he bragged before embarking on his entire inane reportoire.

As I type this 'blog' I can still hear sporadic chants of "Hamilton's a shite-bag!" emanating from the High Street. I don't suppose it should surprise anyone that Smeaton actually turned up . Accompanied by three busty females wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the Sun logo, he held court outside my house for the better part of two hours. Clearly oblivious to the danger in which he was placing himself, he used a megaphone to challenge me to come out and fight him "for all the hungry kids out there." I resisted the temptation to go out and teach him a lesson: as I frequently remind my students, mastery of any martial art must be accompanied by the responsibility of restraint. Eventually Smeaton, frustrated, no doubt, by a lack of attention, wandered in the direction of the playing fields where, I gather, he presented prizes and delivered an impromtu motivational address. In my mind's eye, I can still summon an image of him shivering in his leotard and gesticulating toward the house: the hapless redeemer unwittingly summoning nemesis as he blows into his trumpet. How could anyone have prophesied this interminable darkness into which we've blundered?

 

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