ten heroes

1. Bishop Von Galen. A German Bishop who spoke out publicly against the Nazis' abortion and euthanasia and world conquest programmes when to do so meant death. He delivered his impassioned sermon just as Nazi power was its height. He then ensured the sermon was printed up and distributed to far flung regions of the Nazi empire. The SS were quite frustrated to find copies of it in the hands of German soldiers serving on the Eastern front. The funny thing is, Hitler and co never quite had the confidence to kill Von Galen. They kept putting it off. Ultimately, he outlasted them all. British historian Michael Burleigh, himself no friend to the Catholic church, expresses grudging respect for Von Galen. I hold more with writer Gitta Sereny's view. Sereny is more frankly unreserved and less blinkered by pseudo intellectualism than Burleigh in her admiration for Von Galen's heroism.

2. Hugh Clowers Thompson. American. Intervened to stop the My Lai massacre. While flying a surveillance support mission he witnessed a company of US troops systematically murdering Vietnamese villagers. As he flew overhead his mind filled with images of Hitler sending Jewish people to the ovens. . He landed his helicopter in the middle of the massacre. He faced down the murderers from his own side. When the soldiers seemed reluctant to desist, he instructed his helicopter gunner to open fire on any American who made a move towards the Vietnamese villagers who were huddled close by. Word went out around the zone that an American helicopter pilot was threatening American troops. There was a shockwave of realisation. The massacre came to a halt. Think of what it took for Thompson to land in that hell hole. Think of what it took for him to decide to turn his guns against his own brothers in arms. I know of no other example of moral courage to match this. After My Lai, a cottage industry sprang up producing books devoted to the psychological profiles of the soldiers who committed the massacre. There were hundreds of such books. The authors dwelt heavily on the false notion that the soldiers had been ordinary Americans psychoticised by war. Anti war Liberals were fascinated by such analyses which seemed to offer an incarnate indictment of the American presence in Vietnam. There were fewer books about Hugh Clowers Thompson.

3. William McBride. Australian doctor who in 1961 defied international pharmaceutical companies to blow the whistle on the thalidomide drug. McBride discovered that thalidomide was harmful to unborn children. Some 10,000 children are known to have been born with altered physiologies arising from the drug's use. There are persistent suggestions that the pharmaceutical companies continued to make and distribute the drug long after it was known to be inimical to human health. The same pharmaceutical companies played a long game with McBride. By 1993 the doctor, once deemed a hero, (and still a hero in my view), was judged to have falsified data in tests on new pharmaceutical products some of which had been banned at his behest. My own assessment of this is that he was set up. I would suggest it is in all our interests that my readers acquaint themselves with McBride's case and in particular with the possibility that pharmaceutical companies may operate in a way that is thoroughly malign. Yes they've played a long game. As I write this, thalidomide is once more being prescribed having supposedly been found useful in the treatment of several conditions, including some cancers and some forms of leprosy. (NB: McBride is not the only hero who opposed thalidomide. Widijung Lenz in Germany is said to have shown similar courage. I'm told a French doctor accomplished something unique in preventing thalidomide from ever being prescribed to women in France.)

4. Lutheran Pastor Richard Wurmbrand. Imprisoned by the communists in Romania. Afterwards lived in England. Sought through his writings to awaken the Christian conscience of the sleeping west. Like me, loved Russians. When I first read Wurmbrand's work, I experienced a spiritual intuition that I would know when he died. Several years later I picked up a copy of The Guardian that was lying in the Hodges Figgis bookstore cafe, and my eye fell on his obituary. The obit wasn't carried in most other newspapers. I don't normally read The Guardian.

5. Saint Thomas Moore. The man for all seasons. When King Henry the Eighth declared himself Head of the Church of England, a well meaning member of the British aristocracy warned Sir Thomas: "The anger of the King is death." Sir Thomas replied: "Why then the only difference between you and me, is that I shall die today and you shall die tomorrow." A rather good version of Moore's life was written by non believing playwright Robert Bolt entitled A Man For All Seasons. There's also a very good book about him published by Sceptre in the US, and by the Four Courts Press in Ireland whose title escapes me.

6. John Carpenter. American film director. Most of his films are worthless and empty even if they do occasionally have good music. His very first production back in 1974, a science fiction comedy called Dark Star, is a work of art which extends experience. For this alone Carpenter is an auteur of American, and indeed world, cinema. (I would liken the seditious life affirming Dark Star to three early Woody Allen films, Bananas, Sleeper, and Love & Death, which made life worth living for me as a teenager, and because of which I cannot think harshly of Mr Allen.)

7. Jane Austen. She wrote a book called Pride and Prejudice which, if you get into it, is a glory.

8. John Keats. Second greatest poet in the history of the English language.

9. Ludovico Einaudi. He has written a piano tune called Le Onde, The Waves. This music brings healing. Listen to it in the dark and let your mind find harmonies without words or images. I am sure that allowing the mind to experience itself through classical or classically inspired music, will one day be a part of our victory over schizophrenia, oppression, depression et al.

10. My feminist cousin Pauline who saved the world entire.