John Gulliver: Good news for the elderly - Freedom Passes valid for 5 years

GOOD news for the travelling elderly: Your next Freedom Pass for bus and Tube journeys – it comes into effect on March 31 – will be valid for five years.
In the past, it had to be renewed annually at the post office.
But the new “long life” card, masterminded by the London Councils organisation, has a permanence about it that will please campaigners worried that it was under threat.
Mysteriously, the welcomed scheme has suddenly appeared without much pre-publicity.
It’s unclear what lay behind the decision. Was it simply made by a quango to cut down on paperwork and reduce costs? Or did the silent majority among the elderly, who value the pass, have a greater influence than they thought possible?
Whether political forces among Labourites or Lib-Demmers – behaving opportunistically or out of principle – did the trick, we shall probably never know.
Either way, the recipients  will be cock-a-hoop.
Meanwhile, congratulations to the three London boroughs – Camden, Kensington and Barking – that signed up for the version of the new scheme that allows the elderly to renew their passes by post.
I was sceptical at first because applicants had assured me how easy it had been to renew their pass at a post office.
I hadn’t thought about what would happen if a person’s handicap made it difficult to trudge to a post office counter.
Now, under the new system in Camden thankfully everything can be done by post.
But in other boroughs you are expected to turn up in person at the post office no matter your age or disability.
A reader, Bernard Miller, took his friend Hetty Bower,  aged 104, to a post office in Haringey and queued for 15 minutes only to be told that under an alphabetical name system they had come on the wrong day.
In another case in north London, a woman enquired about whether her cousin, who is registered blind, needed to go first to a post office.
She was told fairly sharply at the HQ of London Councils that that was exactly what she had to do. “But she is blind!” complained the woman. “Well, if so, what does she need a pass for?” came the reply.
Meanwhile, I obviously got my fractions wrong when I wrote last week that Camden had only processed one in four of the postal applications (See Letters page 16). In fact, Councillor Martin Davies points out that around 21,000 have so far been dealt with at the Town Hall.
I understand that there are 30,000 Freedom Pass holders in Camden so that would leave nearly a third yet to be dealt with – and they would have to be processed within the next month or so to allow London Councils to do their job, all before the March 31 deadline.
Signs are that Camden is probably on track.
Partly, I intended in my piece last week to alert politicians to a scheme that affects so many people in the borough.   
Clearly, Cllr Davies looked into it – and found it successful. Good. It is surprising how words in print can stir the embers of accountability. 

Auschwitz survivor, 86, takes on the protesters

IT’S not often you meet a have-a-go hero, let alone three! I met spritely 86-year-old Dr Hajo Meyer, a survivor of the Nazi death-camps, at the House of Commons.
At a Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony, Dr Meyer spoke about the Nazis and pleaded for an end to the war against Palestinians. Israel, he said, was “dehumanising the Palestinians as the Nazis tried to dehumanise me”.
But when a dozen protesters tried breaking up the meeting, shouting pro-Israel slogans and hurling abuse at Dr Meyer, they met their match. The plucky professor – barely over 5ft – refused to back down. “I grew up under Hitler and lived through Auschwitz. I’m not scared of people like you,” he told the burly protestors. 
Islington MP Jeremy Corbyn, who helped organise the meeting, had to call the police and it took several officers to cart the men away. Minutes later we heard the voice of another hero. Speaking by telephone from Gaza, Dr Haider Eid reported how Israel’s blockade of the enclave has cut power and plunged its 1.3m people into darkness.
Because of the embargo families are in tents, orphans on the streets, food and medicines have dwindled, he said. But he wanted pay tribute to the tens of thousands of Jews trapped by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto. 
The meeting was chaired by Hampstead resident Selma James, 79 year-old widow of the black writer CLR James.
At another event I came across Triveni Acharya who has helped 1,000 girls trafficked into prostitution in one of India’s red-light districts and forced into sex with as many as 60 men each day. 
Triveni, who was in Bloomsbury for an acclaimed film about her work, describes the girls as the daughters she never had. “I am mummy to hundreds of girls,” she said.
•  From Brothel to Bridehood is part of the Himalaya Film and Cultural Festival. Tonight (Thursday) Soname, a film about the well-known young Tibetan singer Soname, will show at the Tricycle in Kilburn High Road

Surprising sidenote on Menuhin

WHILE I was admiring a photograph of the violinist Yehudi Menuhin in short trousers and sandals at the launch of an exhibition in Knightsbridge on Tuesday evening, a guest started to talk to me about the great man (see the Review).
I was surprised to be told that Menuhin’s father was disappointed because he didn’t consider his son “left” enough.
My informant said she had got this  surprising nugget from Menuhin’s sister whom she knew.
I had to listen carefully because there was such a hubbub among the scores of guests who had crowded into the first floor exhibition hall of the Austrian Cultural Forum, all friends, relatives or admirers of the superb photographer Gerti Deutsch whose haunting works were on display. They had come from all parts of Britain and from Europe. One guest had just flown in from Bavaria.
Several guests came from Hampstead where Gerti (pictured above) had lived for years in the Vale of Health. Among them was Milein Cosman, an artist, who had known her in the 60s and early 70s. “She was a beautiful person who took a photograph of me and my husband and gave it me as a wedding present,” said Milein who lives in Frognal.  

RUMOURS that those who want pupils at Camden School for Girls to wear uniforms may soon succeed can be laid to rest. I’m assured by my contacts that this idea doesn’t appeal one bit to the new head, Elizabeth Kitcatt, who was appointed last week.