Ju-ju injustice

At the same time Sorious showed us how difficult it is to change such deep-seated beliefs, or rather explanations for the cruelties of life? Children born disabled are a problem to families who need every pair of hands to make enough to eat from soil that is bone-dry four months before the rains will come. One way out is to dispose of them. There is no room for Western sentiment.

That’s what made this programme so refreshingly different from the normal fare of reporters flown out to the deserts of Africa to report on the horrors that they find there. Nothing can excuse the barbaric practices of ju-ju but, as Sorious himself told us, he and his friends used to taunt and provoke and even throw stones at people who were disabled when he was growing up in Sierra Leone. ‘I too have to negotiate with my past.’

Sorious is a very engaging reporter. He doesn’t ‘report’ in the objective sense because he has far too much intelligence to look down on the lives of those whom he is observing. Nor does he become too empathetic. His anger was palpable, but he’s also on a journey of inquiry, of understanding. How can you change beliefs that have held sway for centuries?

It’s a far cry from Africa to the village of Tissington in the deepest folds of the Derbyshire hills, but in a fascinating programme on Radio Four last week we heard from the 9th Baronet of Tissington Hall, Sir Richard FitzHerbert, who’s also struggling with centuries of tradition. In The Baronet and Tissington’s Fight for Survival we heard of his struggles to preserve the Jacobean gem that has been the family home for 400 years. With 61 rooms, 48 chimneys and 4,034 panes of glass that’s not easy, and FitzHerbert is having to sell off the family silver to make ends meet. Twenty years ago 70 per cent of his income came from farming and only 30 per cent from other ‘functions’; now that’s been reversed and only 30 per cent is raised from his sheep and meadows, while 70 per cent comes from the tea room, from weddings — and from the very popular Ghost Nights.