Byline: FIDELMA COOK
AS a former ambassador to Kuwait and Jordan and an expert on Middle Eastern politics and Islam, Peter Hinchcliffe is a master of the delicate art of diplomacy.
Author of several books on the world's most volatile states, the 67-year-old has a reputation as a fair and balanced observer. In fact, in almost 40 years at the Foreign Office, he never put a foot wrong. Until now.
His retirement to a former manse in a village in the Borders should have set the seal on a long and distinguished career in service to the Crown.
But somewhere between the Middle East and the Berwickshire hamlet of Hutton (population less than 200) he 'lost' his most valuable asset . . . his tact.
Last week he admitted that in the space of a few months he managed to alienate most of his neighbours, faced accusations of outrageous 'colonial behaviour' and 'racism' and had been forced to issue a series of 'grovelling apologies'.
'It is absolutely fair to say I've been a most undiplomatic diplomat,' public school educated Hinchcliffe conceded, head in hands. 'I've had to go around the village cap in hand and apologise to all I unwittingly offended.'
Mr Hinchcliffe's troubles began after he started Musings From The Merse, an Internet diary, or 'blog', on life in and around Hutton and neighbouring Paxton.
As chairman of the community council, he was in a perfect position to chart the ups and downs of rural life with a series of whimsical anecdotes, or so he thought, alongside the daily doings of his pet peacock and visiting pheasants Ollie and Cocky.
Writing as Huttonian, he particularly enjoyed ranting about several stalwarts of the local church who were embroiled in a heated dispute over a proposed new village hall.
According to one villager: 'Some of the things he wrote were outrageous.
Recently he's tempered it a lot but we're fed up to the back teeth with his blog. It's meant to be humorous but it comes across as patronising and colonialist - he's taken a pop at virtually everybody in the village.'
Another local said: 'He seems to hate everything to do with village life with his snide comments. He's ranted about landowners, farmers, revealed private business like how much cottages have really sold for and comes across as definitely anti-Scottish. When he was outed, he tried to deny it was him but eventually had to admit it.' Mr Hinchcliffe was exposed as the author after a local did an Internet search on the village to see what came up. Outraged by the blog's contents, the local distributed a copy to every adult in Hutton.
When he was confronted, Mr Hinchcliffewho once came under fire in Dar es Salaam, admitted his role.
'The person who downloaded it thought they had been unfairly pilloried by my comment that it was madness to consider building a new community hall at a cost of some [pounds sterling]400,000,' he said. 'I suggested we could use part of the church as they often do in England.
'There were a few other people who were very offended and took umbrage about other little asides, even though I never named anybody.
I had to make grovelling apologies.
'I did do something very awful to one woman by calling her house Sewage Cottage. We'd had a lot of people staying and, as often happens in the country, our sewers filled up.
'By unblocking ours it forced everything down the hill and meant it overflowed into her cottage.
'I may have given the sale price of
another cottage but it was only in a discussion on house prices in the area.
I do take exception to being called racist and anti-Scottish - some of my best friends are Scottish. And through my Northern Irish background I am half-Scottish.
Colonial behaviour? Well, I did start off in the Colonial Office . . .
'I do regret some of the things I said, but I did it with a pinch of humour.
There are little groups of people in this village who have been top dogs for so long in various aspects of their lives that they don't like it when someone questions them.
'I haven't abused my position as chairman of the community council . . . all I did was give certain things a wider airing. All I ever intended with the blog was to document the ramblings of a townie in rural Scotland where you can't get broadband, there's no pub, no services. Really it was for my three daughters, I didn't think anyone else would read it.' Since his outing, Mr Hinchcliffe, who was also High Commissioner to Zambia and holds honorary fellowships at Queen's University, Belfast, and Edinburgh, has tempered his blog.
'One or two people have said my blog is all very boring now,' he said. 'But I'm getting more hits on the site than ever before.
I do have a comments section for anybody who feels very aggrieved . . .
but I haven't had a single one.' That may be a short-lived state of affairs.
He is now considering extending his musings into a book with illustrations or maybe even cartoons.
THOUGHTS OF THE
BERWICKSHIRE
BLOGGER ON A COMMUNITY COUNCIL ROW OVER SLURRY ON THE ROADS . . .
These may be simple country folk in the best Ambridge tradition but they are masters of the dagger between the ribs.
Machiavelli would have been out of his depth in this company.
ON VILLAGE 'PARANOIA '. . .
Another example of local paranoia was the comment by a person connected with the School Action Group (SAG - unfortunate acronym for a group predominantly female) to the effect that the community council was spying on them. Why, I hear you cry?
Because the chairman (Hinchcliffe) and secretary were twice in thepub during their meetings!
ON HUTTON ...
For all the warmth and friendliness you encounter most of the time, there are undercurrents which take time to suss out, and there is the inevitable feeling that if you are very new it is not a good idea to throw your weight about or make too many waves in the apparently smooth water of our tranquil existence.
ON FELLOW VILLAGERS ...
Huttonian is in the firing line as he again is forced to confront the oligarchy which, in effect, rules this village. To avoid future libel actions, let us call them the Gang of Three.
There are good historical precedents going back through the founders of the SDP, the three bears and Genghis Khan and his two aunts.
ON CARAVANNERS ...
We have our Amazons here too - mostly caravanners. Historically, Amazons have only one breast as they removed one so as not to impede their bow-drawing arm. Things have changed and some of our modern-day Amazons are so well-built that they may now have grown an extra breast for barging their way through the narrow aisles of Morrisons.
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