STATUS AND PERSONA..

A couple of days ago, quite by chance, I came across an obituary notice in a local newspaper which does not circulate in the area I live.   In fact, I was searching the internet for something else when this notice popped up telling me that a dear lady had passed away earlier this year at the age of 85.  It`s odd how even random things can trigger memories.   I knew her before she and her husband moved away from this area but it was her husband who I knew much better.   He had at one time been a work colleague but he sadly passed away some years ago.   He was an intriguing character with a life that yet again reminded me of the essential conflict between status and persona.  Let me explain.

He was a soldier, an officer and a gentleman, a proud member of the family that is the Gloucestershire Regiment, the Glorious Glosters, so called after their epic part in the battle of the Imjin River during the Korean War in 1951.  He was a Major in the regiment that carries more battle honours on its regimental flag than any other line regiment in the British Army.   And, as you might expect, he possessed a military bearing and a quiet stoicism that comes only from the kind of experience he had during that conflict.   

Following his retirement from the army, he became Personal Assistant to the head of a rural local authority.....and it`s here that the conflict between status and persona becomes interesting.   His new boss had not experienced the military life, had no concept of the qualities needed to survive in that environment at all, never mind during hostilities.   But, quietly observing from a discreet distance, it became obvious to me that having a battle hardened Glorious Gloster Major as Personal Assistant provided a cache not only designed to impress but also to enhance any inner delusions of adequacy that seemed to exist.   It therefore became clear, if unspoken or even unrecognised, that the one with the status, the rank, perhaps saw in his Personal Assistant a persona that he might have admired and wished for himself.

It`s not unusual, of course.   When I attended a Guidon Ceremony for my own old regiment some years ago, I shared a lunch table with a couple of other former national servicemen.    After they had done their 730 days, one of them went back to work on the family farm, leading a simple but hard and fairly unrewarding life.   The other had gone on to become the Personnel Director of a big national company.    But although their relative status seemed worlds apart, it was the farmer who was clearly in charge of the relationship.   His persona, you see, was perhaps the more admirable which I suspected that the Personnel Director recognised and acknowledged.

And the moral of these tales?   Well, if nothing else it might give a note of caution to those for whom status is everything, for in the end it may not matter what position you reach, what label you may have, if you lack the persona to go with it.   It happens too often, I suspect, but I`m left with the memory of my now sadly departed Gloster friend sighing wistfully to me, "Little did I think when I was fighting my way up Hill 357, that I would be doing this for a living."