Will Carr, manager of the Foundation, is far right. He had some funny stories. Apparently Burgess was asked to write a Bond screenplay for The Spy Who Loved Me. None of his script was used apart from giving the villain an undersea base.
Carr said: "I think the main problem was Burgess replaced the traditional shoot-em-up scene at the climax of the movie with a food-eating contest between Bond and the evil Karl Stromberg."
He had a wicked sense of humour Mr Burgess and he still got his writer's fee.
We also visited a Sikh temple, a mosque, a synagogue and a CofE church. There were fifty people from all communities on a coach and we were welcomed everywhere in an exchange of ideas and cultures that made everybody – it seemed to me – more comfortable in our bones about each other and about this tolerant country we live within.
There were humorous moments.
Danny who works at the synagogue in a non-religious capacity was asked by a lady with a cut-glass accent, “Do Jewish boys have to be circumscribed?” “Nobody asked me,” deadpanned Danny.
In the Sikh temple, a lad in a United top and turban was helping out. One of the tour group, an older person said, “You speak very good English." “I hope so,” he said, “I was born round the corner, I’m British.”
This was a generational thing - amusing for that. But one thing is sure. It’s only through exposure – in the best possible sense of the word – to each other that cultures can connect.
As stated we do the coach tour every year. We should do it every week. Every school should do it. If we lose the fear of 'the other', the fear they may steal our jobs, beliefs, culture, then we enrich ourselves, become broader minded: essentially we become more intelligent.