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In 1919 at the age of 18, after failed applications to both Australian and Bolivian armies, my grandfather worked his passage back from New Zealand to England as a greaser on a ship. A circuitous path through a Benedictine monastery, university and the Sudanese Railways led to an academic career that culminated in his establishing the Sudan Archive at Durham. His last book, published when he was in his 90s, told the story of a detachment of Muslim Sudanese soldiers who fought for the French in Mexico in the 1860s. As a youngster, I loved to hear his stories of life in North Africa and on the Railways, and to meet some of his life-long friends from all over the world when I visited him in retirement in Oxford.
Last Friday I awoke in Paris to the news of the terrorist attack in New Zealand. Shocking yet now routine, and somehow more shocking for its routineness. That evening, I made my own circuitous way home, diverted by striking customs officials at Gare du Nord. As I was buying takeaway in Brussels my attention was distracted for a moment. I looked up and saw a young lad standing with my bags: to my bemusement he explained that a thief had snatched them; he and his friends had chased after him and recovered them for me. A minute later, after I’d paid for my food (and recovered slightly) I went over to thank him properly. Before I could do so he and his friends had found the thief again and grabbed him, but he eventually wriggled free and ran off into the crowd.
I am proud to work alongside colleagues from different backgrounds and cultures, people of differing faiths and people of none. The strength of our business comes from its diversity, from being open to talent and innovation from every source. Every day our lives are enhanced by technology and ideas invented, preserved and developed across the world. None of this is new. My home in England has been a diverse society for a very long time – back to the 19th Century, the Elizabethan age, the Roman Empire and before.
Alongside that diversity we share a common humanity. The events of Friday connected for me the scattered dots of my grandfather’s life and brought back to mind his charity, his generosity of spirit and his unfailing courtesy. And the humanity and bravery on display that day – in New Zealand in the face of mortal danger, in Brussels simply stepping forward to show kindness to a stranger – both humbled me and filled me with hope: that even as it feels that we are powerless in the face of repeated attack, so across the world we continue – as a society and a business community - to be drawn together and enriched by something far more noble and enduring.