Is Simon Heffer a security threat?

Airport security was much on my mind last Friday afternoon. I had been due to fly from Heathrow to Zurich that morning, but the substation fire meant a switch to an afternoon departure from London City Airport. City is a business-oriented operation in every respect and one of its many efficient features is a baggage-checking regime that does not require you to separate your 100ml bottles of shampoo and shaving foam into a plastic ziplock bag. The X-ray machine and associated sensors are supposed to penetrate your luggage and identify anything dangerous with scientific precision. My heart sank when my carry-on bag was shunted off the conveyor belt and a security operative summoned me over to explain myself. I wondered if I’d left a lethally oversized bottle of shower gel in my washbag or if there was gunpowder residue on my moleskin trousers. ‘There is something potentially dangerous I need to take out, sir,’ I was informed by the latex-gloved airport employee. Diving into my bag she fished out a copy of Sing As We Go, Simon Heffer’s history of Britain between the wars. She then proceeded to rifle through the pages and dust it with a probe to which was attached some sort of screen wipe. After a tense 30 seconds she told me: ‘It’s safe after all.’ I daren’t tell Simon that’s the official verdict on his work.

I was heading to Switzerland to support the work of a wonderful charity, Supporting Wounded Veterans, which every year takes soldiers who’ve endured horrific traumas to Klosters for a week of recovery. The vets are taught to ski, paired with buddies and mentors who help with their rehabilitation. They all bear their injuries – physical and mental – with the quiet stoicism and black humour which characterises military life. But listening to their stories – of losing friends in front of their eyes, witnessing children mutilated, learning to live with paralysis or prosthetics – was deeply moving.