I Am Not Out On A Limb

Family aside, over half of my Christmas card list is made up of priests, while over half of the rest is made of people who hold at least one doctorate, and sometimes two. Yet not featured is Dame Ann Limb, whom Keir Starmer has nominated for a peerage despite the falsehood her claims to hold a PhD and a Master's degree. Even I hold a Master's degree. But I have never given £50,000 to the Labour Party. Although is that all? Unite gave one thousand times that much. For what?

I have never attempted to become Dr Lindsay, and I always correct people who so address me, but I have been making that correction since September or October 1996. In one order or the other but I cannot remember which, I received a letter addressed to "Dr David Lindsay" from Jimmy Goldsmith, of all people, and a letter addressed to "The Reverend Dr David Lindsay" from a Reverend Doctor who, at almost exactly the same time, admitted me as an undergraduate for the next year at the Durham college of which he was Principal. Sir James was corrected, although he continued the correspondence even once he knew that I was a 19-year-old barman, but my other correspondent left both his position and this country very soon afterwards. To this day, I have never met him, so I can only assume that he thought that there were two David Lindsays at this address, presumably a father and son.

Goldsmith is the only person without a doctorate ever to have assumed me to have held one, but people with their own have done it with remarkable frequency. For example, the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham innocently listed me among its members as "Dr David Lindsay". I have no idea why, but academically distinguished people read my work and just assume me to be a PhD. As for the Reverend thing, an old lady from South Shields did once ask me, "Are you David Miliband, Father?" I explained that I was neither, and that it would have been impossible to have been both. Apart from that, though, the only people to have assumed me to have been ordained have themselves been ordained. Again, I am not, I have never claimed to be, and I have never attempted to be. Yet, among other things, I have had "Dear Father Lindsay" from bishops and from Vatican officials, both of whom one might have expected to have been in a position to check. I cannot explain it, but I always correct it.

I might let "Dr Lindsay" go among my own people, variously conceived, if it were to arise spontaneously among them, in the manner of the late Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Other than that, I would tolerate objections to it only from people who would never have said or written either "Dr Paisley" or "Dr Angelou". "We hand this woman, Margaret Thatcher, over to the Devil." "I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size." Dr Lindsay would be happy to give his most favourable peer review to that vintage Dr Angelou and to that vintage Dr Paisley, in that order.

"Father Lindsay", on the other hand, is literally of a different Order. Like each and every Member of Parliament for the area covered by Durham County Council, each and every member of Durham County Council, and each and every member of Lanchester Parish Council, each and every bishop, priest and deacon of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle recognises that I am factually and morally innocent of any and all criminal charges that have ever been brought against me, as do each and every member of the Board of the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency, each and every member of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Committee, and each and every member of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocesan Safeguarding Team.