In Search of An Honorable Man

Starting sometime after Christmas, my mom and I work our way, night after night, episode after episode, through the TV show Foyle’s War.

It’s the story of a policeman in the town of Hastings on the south coast of England during the Second World War. The main character, Christopher Foyle, is a man of dignity, honesty, intelligence, and uncompromising honor. 

Though he tries to join the Service so that he can do what he feels would be a greater part for the war effort, for political and often malicious, revengeful repercussive reasons, year after year, he’s kept in his role as detective chief superintendent.

From that place, in that position, he upholds the law because it is his job to do so.

As murders happen (it is a police show after all), he seeks justice for those who died—whether of British, German, or other nationality—and tries to deliver, if not peace, at least the comfort of the knowledge of what happened for the ones left behind.

When possible, knowing circumstances matter, and when he legally can, he lets people off with warnings as he does with a young woman who had been coerced and threatened into performing acts of sabotage such as cutting telephone lines to a nearby base.

As the war stretches out longer than anyone imagined it would, as both sides do more heinous actions, as prejudices swell like blisters, Foyle holds himself, those who work for him, and those he encounters to the highest standards. To the law. To what is right.

For example, when a war profiteer is arrested and the fresh food he was price-gougingly and illegally offering is confiscated, the hungry, rationed officers including his WTC-borrowed driver salivate over the turkey locked up in the evidence room. It is not right, by law, for them to eat the evidence. But Foyle, understanding the folly of waste and the needs of those around him, manages to get permission from the proper hierarchy to use a photo instead of the perishable item for when the trial goes to court. But even then, Foyle does not allow that turkey to be cooked and awarded to himself or his officers. He recommends, instead, that it be donated to a refugee station but with the invitation for his driver (to her delight) to be able to attend the dinner.  

Time and again, he’s offered incentives to let something illegal slide “for the sake of the war.” Time and again, he’s both underestimated and threatened by bullying military brass and other powers-that-be who try to pull rank and rain down fire and brimstone on his head.

Time and again, he acknowledges that the fire and brimstone might rain down, but, nevertheless, that that doesn’t concern him where the law is involved.

The actor who plays him, Michael Kitchen, is a master of subtle expression showing a range of emotion, thought, and character.

It is easy to see, through Kitchen’s skill, the disappointments Foyle feels, the horrors of war, death, and destruction, the recognition of the gray lines that are drawn when law and procedure are abandoned for the “greater good” of the war, his joys and sorrows (British stiff upper lipped as they are), and his dreams.  

It is also easy to see, in the historical context and with such visual representation, how quickly a world can be divided against itself. And how, unfortunately, many of the blistering prejudices depicted in the show (and known from history) still exist today. In the exact same form.

We still kill each other. We still hate what is other. We still make horrible mistakes. 

And while I despair at times for our world, this country, and the future of democracy, I’m reminded of the anecdotal memory which television’s children host Mr. Rogers offered as a way for parents and children to deal with tragic events depicted in the news. He said, “My mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”

While wars still wage on, while people are still killed, abused, and tortured, while prejudices balloon, while hate lingers, while injustices are done, while laws are broken, while unjust laws are enacted, while good things are destroyed, I think about the character and leadership of the fictional Christopher Foyle, the goodness of the real Mr. Rogers, and I remember that the bad picture isn’t the whole picture.

It isn’t the only picture.

It isn’t the entire story.

As the series comes to its last episode, and I’m thinking (as I often do as a writer) of the character in terms of character development, character arc, and the story as a whole, I bookmark Christopher Foyle as the honorable man—a solid rock in a sea of horrific turmoil, as an impeccable leader, as a helper for the people of Hastings, and as a fierce advocate for preserving the integral underlying structure of law in his country. For, if lawlessness and wrongdoing are allowed in times of war, if the evils the Nazis did are then done by those at home, if those atrocities are allowed because they are being done by the “good guys” then, as the questions are raised often within the show, “What are we fighting for?” and “What was the point of the war?”

The point of war… well, that is a barbed-wire subject for another day.

As the show concludes, and I tease apart (as I so often do) the story as a whole to see the parts (story, character, story arc, character arc), knowing that as humans we have our flaws and too often want to see those flaws revealed in others, I rejoice that the show’s writer(s) didn’t bend or break Foyle. Fictional though he was, and though he comes off as nearly so, Christopher Foyle wasn’t perfect, but even so, he never compromised his values or principles. And that makes me happy.

For, these days, more than ever, I find myself wishing for the honorable man and wishing for the honorable woman in both real life and in fiction.  

The human experience is a strange and messy one. We are all figuring out what it means to be alive. What it means to live. We don’t always choose the right options when given them. We don’t always follow our values and principles. We don’t always learn from history.

We are flawed. Fortunately, and unfortunately, that is part of what it means to be human.

But even so, despairing at times at the apparent lack of good people (mostly good leaders), I remember Mr. Rogers reminding me that they’re there. They’re all around me.

They’re the helpers—for big, world-changing events and for the every-day-oh-so-important little ones.

I think of Mr. Rogers as that helper for many, many children (and adults). 

I think of my father, who was kind, generous, quick to stand up for a cause, and ready to fight for the underdog, as a helper.

I think of the examples, historical, actual, and fictional, of good people, honorable leaders, and all the helpers there have been, are, and will be.

With the show’s images of a blitzed out London in my mind’s eye, my experience with a British woman who still, these generations later, remarked upon my use of cream in my coffee as an extravagance (are we still rationing ourselves this long after that war?), and with my 2015 visit to the concentration camp Sachsenhausen which opened my eyes with heartbreaking wideness to the atrocities that humans are capable of in a way they had not before been opened, I think of what I—being as idealistic and hopeful as my father was—desire for the world.

Peace, for one. Love for one another. Kindness. Understanding. The type of compromise that allows one to live with the other. The ability to share. The telling of stories that reveal honor more than dishonor and a hopeful outcome rather than a dystopia. The speaking of words that unite rather than divide. And… And, isn’t that just the tip of the iceberg?

I think of myself and my place in this world, as beautiful and messed up as it is, and as beautiful and messed up as I am, and hope that I can also, despite my flaws and mistakes, as much as possible, where and how I can, be an honorable woman, a leader—even if only by good example—and, most of all, a helper.