Standing On The Shoulders of Giants

It's New Years Eve, and despite a couple of drams of whisky, I spotted "Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants" on a two pound coin and thought about the giants in my life who had supported me in moving away from the life of a prolific offender.

I hate to think of where I would be without the advice, assistance and befriending that came to me before and after I accepted that I needed to change my ways. 

Over thirty years later I realise that I have been and seen further because I have been standing on the shoulder of giants. 

It seems that the best-known use of this phrase comes from Isaac Newton who penned a letter to his rival Robert Hooke, in 1676:

"What Descartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."

Newton didn't originate the phrase though. The 12th century theologian and author John of Salisbury used a version of the phrase in a treatise on logic called Metalogicon, written in Latin in 1159. Translations of this difficult book are quite variable but the gist of what Salisbury said is:

"We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours."

Great People Who Add To Another's Stature

After studying Theology and working for the Probation Service for 14 years and I have learned that both disciplines have their own vocabulary, and which to be honest have baffled me at times. But after serving a four year stretch in a college of education, and working with the Probation Service, it is my opinion that three giants stand tall:

·      The Giant of Advise

·                                                                                   The Giant of Assist

·                                                                                                                                                                   The Giant of Befriend

 Times Are Changing, And Changing Very Fast!

The tragedy is, in my opinion, that the new trends from Government of Stamp, Punish and Enforce, do not work as well as the simple, now-sought-to-be-discredited caring approach.

As someone once stated: "The core value of the Probation Service must be understood by all those who presume to reconfigure it. Deeply unfashionable as it seems to have become, the phrase, 'to advise, assist and befriend' encapsulates that humanity and the essential, personal quality of the nature of probation work, which we reject at our peril."

At the beginning of a New Year, and in Tribute to those who Care, I'm Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.

Please sign this Petition, against privatisation, as it's very important that our Public tune into the SOUL of Probation's Heritage and a Public Service that has served this country well.