Peaceful Retirement

Residents of the stauchly Conservative constituency of Horsham will doubtless rejoice to discover that an ex-Chilean helicopter torso now serving as an amusement-park prop was once a bulwark against international Communism. During the régime of the sainted Thatcher's old chum, General Augusto Pinochet, the aircraft was used for lowering the threat of socialist subversion and damping the fires of democratic dissidence. According to Britain's leading liberal newspaper, Chile has been "slow to recognise the brutality of the Pinochet era" although it seems to have done so a little more promptly than the master race has managed in recognising the brutalities of Empire; and relatives and representatives of the nationally secured are campaigning to have the helicopter's remains returned to Chile as a monument. For his own part, the owner of the remains has expressed uncertainty about his future ability to look at them in quite the same way, having acquired them on the understanding that the helicopter was part of Pinochet's air force, with all the honour and humanity such a membership would imply.