Vince Cable

An American, Gordon Harris, who grew up in London and lived for some years in Oxford Road, Teddington, has won a long campaign for compensation resulting form traumatic experiences during the Second World War.

As a London youngster during World War II, he suffered the horrific experience of being orphaned when a V1 rocket his house (in Pimlico) and killed his father and two sisters. Nowadays, a child like Gordon would be given support, counselling and compensation.

But post war Britain was different and Gordon was expected to get on with his life which he duly did. He went through his British national service and later emigrated to California. Though he made a new life for himself, through all this time, his demons continued to pursue him and any fresh disaster would bring all his memories flooding back. Sadly, he also suffered from ill health and all this meant he was never able to really move on.

In 1972 Gordon began writing to the UK to find out whether there was any scheme to compensate children who had had their lives shattered by their wartime experiences. He wrote to Government Departments, Ministers and prominent individual MPs. Most ignored his letters, others fobbed him off, while salaried civil servants incompetently either pointed him in the wrong direction or simply told him he had no entitlement. Gordon has described his experience during this time as though "it seems my whole life has been consumed with it all".

Prime Minister Tony Blair was appealed to by Mr Harris in December 2001. His office did not even bother to respond. In the same year, despairingly Mr Harris wrote to MP Vincent Cable. He had lived in Teddington in his youth and appealed to the Twickenham MP on the basis of this now historic connection. Dr Cable judged that the then newly formed Veterans Agency which administers war pensions might be a good place to start. He referred Gordon's case onto the Agency and amazingly, after a fruitless 30 year search, it suddenly transpired that he was indeed entitled to help! Belatedly he was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Dr Cable then referred his case to the Parliamentary Ombudsman on the grounds of gross maladministration across 30 years.

Dr Cable says: "I told the Ombudsman it was inexcusable that time after time Mr Harris was fobbed off with errors, irrelevancies or even unforgivably no reply at all. Tony Blair was busy preaching about 'joined up government' and here was an example of the most disjointed government you could conceive of".

It has taken another six years of dogged persistence by Gordon, supported by Dr Cable but finally, his case has been properly recognised, maladministration has been acknowledged and compensation has been paid. Not a huge sum. Britain is not generous in this area but it is nevertheless a real acknowledgement that Gordon's is a genuine case and always has been.

Soon after Christmas Gordon wrote once again to Dr Cable, this time to thank him. In his letter he said, "It's all at an end and my faith is restored. Hopefully one day I will be able to come back to Britain and can thank you in person". Dr Cable has just responded to Gordon inviting him to lunch with him in the House of Commons whenever he makes that return visit to the UK, possibly in July. "I look forward to shaking his hand," says Dr Cable., "This is a man who has taken on the entire British establishment and won. He deserves a medal".