Farrar - The Early Years

The forces that shaped the man who shaped the world

Dear Sir Jeremy

 

Although we’ve never met - i feel we know each other in some way. We've both lived in South East Asian countries for an extended period - we're about the same age - we both like cricket. That's why i'm writing this letter to you.

Firstly, i don’t think you’re evil. You did what you thought was right. Let’s say: You knew not what you were doing - but you thought you knew.

Your life is very interesting. It’s a novel - or a play maybe. By the time you sat your A-levels in the UK, you’d lived in Singapore, Malaysia, Egypt, Yemen, NZ (for 6 months - hated it), and then 7-years in Libya - on and off.

You failed those A-levels - your first and last experience of serious failure - until Covid? Actually, that’s not true, your second and last experience was one year later, right?, when you fell short on those bloody A-levels again. It's surprising, considering the heights you rose to, but understandable given your peripatetic childhood .

Though you did attend Churcher’s College in the UK from at least the age of 15, The school annual has you there in 1977. Doesn’t appear to be a boarding school - so you stayed with relatives? At that time your father was an English teacher in Tripoli, as i recall.

You were a teenager - probably had some rebellious stuff going on with the peripatetics - it’d be normal - i would. My sense is you had a strained relationship with your father - felt closer to your Mum, a writer/artist - slightly bohemian - someone you could talk to.

To your credit, you didn’t give disjointedness as an excuse for flunking. Said you were good at sport - like your father was - said you focused too much on it to the detriment of your studies.

You were good - both cricket and rugby - made the Churcher’s First XV in Rugby in 1978-79 - and it wasn’t just any old season either:

Churcher’s Hill Annual (PDF): This season will be remembered for, arguably, the best 1st XV Churcher's has produced in its fifty year rugby history.

Whoa! Best team ever! In fact the Churchers won 10 games out of 12. As a champion schoolboy team you toured France. After being moved on by the gendarmes for conducting practice under the Eiffel Tower in the morning, part of the group went to visit a museum, while:

...the more sophisticated minority occupied the Left Bank and lunched on wine, cheese, wine, pate, wine, bread and wine, to the evident bewilderment of the Parisien spectators.

Sir Jeremy, sorry to out you, but you were among this group of teenage piss-heads. (Disclaimer: Me too! But a different group - in Australia - i told you we had things in common) So what did you get up to in the afternoon?

The afternoon was spent defending the Parisien public from Tim "baguette" Easlick's sly attacks and bestowing some English Christmas spirit (in the form of an enthusiastic rendition of "O Come All Ye Faithful") upon a crowd of French students chanting "Assassins!" outside the police H.Q.

So you drunkenly interrupted a protest against police-killings?

Celebrations back at the hotel continued until 3 a.m.

Big day’s night!

Wed 20th: A morning expedition substantiated that Lawrence Fiddler was still alive and meanwhile Jeremy Farrar was sent home with alcohol poisoning.

Yep - you could fail your A-levels by being a binge-drinking yobbo at 17. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You do look rebellious - cocky springs to mind.

Churcher’s College is a pretty good school though!

image-1640598810323.png

Set to celebrate 300 years as an institution in 2022.

According to Wikipedia, it’s got four alumni from around your time who you’d say are/were modern day movers-and-shakers:

 



Second Chances

 

 

image-1644540522585.pngYou then re-sat your A-levels, passed, but still not great, coz you got rejected from all the unis - which is a nice touch - for someone who would go onto rule them all.

Interestingly, 40 years later, you still have nightmares about those exams:

Desert Islands [00:14:25]

I used to wake up with nightmares thinking 'I've got to do my bloody A-levels again' - for years! Uhmm, so it's only in the last year or two I've gotten over that, actually. It's amazing the scars.

Yeah, amazing. So how did you get in?

You got proactive - you went up to stay with your big sister, a nurse in London, together you formed this plan to knock on doors of all the unis - actually mainly your sister - you were slightly skeptical but gave it a go.

Desert Island Discs [00:15:09] I went round all of them and they all said, no, of course, because the world doesn't work like that. Except one. And a character called Robin Forrest who is still alive and still well and still in contact with, opened the door and said, oh, you must be here for the interviews.

So the world does, or doesn't work like that? Or it does and it doesn't?

And I said, making it up, ‘Yeah, actually, I am.’ And obviously people have been written to and I got a place at medical school and I'm eternally grateful.

 

I'm less eternally grateful, Jeremy, but that's only me - Robin Forrest - your door-opener - i’m guessing it’s this one?

Robin Forrest: Visiting Expert at the Beijing Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, visiting Scientist at Xerox PARC, Honorary Professor of Shandong University, Consultant for General Motors, Boeing, Lockheed, Xerox, Digital, Apple, Philips, Adobe, Rolls-Royce, worked for the defense in various patent cases concerning computer painting systems.

Also wondering was your father, Eric, one of those who helped with the people having been written to part?

Doesn’t matter, i don’t doubt you’ve got talent. Charm has always been your strong suit - i see how you could have done it. The cocky, quick-witted 19 year-old - with the exotic upbringing - rocking up at universities trying to talk his way in...

Anyway, the important part is you got your foot in the door of academia - now here we are.

dulan drift, Sunday, September 05, 2021

Vietnam

Jeremy, you strike me as an idealist - who genuinely cares about the poor people in Africa - it’s not merely a line - like it is for the others.

My feeling is it has something to do with your time in Vietnam?

You moved there in 1996, aged 35. (I went to Taiwan in 1996 aged 33! Though not to fill an Oxford position, i admit.) So what prompted the move?

Francis Collins,(ts3:30): (You) describe(d) this experience of addressing a conference of neurologists and looking over at a ‘sea of white men’ and thinking ‘I can not spend my life with these people’.

(Ironically 25 years later, you organized the Feb 1 Teleconference with - not a sea of white men as such - more a refined pool of them.)

Here you were at 34, up on stage, the guy who fell short on his A-levels, twice, rejected by all of them - now headlining Oxford conferences - feeling bored. You look out condescendingly over a sea of white men - hear yourself speak in that out-of-body way - hear them still laughing at your jokes - but taking no pleasure in that.

You were younger, street-smarter, more energetic than them. Brash, idealistic by nature - but not yet sure about what.

The cushy conference scene though - you knew already - the answer sure ain't there. It was not the real world. (Technically, everything is the real world - even academic cliques.)

At that time, is it fair to say you were driven by twin, conflictive impulses?

 

After the conference you went to the coffee room for the usual chitchat - overheard someone (do your remember whom?) talking about a gig in Vietnam?

You: Actually it wasn’t in the coffee room, it was actually in the bar, where still things do happen (laughter).

Sorry, my mistake. Bloody Francis Collins - unreliable as usual. So he says you overheard a conversation - is that right - or did they approach you?

Uhr, uhm - and they were looking for a director (at Oxford pay, clears throat) of what was then a nascent program (11:21) in Vietnam, Ho Chi Mihn city, in Vietnam, in 1995. (my brackets)

Oh - so it was more of a head-hunting thing? Do you happen to remember ‘they’s’ name(s)? The recruiters? Or is that classified?

Anyway, piqued your curiosity. A few beers later you were in. As you say, things still do happen in bars - Oxford bars at least.

So in 1996 you moved there . Thought a few years tops (me too with Taiwan, initially) - then succumb to normalcy by going ... “back to a migraine clinic in Oxford or Edinburgh" (not me too).

In fact stayed 18 very, very happy years living in what is a remarkable country.

Me; a little longer. Very very happy years? - constant very, very happiness is not my metric for weighing existence, but there is a life-affirming spirit in Taiwan that i'll always be grateful for. It's a place where you're allowed to be. Don't get automatically locked up for that. So yeah, also a remarkable country - especially in today's War on Freedom climate.

Conversely, did the freedom from the scientific herd's regulation, that the Vietnam anti-freedom system afforded, better suit your urge to explore restless dreams …? 

Then SARS happened.  You were on the frontline.  You tell us that in almost every speech you make. Did SARS feed your dare-devil adventurousness?

The chance to coordinate with centralized political power holders - to orchestrate operations - for the common-good - was that the clincher - I can see how that would be intoxicating.  You were very good at - won the Ho Chi Minh Medal no less.

 

I’ve always thought Vietnam was a good example of how Communism can work. They kicked the US’s corrupt-arsed invasion out - Ho Chi Minh - (a) won - (b) ran/developed the country without plunging everyone into famine.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese people are spiritual, resilient, funny, respectful, artistic, brave, community-based. Plus the food is great - and it’s geographically beautiful.

Hard not to like that. But it’s not just the Vietnamese people you rave about - you especially lavish praise on the remarkable achievements of Vietnam’s political system, saying it:

... offers such hope of where a country can develop and change, and embrace the modern world.

But hang on, Jeremy, Vietnam is, after all, a totalitarian regime.

I found this, actually ‘found’ is too fancy, it was the first entry on the search page for Vietnam political persecution. It’s a World Report on Human Rights in Vietnam. Seems at odds with your impression:

World Report: Those who criticize the one party regime face police intimidation, harassment, restricted movement, physical assault, detention, and arrest and imprisonment. Police detain political detainees for months without access to legal counsel and subject them to abusive interrogations.

Pretty sure you’d be safe though, right? In fact they awarded you two medals of honour - the same number Lipkin received from the CCP.

Interestingly, the 2nd listing on the search page, the Amnesty site, also documents punishment for distributing “disinformation” on the pandemic , including the censorship of anyone questioning the official origin and/or draconian lockdowns (with the help of Facebook no doubt.)

As someone who is big on lockdowns and censoring origin talk, i can see how you would love that - how you would enthuse that the Vietnam regime offers such hope of where a country  (heck - a whole planet!) can develop and change, and embrace the modern world  - without being slowed down by tedious accountability.

Yeah - no. I'd still rather Taiwan as a symbol of hope for embracing the modern world - it’s a free country for a start. If you're gonna build something - get the foundations right.

But Taiwan’s not your favourite topic, is it? I know that coz i tried searching Jeremy Farrar Taiwan. Captain Covid, architect of the world’s Covid response/cover-up(?) - and - Taiwan - the country that was by far the most successful in the world at containing it - without draconian lockdowns.  Surely there would be some cross-over mention…?

But nothing. Nada. That simple word, Taiwan has never left your lips in public.

Why is that, Jeremy?

As a world health expert - could you not bring yourself to take the politics out for five minutes? To analyse whether the world had/has something to learn from Taiwan’s investigation of the origin of Covid - it’s handling/control of the disease?

What happened to the common-good?

Sorry, those are rhetorical questions. We both know why. Idealistically, you prefer totalitarianism (with yourself near the apex) - One Planet and all that.

A democracy like Taiwan where people are still allowed to question you, is only going to mess that up.

 

 

Vietnam: SARS

Six years into Vietnam you found yourself in the middle of SARS - thereby cementing a close relationship with another communist regime, the CCP.  The number of Covid Conspirators who cut their teeth on SARS is striking - yourself, Lipkin, Dwyer, Embarek, Shi, Holmes, Daszak - to name a few - all rusted-on CCP fans - who are taking the politics out.

As you say, through SARS, you got to know China’s CDC very well - you count George Gao, the head of China’s CDC, as an old friend.

By 2014, during the pivot to China,  you were praising the CCP openly, saying: Ten years ago, China blocked access. But now China is transparent and superb - which is weird language to describe a health regime that was simultaneously involved in the systemic organ-harvesting of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience.

But you were very, very happy(?) to turn a blind-eye to that?

Because if you did, you were allowed a seat amongst the power-elites of totalitarian countries? Where big picture stuff can/does still happen?

In the clinic - you felt too downstream - dealing with patients who are the results of something else - you felt helpless.  A colleague/friend, Carlo Urbani contracted SARS in Hanoi as part of an outbreak started by Johnny Chen on Feb 28, a Chinese/American businessman,  who caught it from Liu Jianlun, a doctor from from Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital in Guangdong, who was the index case in Hong Kong.  Urbani was the first WHO official to identify the new respiratory disease as SARS.  He experienced symptoms whilst on a flight to Thailand and died in a hospital there. It's a story you frequently recount in moving speeches (apart from the Thailand bit - your version has him quarantining the hospital in Vietnam, with himself locked inside, which stopped the spread of the disease).  This tragic experience lead you to conclude:

[00:07:24]

...you can (only) do so much as a doctor or a nurse. It makes you question your whole professionalism. It makes you question why you're there and why you're in the hospital looking after people.

You needed to get upstream - with the big boys - where things happen. That first exercise of real power was an adrenaline rush - instantly addictive - you revelled in the surge of this incredibly strong central CDC in China taking large-scale action. It affirms in your mind: centralized government gets shit done. It’s a constant theme in your speeches. As you say with Singapore: (TS 10:20) You may or may not like the political system - but never-the-less - enormous progress over time.

From SARS the key lesson you learned is: in a crisis, act fast - don’t wait for the data. That’s quite radical for a scientist. Especially bearing in mind we don't know the origin of SARS-1. Which is something i'm dying to ask you - you would know:

We know SARS escaped post-1st outbreak 6 times from labs. Did it escape 7 times? 

My impression is the the nitty-gritty of data and science is not your bag - you’d rather talk about cricket? Or, to a smaller audience, the big-power-overarching politics of science - the secret stuff - like SARS - like how to get societies to accept our entrenchment as the authority-on-everything.

If that is the quest, then yes, you are the chosen one. The brilliant general in The War on Freedom.

The goal in this war, as you say, is to change the fundamentals ... through locking-down and behaviour change and .. particularly vaccines - all geared towards making individuals subservient to the state. This requires the impost of draconian/new normal rules - best enforced by a centralized system of government.

The paradox, as you impressed upon the DI interviewer, is that for those orchestrating the above … there are no rules - there are no textbooks to follow here - these are judgment calls made in the very best faith.

That’s the thing about totalitarianism - yes it has its dark-side - but it offers such hope for what can be achieved in the One Health sphere - by virtue of this paradoxical dynamic: enforcement of rules - by a benevolent, free overlord - unencumbered by rules. It’s just more effective like that. (Ask the experts if you don't believe me.)

In Vietnam, your mind - from a place of intense individuality - solidified ideas of the global-good. Calculated how best to manifest them.

Totalitarianism made sense - the best system to institute your ambitious plan to change the fundamentals.

Reminds me a little of Julius Caesar - another man with a strong sense of individual destiny who realized early he needed a base of monied, militaried forces - to change-the-world.

 

What lies beneath ...

What i’m trying to do here, Jeremy, is understand you. 

We've looked at your schooling, Vietnam, but not your parents - the itinerant childhood.

As you say: Inevitably it has a big influence, I think, on the way you see things and your approach to the world.

In turn, your approach to the world has had a big influence on the world - so let’s reverse engineer that.

Born in Singapore,1961, the usual media intro is: His father was an English teacher .. who moved his family often. The family lived in Yemen, Egypt, Cyprus, New Zealand (6-months - hated it), and Libya, among other countries. Farrar, the youngest of six, came along after Yemen and Egypt. (my brackets)

At the NIH lecture, you list the countries of your childhood as: Singapore, Malaysia, Aden in Yemen, Cyprus, New Zealand, and Libya (7 years).

That’s since you were born. The last of six children. It's an interesting array of countries - for an English teacher.

I’ve gotta ask the obvious question:

Was Dad a spy?

There are other explanations, which we’ll explore, but it'd make sense if he was - your affiliation with the world of underlying forces from a formative age - your obsession with global politics ...

Next question would be:

Are you a spy?

The question after that would be:

Does Wellcome function as a spy organization?

Last question:

Which side are you on exactly? Totalitarianism or Freedom?

Final Last question:

What even is the politics of your average spy organization?

 

Eric Farrar

Firstly: Your father is a war hero - who endured terrible trauma. I have deep respect for him - and your mother.

You [00:10:47]: He (Eric Farrar) was part of the British Expeditionary Force that went to fight in Europe in 1939 and was captured just outside Dunkirk in the spring of 1940 and was a prisoner of war in a German prison camp until the end of the war in 1945. And he came back to Britain, then hadn't been able to go to university. And he was given a lift (to a) debriefing because I think he’d escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp or something.

A little surprising you’re not sure about whether he’d escaped or not - but it’s normal that people don’t like to talk about trauma - even with family.

[00:11:16]: And my mother had been a driver during the war. She had driven these huge American people, carriers (sic) (from the transcript of the podcast - listening to it later, i realized she was driving huge American people-carriers  - not huge American people) from the ports in Scotland down to the south coast in 1943 and 1944, preparing for the invasion of Europe and VE Day. 

She was driving my father for some debriefing. He was an enlisted soldier. He wasn't an officer, but he had some information about the prisoner of war camps in Germany. (Which is how they met.)

Although officers were not required to work, he was an enlisted soldier, so that means five years hard labour in the camp on low food rations - with the constant threat of punishment or even execution. That will break a man down. If he did escape and was then recaptured, they would have made life hell. That’s a lot of trauma - fully-franked with PTSD for life. 

After the war, Eric and your mother began the next stage of their lives as just two itinerant people - adventurers - travelling around the world for many, many years.

PTSD would explain that.  Even a natural high dose of wanderlust, though with a family of six children, it’s a big deal to relocate so many times.

The countries that he chose - Singapore, Yemen, Egypt, Cyprus, Libya - it does seem plausible he was working as an intelligence gathering agent for the British military - and went wherever he was deployed. It’d be a good fit for the restlessness. 

But so is English teacher -  quite plausible - not sure why i’m even talking about it - whatever - he worked hard - hard enough to send you to a posh school in England. 

But as to how-the-heck you got into University College London - and then Oxford? Don’t quite buy that door-knocking story - the chance meeting with Robin Forrest. Sounds like someone had some clout somewhere?

You do have that natural affinity with the deep-state influencers - the layer of established power beneath politicians. For someone born n raised in a world of international intelligence gathering, a closed-circle power-cohort-with-a-globalized-agenda would seem normal.

At the end of the day though, you blazed your own trail. The consequences of your actions are yours to own - not your father’s. 

 

 

Anne Farrar


     You describe your mother as the forceful one in the family. Half Italian, she does seem to be a high-energy, strong woman - driving army-trucks during the war is not for dainty types.

She was driving my father for some debriefing. .. So they met like that. And being two amazing romantics, actually, they were married actually, I think a few weeks later. .. And my eldest brother was born well before I think nine months of gestation happened.  So obviously, you know, sex wasn't invented at the latter part of the 20th century and they went on to have six children.

 

 

I wouldn't have brought the subject of your mother and father having sex up, but, seeing how you've mentioned it: doing the maths - if they married within a few weeks of meeting and your eldest brother was born well before nine months of gestation, guess they must've had sex in the vehicle! (or within days) So yeah, a magnetic attraction.

Whereas your father seems somewhat distant, your mother was a writer and artist - who painted the above picture when she was pregnant with you. You describe her as slightly bohemian - an adventurer - a person of blended and sometimes divided personalities.  Which is an apt description for you, also. She was a pretty good painter. I’d love to read some of her writings as well - she had an exciting enough life for a book - did she have anything published?

For a bohemian, she also had a good relationship with the US military whilst living in Singapore.

[00:32:18] In 1964 .. (s)he used to hitch rides with the American military on a plane .. to go shopping in Saigon.

Cool.

So Saigon has been sort of part of my background since the early 60s and had such a profound influence on me.

Which, in turn, has had a profound influence on me - and the world ...

It was Anne's decision to ditch NZ after 6-months in the late-60's. It's no easy thing to relocate a family of six across the oceans - but she hated New Zealand - too chauvinistic - too boring.

[00:10:05] : (M)y mother, who sort of ruled the family, really said, look, we're not having this.

So we all got on a boat. And so when I first came to Britain, I came by boat.

We left Britain soon afterwards to go and live in Libya.

Although you remember having big arguments with your mother, the sense is you two connected. She was a remarkable woman - it's worth ticking off her accomplishments again: army truck-driver, painter, writer, bohemian, military plane hitch-hiker, itinerant adventurer, mother of 6, forceful family ruler ...

[00:17:09]: I think science is like an artist faced with a blank canvas at the start. You've no idea where it's going to go, but you can dream and you can dream about what's on it.