tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3373165199675890724.post8338928886387510262..comments2023-10-15T00:20:43.111-07:00Comments on Sarah Maid of Albion: How the British are destroying their countrySarah Maid of Albionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11685494924450312124noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3373165199675890724.post-8834886997006236822008-12-28T13:57:00.000-08:002008-12-28T13:57:00.000-08:00What a great article, it has so much thought and f...What a great article, it has so much thought and feeling in the words. He loves his country and people so much and we can all benefit from such empassioned writing and act accordingly.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3373165199675890724.post-56623777475415960922008-09-19T23:05:00.000-07:002008-09-19T23:05:00.000-07:00He got it so right, and not just for Britain, but ...He got it so right, and not just for Britain, but every country in the white "western" world.Pity..Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3373165199675890724.post-10637513958221003532008-09-16T14:41:00.000-07:002008-09-16T14:41:00.000-07:00Absolutely vintage stuff. Perhaps the most amazin...Absolutely vintage stuff. Perhaps the most amazing character is a certain Captain Grief, a sort of SOE bloke seconded to a local guerrilla tribe pp 293ff:<BR/><BR/><I>"Corporal Whatsit*...are you a lurkin' firkin or a peepin' gremlin?"</I><BR/><BR/>*Fraser<BR/><BR/>I don't think Fraser ever did figure that out. <BR/><BR/>For all his eccentricities, Grief showed himself to be as lethal to the enemy as Paddy Mayne, WW2 SAS.<BR/><BR/>Fraser states that <I>"[Captain Grief - well named] was a prize specimen of a type in which the British Army has always been rich - I've no doubt he was at Hastings, and will be there, eccentric as ever, when Gabriel sounds the last rally: a genuine, guaranteed, paid-up head-case."</I><BR/><BR/>We need him now, in spades.alanoreihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12013953165470026155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3373165199675890724.post-63092475708090365742008-09-16T04:14:00.000-07:002008-09-16T04:14:00.000-07:00One of GMF's most poignant moments was in his earl...One of GMF's most poignant moments was in his early days with the Border Regiment in Burma, the soldiers received rat packs with toilet paper in them. "What's this for?" asked a mature sergeant. "For wiping yer arse," came the reply. "What's wrong with these people! Have they never heard of grass?" (But in broad Cumbrian dialect). <BR/>Every soldiers moment.Nota reargunnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07923921104235184022noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3373165199675890724.post-48663234718081393382008-09-10T07:22:00.000-07:002008-09-10T07:22:00.000-07:00Thanks, Sarah, an excellent post. I apologise for...Thanks, Sarah, an excellent post. I apologise for the length of this comment but I hope it is interesting.<BR/><BR/>I do have some unresolved questions. The late MacDonald Fraser, 'Jock' to his mates in the Border Regiment, with whom he served in Burma in 1945, is absolutely right in what he says.<BR/><BR/>So why did he focus on an anti-hero like Flashman? <BR/><BR/>What kind of a 'role model' is 'Flashy'? <BR/><BR/>Why not focus on an individual like General Gordon, roughly contemporaneous with Flashman, whom Gladstone described as <I>"a hero of heroes,"</I> according to Churchill, <I>History of the English-Speaking Peoples</I>, Volume 4, p 269?<BR/><BR/>We shall never know.<BR/><BR/>But maybe the answer is the time-honoured one that sinners make for more interesting reading than saints - and sell more books. If so, Fraser unwittingly becomes part of the problem, not the solution, sadly.<BR/><BR/>That said, I'd <I>earnestly</I> recommend everyone read <I>Quartered Safe Out Here</I> by Fraser about his experiences in the Burma campaign. <BR/><BR/>Here's an extract, from pp 260ff, somewhat edited for language, where 9 Section, Fraser's sub-unit, is discussing the July 1945 'Khaki Election':<BR/><BR/>The first to speak is an old soldier named Forster (pseudonym), known as 'Foshie.'<BR/><BR/><I>“Ah’s votin’ Labour, an’ Ah don’t give a monkey’s left goolie who the candidate is. It can be George Formby. He’ll get my vote. Ah want Churchill out, an’ his whole gang. Ah remember the ’thirties, marra. Ah want rid of the Tories, see. They got us into this war, didn’t they?”</I><BR/><BR/>One of his mates asks.<BR/><BR/><I>“Who’s the Labour man in Carel*, Foshie?”</I><BR/><BR/>*Carlisle<BR/><BR/><I>“Ah’ve just been tellin’ ye,”</I> says Foshie. <I>“Ah don’t know! But he’s getting’ the nod from me, anyway.”</I><BR/><BR/>At this point Lance Corporal Fraser speaks up. <BR/><BR/><I>“His name’s Edgar Grierson.”</I><BR/><BR/><I>“What!”</I> says Foshie. <I>“How the hell do you know, Jock – ye’re not old enough to vote, you!”<BR/><BR/>“That’s right, Foshie. I just know who the candidates are. You big grown-ups’ll decide who the government is.”<BR/><BR/>“Ye’re too right we will”</I> says Foshie. <I>“Well, Ah’m glad ye haven’t got the vote, Jock, ’cause ye’d just vote Tory, wouldn’t ye - you that wants to be an officer!”</I><BR/><BR/>Fraser writes this about the 1945 election. Note that at age 20, he was ineligible to vote. His section mates were older than he. Like Fraser, they've all passed away now.<BR/><BR/><I>“They voted with high hopes, for a better, fairer Britain, and to some extent they got it. It was a strange election for me – old enough to lead a section in war, but not old enough to vote. I had no complaints; I wasn’t fit to vote. While I knew how to be a soldier, I knew nothing of working for a living, of being a farm labourer, or a factory hand, or being on the dole. No, it was their election, not mine. They had earned it."</I><BR/><BR/>They had too, all the way from the Imphal Boxes to the Sittang Bend. Those names don’t mean anything to most Britons today but it’s worth reading up on the Burma campaign, to see what our freedoms cost.<BR/><BR/>Fraser goes on, writing in the mid-1990s.<BR/><BR/><I>“Still, the Britain they see in their old age is hardly “the land fit for heroes” that they envisaged...<BR/><BR/>“They did not fight for a Britain which would be dishonestly railroaded into Europe against the people’s will...<BR/><BR/>“They did not fight for a Britain where successive governments would encourage crime and violence on an unprecedented scale...<BR/><BR/>“They did not fight for a Britain where children could be snatched from their homes and parents…on nothing more than the good old Inquisition principle of secret information...<BR/><BR/>“They did not fight for a Britain where to hold by truths and values which have been thought good and worthy for a thousand years would be to run the risk of being called “fascist” – that, really, is the greatest and most pitiful irony of all.”</I><BR/><BR/>Fraser has this telling insight as well:<BR/><BR/><I>"[They did not fight for]...the betrayal of familiar things that they had loved. Some of them, to superficial minds, will seem terribly trivial, even ludicrously so - things like county names, and shillings and pence, and the King James Version, and yards and feet and inches - yet they matter to a nation."</I><BR/><BR/>They certainly do. Significantly, they are all under constant attack by the <I>"superficial minds"</I> in power.<BR/><BR/>Because those <I>"familiar things"</I> of Fraser's generation are the best definition of 'Britishness' that has been proposed yet - especially the KJB.alanoreihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12013953165470026155noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3373165199675890724.post-48129324097756052372008-09-09T20:06:00.000-07:002008-09-09T20:06:00.000-07:00Thank you for this post.Best wishes.Thank you for this post.<BR/>Best wishes.Roberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00740668904926516649noreply@blogger.com