In Memoriam

At this time of year, as the evenings draw in and nature goes into its annual decay, we spend time remembering.  The leaves are falling and the migrant birds have flown. In terms of festivals the Christian Feast of All Saints or All Hallows is preceded by Hallowe’en and succeeded by All Souls.  All Saints being a time when we remember the elect who went before and are now in Heaven, on Hallowe’en we traditionally try to ward off the evil spirits and on All Souls we remember the departed.  The veil between this world and the next seems at its most thin.

It is also a time of year when we remember the survival of our institutions of Monarch in Parliament on Guy Fawkes’ Night and in burning the eponymous effigy, we attempt the re-enactment of extirpation of menace from the Kingdom. We are exhorted to remember the fifth of November.  We remember again on Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day those who have fallen in defence of these Islands.  With the centenary of the Great War next year, there will be much remembering of the young men who died for us in the trenches.

It is a time of year when elderly relatives who are unwell or frail often sadly pass, as the weather turns colder.  For many then there is a personal remembering of departed loved ones.

So at this time of year we are most conscious of the past and the eternal.  We remember the cloud of witnesses that surround us in Heaven.  We remember those we miss too.

At such a time, when those who went before feel so close, we sometimes realise that the past is not another country to misquote Harold Pinter, but the same country.  People lived on the land where our houses now sit.  People before us looked at the same hills on the horizon.  For many of us our own relatives lived in the vicinity or the same country for centuries before now.

As Housman wrote:

“Then, ‘twas before my time, the Roman

At yonder heaving hill would stare:

The blood that warms an English yeoman

The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.”

There has been a constant stream of events linking us all the way back.  Ancient Briton, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norman and Viking and later migrations all were gradually absorbed.  We are all therefore connected to the past and while it does not define us, there is no breach between us and our forebears, but a continuous stream of people and events.  That is why traditions and institutions that bind one generation to the next are important for a nation.  If we lose the sense that we are linked with those who went before, thinking only the novel and new matters we become shallow and lose touch with who we are.  

Following traditions mean we acknowledge our link with our ancestors.  We celebrate the same feasts, are subject to the same Crown, are married and committed to the next world in the same ancient churches, live in the same land.  So at this time of year we can be especially conscious of our belonging to the country and the past.  By remembering the past we remember who we are, forget it and we break the bonds that hold us together.

A Message to “Elf and Safety” – We will not be Druv!

The blogger for another year attended the Lewes firework celebration, where tradition, controlled anarchy and fireworks gain control of the streets of a Sussex town for one night of the year.  To anyone sick to the back teeth of our molicoddled, standardised and blandly modern world of political correctness and health and safety Lewes bonfire night is the greatest antidote.  Of course the P.C. forces of the nanny state hate it, but they just cannot control it.

The bonfire societies have a long tradition of resisting authority’s attempts to control bonfire night and their constant refrain is “We will not be druv!”  Sadly in Twenty-First Century Britain even Lewes is not unaffected by the dull and officious spirit of the age with all its health and safety and fear of anarchy.

Nonetheless the 2013 Lewes bonfire celebration kept that old spirit alive and –much to the frustration of the official mindset – it goes from strength to strength.  In a society as controlled as ours, where an impolite tweet on "Twitter" can lead to a police investigation, we all need a night off from the oppressiveness of the politically-correct atmosphere and Lewes, with its effigies, its controlled chaos, costumes, parades and vibrant traditions provides this.

Lewes does however highlight how in every other respect we are losing touch with our traditions and real life.  In a world where conker trees have to be cut down for reasons of health and safety or politicians with a little more character find their careers destroyed because they are not bland enough for the media and actually say things people feel, we are fast losing touch with real life and indeed losing touch with fun!

Yet again the political class lies at the root of the problem.  Many of the people who govern us have their roots in cosmopolitan London and move in a different sphere, ignorant of our nation's traditions.  The only way to succeed in politics is to be bland and dull.  Therefore the successful politicians are terrified of anything exciting, traditional or dangerous. 

Many politicians want us to live in a standardised, bland and modern world. Indeed “Modernisation” is their shibboleth – which means the chipping away at traditions seen as irrational, but which actually hold us together as a nation.

If more of our politicians were more rooted in England and its traditions we might see a different attitude.  There is however a self-perpetuating class of people who govern us, moving from Oxbridge to political researcher to MP, with little interaction with people outside the Westminster bubble.  The political class is standardised and boring and follows the same pet issues as the equally dull media class.  It then tries to remould our old country in its own image.

It is only in a Britain governed by such people that such a great tradition as Lewes Bonfire Night could be put under pressure or frowned upon.  Luckily the British public do not take the governing class very seriously and carry on anyway!  As the Bonfire Boys say:  “We will not be druv!”