MfH Our Young People ~ The British People
Moments from History
Volume 5 : July 18, 2020
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2012 - 2020 - 2012
Full Circle
ALL MY LIFE I have been fortunate to work with young people. It has not always been easy. Young people have a way of winding the older generation up! But we did too, when we were young people. And we wouldn't want it any other way.
July, August and September have brought to us the thrill of the Olympics and the Paralympics.
To see young people strive for excellence, surpass themselves but remain humble, and to overcome the most incredible difficulties is the stuff that makes teachers, of all ages glow, and to quietly experience that inner glow too - for such a reaction is very tangible - makes all their efforts worthwhile.
We have seen too a resurgence of us as a nation - yes, the nation that I grew up in and took for granted - the nation of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, comprising four kingdoms and four capitals.
Twenty years ago we lost this sense of being one people. It became fractious.
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Devolution caused some to think of outright independence - and with it all the upset and wasted money that such an unrealistic venture entails.
As I go about my daily work I like to take a measure of public opinion.
Here, in England, young people do not want to be separated from either Scotland or Wales or Ireland. I talk to my young friends in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen and Fife and they do not want to be separated either. In Cardiff and Caernarfon and Glamorgan and Llandudno, they do not want to be separated. In Belfast and Londonderry they do not want to fall outside the Union.
All, without hesitation, speak of the glow they felt and still do feel, when they see the Union Flag raised and they hear that wonderful phrase 'Team GB'. South of that pencil line on an ordnance survery map we are equally thrilled at the sound of the bagpipes.
We do not see it as a clever marketing brand. We see it as truly representative of these islands. That we are an island people made up of four kingdoms; and that on the mainland of Great Britain, these kingdoms comprise Scotland, England and Wales and in no particular order. These kingdoms have their capitals yes; but the Nation’s Capital is London.
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Do not underestimate the ability of our young people to hold things together. Do not sneer when you see young people walking out of the job centre, for they are doing their best in very difficult circumstances and times to find work.
Have confidence in them. They have shown us their true mettle both here in London 2012 and abroad in Afghanistan.
Stand with them, and by them. Our young people will not, and never will, let us down.
We must never let them down!
Kenneth Thomas Webb
Liverpool
July 18, 2020
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© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2021
One of the Fifteen Founding Members of Leaders Lodge
First Written as a Liverpool Dispatch September 3, 2012
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
