Journal | The English-Speaking Peoples

I

I GREW UP in the 1950s.

I was very aware that of what the grown-ups called a colossal empire fast morphing into a commonwealth and which, despite our being a small island nation, we seemed large on the world stage.

In the 1960s I learned that the British Commonwealth of Nations would henceforth be the Commonwealth of Nations. I remember the moment, as I walked to the school’s main gate for prefect duty, as being very unhappy with the radio announcement I had just heard in the prefects’ room that the Commonwealth had agreed unanimously to remove the term British, but relieved that it would retain Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state.

Looking back, of course, I realise I must have been listening to a history broadcast and, moreover, only heard a tiny part. Because when I later researched this, I find myself in 1926, with Balfour declaring that henceforth the British Empire would be the British Commonwealth and Empire.

A penny dropped! Actually, quite a few of them!!

So THAT’s why Churchill, in one of his most famous 1940 speeches referred to the British Commonwealth and its empire …

I learn, on further reading, that the Commonwealth of Nations came into being through the London Declaration of 1949 (still four years before I’d duly touched down on planet earth courtesy of Mum and Dad); moreover, that the British Monarch would be recognised as the head of the Commonwealth only, not the head of state of every constituent nation therein.

II

A lifetime on, it is a pleasure - and, yes, still a relief - to learn that in 2018, again unanimously, the Commonwealth approved its future head of state as Charles when he ascends the throne, whilst reaffirming, quite rightly, that this is not hereditary.

Beyond that, prevailing times will steer the Commonwealth.

I know this though. I very much like the system now in place. I do not approve a system that would guarantee that William would become head of state on his becoming king. For that would touch too closely that ugly principle that has spilt much blood, worldwide, down the centuries - ‘the divine right of kings.’ And before a whole load of other religions jump up and down in ‘righteous indignation’, they, too, will find that their own religions, their own communities also quite liked that ugly principle.

III

At school I learned about the slave trade. The emphasis was on William Wilberforce and the Abolitionists. In our lessons we compared and contrasted the old English-speaking peoples with the new English-speaking peoples (the new world), and America did not come off too well, as we learned of the American Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan, the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior, and the need for Rosa Parks to refuse to give up her seat.

The plight of Ms Parks caused personal confusion in my head, too. I had been brought up to remember that on public transport I must always give up my seat to a lady. And yet here, in America, a man was demanding her seat. The reason for his demand, I’d not yet worked out, for our family had a very different mindset to that of that particular most unpleasant and very self-righeous man.

What I did not learn about was Britain's own culpability in the slave trade, and there was never any mention of the compensation payment of £20 million (today £17 billion) to the slave owners. Nor were we told that:

• abolition of slavery did not bring compensation to former slaves;

• former slaves were required to work for a further 12 years for their former slave owners;

• the Abolitionists, upon learning of this, fiercely contested the same, but only succeeded in obtaining a reduction from 12 years to 6 years;

• the plight of former slaves remained the same;

• their mistreatment often became worse;

• the black slavers operating out of the Barbary Coast of West Africa, enslaving not only their own, but men, women and children from the coast towns of England, Ireland, Norway and Denmark to name but four.

History is, time and again, ruthlessly selective in the portrayal of itself.

Moreover, as a generation dies out, eye-witness accounts are rendered second-hand, hearsay, and prone to be exploited by a generation totally separated from the past, incapable of placing themselves into the time period they study and, at best, making wrong assumptions, rewriting and sanitising history, or, at worst, creating monsters.

“Hearsay evidence is evidence of what someone else, not the defendant, heard said”

— Police definition at Chantmarle Police Training School in 1972, Course 236

The more formal definition that saw me through my law examinations a decade later is, as one would expect, slightly longer …

“What someone else has been heard to say: ‘what the soldier said’; as contrasted with the direct evidence of a witness himself; oral or written statements made by persons not called as witnesses. Hearsay evidence is, in general, excluded, but the repetition of another person’s statement is sometimes permissible, and there are express exceptions to the rule against hearsay. (See Nokes, Introduction to Evidence.)

In criminal proceedings the common law laws as to hearsay still obtain. In civil proceedings the common law rules are abrogated.”

— Osborn's Concise Law Dictionary 6th Edition by John Burke 1976

Students, today, love to trip off the tongue war criminal without the slightest notion of what they speak of, and I say this, notwithstanding what we currently see in the War in Ukraine. But all of this is just one aspect of a colossal history. We cannot allow our history to be seen only by reference to this one lens. If we do that then “we do not see the wood for the trees.”

IV

I follow many excellent BBC documentaries on these subjects.

By this means I obtain a wider perspective of my country’s history. I am proud of my country i.e. Britain. More importantly, my pride lies in the four nations within, which make up the United kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I am also aware of vociferous minorities that see independence as the way forward. I understand their arguments but wonder whether there is a misplaced desire to return these islands to ancient tribal kingdoms. That unnerves me when I see what Ukraine is having to confront in the Donbas, and what Moldova must shortly confront with its separatist Transnistria, the internationally unrecognised breakaway republic from Moldova.

In these islands, though, my view is firm. If a majority of the Scottish People, without coercion, opt for a second independence referendum, and if they thereby opt for independence, then that is their right.

It is also absolutely imperative that we understand, and accept, that our country has comprised black and coloured British people from earliest times. We are all British.

But historians need to tread carefully, for to do otherwise is to ride roughshod, and start the clock ticking inside in that time bomb.

An image recently of Winston Churchill bakcdropped against the image of Professor David Olusoga OBE. The caption stated that Churchill was a war criminal. The subtle use of imagery planted the subliminal notionthat this was the stated view of Professor Olusoga. Professor Olusaga was not making any such suggestion. Such is the perfidy of media, loose journalism and, sadly, certain academic historians.

I grew up in the shadow of the Nuremberg Trials (1946) and which gave me my definition of a war criminal. I had good reason to watch. I had, as it were, a vested interest in seeing this gang and their mob pay for their crimes against humanity.

Half a century on and dealing with Gen Z, even their parents, the millennial generation, young people often have no comprehension of the 1950s, either in Britain, or in Europe, or elsewhere. Neither will the vast majority of these young people even be interested. Their lives are lived in the immediate. Their lives revolve around reality TV shows, the vulgarity of the ‘talent shows’ and the vulgar present as perceived through Social Media. They are the exact opposite to that wartime generation, and the generationof the last 1940s and 1950s. Today, it is not what can I do for my country, but what can my country give little ole me, me, me and for free.

“Today, it is not what can I do for my country, but what can my country give little ole me, me, me and for free.”

— Kenneth Thomas Webb

It does not take too long to be able to persuade young people that just as Hitler and Stalin are war criminals, so too must we now regard Churchill and Roosevelt as war criminals. This is where history becomes skewered and very dangerous when placed in the hands of those with malign intentions.

VI

Rebellion

I grew up very aware of the phrase "the English-speaking peoples" and I have always been very proud of this.

Having accepted virtually everything that Professor Olusoga has presented in his excellent documentaries, even taking into account a tendency towards being mawkish, was my own identity was being washed away? Was I being made to feel guilty? That last, is the secret weapon of the religious fundamentalist (all religions), and those historians who seek to use history as a means to promote their own political objectives and skewered understanding of the truth of historical fact.

This is not Professor Olusoga’s intent at all. He is one of our foremost British historians. He is shining a light on our past. We need to see every nook and cranny. Examine ourselves afresh. Why?

So that we do not allow such things to happen again. We need Historians such as David Olusoga and Professor Michael David Wood, OBE FSA.

VII

Examine Afresh

This led me to look back upon a set of books I used to own and which I have now re-purchased ~ the Four Volumes of the A History of the English-Speaking Peoples by Winston Spencer Churchill. One could say that this purchase was an act of defiance, of rebellion, because a large sum was required, against revisionist historians who seek to warp fact and present me with fiction which I will then, because of their eloquent arguments, accept as fact.

Churchill writes with a command of the English language that is quite beautiful; a joy to behold when we see the English language dumbed down by American English. This does not stop me from seeing potential weaknesses or inaccuracies in Churchill’s record of historical fact. Churchill could be quite selective with facts. I learned this very early on when I purchased and read his six volumes of the History of the Second World War (some thirty-five years ago) and which were published almost immediately after that War (1948-1953). Mr Churchill, as he then was, did not always write dispassionately, or with complete openness.

It is human nature to write of the past in a way that deflects criticism from one’s personal leadership. It is also entirely understandable that writing so soon after such a cataclysmic event, certain state secrets must remain classified, and for several decades; a fact that seems to bypass the mindset of most young people today, not helped by ruthless journalists and media frenzy in their “let it all hang-out” approach to anything that might be termed ‘confidential’.

It is also an unfortunate fact that in the writing, human nature alights the page and says to its pen-maker ‘Come! Come!! There is a score to be settled. Don’t miss the opportunity!’

And we can take this further with the new development. ‘Come! Come!! There is a score to settle, a secret to expose. Blow, whistle, blow!’

VIII

Reckoning

But this is the case with the subject of History.

As time passes, formerly classified ‘top secret’ documents reach the public domain and are open to full scrutiny. Here are the nuts and bolts of history. It is precisely these nuts and bolts that have enabled Professor Olusoga to bring to us all the reality of history, and I am thankful to him for this. It matters not the colour of our skin in 21st Century Britain.

I know the full import of that horrendous section 28, or of DADT.[i]

I am not ‘woke’, I am not supine, I am not mawkish. I call a spade a spade. And any who have a tendency to woke, I say simply this. I will listen politely to your arguments and then I will systematically take them apart, plank by plank, screw by screw. In short, I will blast you out of the water!


IX

Realignment

I also agree with Professor Olusoga’s reference to the ‘rewriting’ of history by, of all publications, the Ladybird Series. I loved those books, I grew up on them, but I started to see a propaganda element quite a long time ago. How refreshing it is that Professor Olusoga touched the rudder of history - in this case, Roman Britain - and brought us back into line after more than a century of misalignment and thus, misteaching.

But I recognise, too, that Churchill shines a light upon Britain that took me by surprise.

X

Churchill

His History of the English-Speaking Peoples was first published in four volumes in 1956.

But in his preface to Volume One written on January 15, 1956, from Chartwell, Westerham, Kent, Churchill opens thus:

IT is nearly twenty years ago that I made the arrangements which resulted in this book. At the outbreak of the war about half a million words were duly delivered. Of course there was still much to be done in proof-reading when I went to the Admiralty on September 3, 1939[ii]. All this was set aside. During nearly six years of war, and an even longer period in which I was occupied with my war memoirs, the book slumbered peacefully. It is only now when things have quietened down that I present to the public A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH–SPEAKING PEOPLES. … W.S.C

Why is this important to me?

Simply, it is Churchill’s description of the arrival of Julius Caesar in 55 B.C. and 54. B.C.

For this very eloquent exposition of Britannia gives us the tiniest glimpse of what enabled Churchill to step up to the bar in 1940 when Hitler genuinely believed that it would be only a matter of weeks before his occupation of Britain after the Fall of France. When I read this 45 years ago, for some reason the relevance went over the top of my head, and I could only put that down to the fact that I was a young man who, as all young people do, take little note of mortality; we think we are going to be the ones who are going to defy death, who are going to be here forever! When the pendulum has swung, and we find ourselves looking back over time, suddenly we realise that we are not the exception to the rule!

Oh …t! It’s swinging back and it’s going to knock me clean off this ruddy planet!!

Here are glimpses of Churchill’s genius when it came to his mastery of the English language and a hint of the speeches that inspired not only the whole of the British Isles but also the entire English-speaking peoples, the fact of which he was very much aware.

For these words would have been written most definitely almost 20 years before they were published, that is to say, around about 1937. This was at the very time when he was arguing during his Wilderness Years about German rearmament and the threat that the German air force posed directly to Great Britain.

* * * * *

Extracts from Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume I pages 11-14

WE ARE better informed upon these matters than was Caesar when he set out from Boulogne. Here are some of the impressions he had collected:

“the interior of Britain is inhabited by people who claim, on the strength of an old tradition, to be aboriginal; the coast, by Belgic immigrants who came to plunder and make war – nearly all of them retaining the names of the tribes from which they originated – and later settled to till the soil. The population is exceedingly large, the ground thickly studded with homesteads, closely resembling those of the Gauls, and the cattle very numerous. For money they use either bronze, or gold coins, or iron ingots of fixed weights. Tin is found inland, and small quantities of iron near the coast; the copper that they use is imported. There is timber of every kind, as in Gaul, except beech and fir. Hares, fowl, and geese they think it unlawful to eat, but rear them for pleasure and amusement. The climate is more temperate than in Gaul, the cold being less severe.

“By far the most civilised inhabitants are those living in Kent (a purely maritime district), whose way of life differs little from that of the Gauls. Most of the tribes in the interior do not grow corn, but live on milk and meat, and wear skins. All the Britons dye their bodies with woad, which produces a blue colour, and this gives them a more terrifying appearance in battle. They wear their hair long and shave the whole of their bodies except the head and the upper lip. Wives are shared between groups of ten or twelve men, especially between brothers and between fathers and sons; but the offspring of these unions are counted as the children of the man with whom a particular woman cohabited first.”

* * * * *

LATE IN August 55 B.C. Caesar sailed with eighty transports and two legions at midnight, and with the morning light saw the white cliffs of Dover crowned with armed men. He judged the place "quite unsuitable for landing", since it was possible to throw missiles from the cliffs onto the shore. He therefore anchored till the turn of the tide, sailed seven miles farther, and descended upon Albion on the low, shelving beach between Deal and Walmer. But the Britons, observing these movements, kept pace along the coast and were found ready to meet him. There followed a scene upon which the eye of history has rested. …”

And here, reader, is that glimpse I mention, of the man that went on to lead the free world, and to affirm that these islands “shall never surrender.”

THE Islanders, with their chariots and horsemen, advanced into the surf to meet the invader. Caesar's transports and warships grounded in deep water. The legionnaires, uncertain of the depth, hesitated in the face of the shower of javelins and stones, but the eagle–bearer of the Tenth Legion plunged into the waves with the sacred emblem, and Caesar brought his warships with the catapults and arrow-fire upon the British flank. The Romans, thus encouraged and sustained, leaped from their ships, and, forming as best they could, waded towards the enemy. There was a short, ferocious fight amid the waves, but the Romans reached the shore, and, once arrayed, forced the Britons to flight.

Caesar's landing however was only the first of his troubles. His cavalry, in eighteen transports, which had started three days later, arrived in sight of the camp, but, caught by a sudden gale, drifted far down the Channel, and were thankful to regain the Continent. The high tide of the full moon which Caesar had not understood wrought grievous damage to his fleet at anchor. "A number of ships", he says, "were shattered, and the rest, having lost their cables, anchors, and the remainder of their tackle, were unusable, which naturally threw the whole army into great consternation. For they had no other vessels in which they could return, nor any materials for repairing the fleet; and, since it had been generally understood that they were to return to Gaul for the winter, they had not provided themselves with a stock of grain for wintering in Britain.”

The Britons had sued for peace after the battle on the beach, but now that they saw the plight of their assailants their hopes revived and they broke off the negotiations. In great numbers they attacked the Roman foragers. But the legion concerned had not neglected precautions, and discipline and armour once again told their tale. It shows how much food there was in the Island that two legions could live for a fortnight off the cornfields close to the camp. The British submitted. The conqueror imposed only nominal terms. Breaking up many of his ships to repair the rest, he was glad to return with some hostages and captives to the mainland. He never even pretended that his expedition had been a success. To supersede the record of it he came again the next year, this time with five legions and some cavalry conveyed in eight hundred ships. The Islanders were overawed by the size of the armada. The landing was unimpeded, but again the sea assailed him. Caesar had marched twelve miles into the interior when he was recalled by the news that a great storm had shattered or damaged a large portion of his fleet. He was forced to spend ten days in hauling all his ships onto the shore, and in fortifying the camp of which they then formed part. This done he renewed his invasion, and, after easily destroying the forest stockades in which the British sheltered, crossed the Thames near Brentford. But the British had found a leader in the chief Cassivellaunus, who was a master of war under the prevailing conditions. Dismissing to their homes the mass of untrained foot-soldiers and peasantry, he kept pace with the invaders march by march with his chariots and horsemen. Caesar gives a detailed description of the chariot-fighting:

In chariot-fighting the Britons begin by driving all over the field hurling javelins, and generally the terror inspired by the horses and the noise of the wheels are sufficient to throw their opponents' ranks into disorder. Then, after making their way between the squadrons of their own cavalry, they jump down from the chariots and engage on foot. In the meantime their charioteers retire a short distance from the battle and place the chariots in such a position that their masters, if hard pressed by numbers, have an easy means of retreat to their own lines. Thus they combine the ability of cavalry with the staying-power of infantry; and by daily training and practice they attain such proficiency that even on a steep incline they are able to control the horses at full gallop, and to check and turn them in a moment. They can run along the chariot pole, stand on the yoke, and get back into the chariot as quick as lightning.

Cassivellaunus, using these mobile forces and avoiding a pitched battle with the Roman legions, escorted them on their inroad and cut off their foraging parties. Nonetheless Caesar captured his first stronghold; the tribes began to make terms for themselves; a well-conceived plan for destroying Caesar’s base on the Kentish shore was defeated. At this juncture Cassivellaunus, by a prudence of policy equal to that of his tactics, negotiated a further surrender of hostages and a promise of tribute and submission, in return for which Caesar was again content to quit the Island. In a dead calm "he set sail late in the evening and brought all the fleet safely to land at dawn". This time he proclaimed a conquest. Caesar had his triumph, and British captives trod the dreary path at his tail through the streets of Rome; but for nearly a hundred years no invading army landed upon the Island coasts.

Little is known of Cassivellaunus, and we can only hope that later defenders of the island will be equally successful and that their measures will be as well suited to the needs of the time. The impression remains of a prudent and skilful chief, whose qualities and achievements, but for the fact that they were displayed in an outlandish theatre, might well have ranked with those of Fabius Maximus Cunctator.

* * * * *

XI

BLM

I wonder about this organization. Its political roots and unattractive methods endanger them alienating the public. But I do support all people of all colours and ethnic backgrounds.

I have written elsewhere what happened in 1944 when American servicemen attempted to stop my mother from dancing with Black American servicemen at the Cheltenham Town Hall. American white soldiers suddenly came face to face with a war-weary British public well able to make its feelings known in very blunt terms. I learned about this ‘set-to’ during the late 1970s, early 1980s. The unfortunate American arrival of salvation had not cottoned onto the fact that Mum’s brother and crew were, every night, flying four-engine Avro Lancasters deep into Germany as part of the elite Path Finder Force.

Twenty-two years later, in 1966, my father’s friends came home each weekend from the detective training course up in Wakefield. We had no phone in those days, so everything was done by letter, but my parents opened our home to the police officers from black and coloured parts of the Commonwealth … and in later years I learned from my father that he simply would not tolerate the open racism of his colleagues on that course. So he did what he and my mother taught me to do … to always downface opposition, and any attempt at mob-rule. Reading in between the lines years later, Dad decided that C.I.D. was not for him.

I give my support in my own way.

Later this year, an article publishes regarding two very, very brave women - Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin.

Kenneth Thomas Webb
Liverpool and Gloucestershire

June 9, 2022
All Rights Reserved

United Kingdom - Ukraine - Denmark - Germany - Australia - New Zealand - Canada - USA

© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2022

One of the Fifteen Founding Members of the Leaders Lodge

First written November 1, 2020

[i] Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell … a dishonourable period in the history of the American Armed Forces and which, too often, touched ours too.

[ii] as First Lord of the Admiralty, and the famous signal to the ships at sea … Winston is Back!