The Church of St. George in Dunster, West Somerset.

As usual at this time of year I thought I would post about Somerset’s churches.  This Christmas and Epiphany the theme will be red sandstone churches of West Somerset.  A couple of years ago I visited Dunster Castle from where I took a photo, which I reproduce below, of the Church of St. George in the village of Dunster.

Colin Wintle in his Around Historic Avon and Somerset, (Midas Books, 1978) writes; “The Priory Church of St. George, of red sandstone and with a massive square tower, buttressed and embattled, contains an unique feature: its rood screen, with fourteen openings and supporting a gallery, is the longest in England.”

Simon Jenkins, in his England’s Thousand Best Churches, (Penguin Books, 2000) lists it among his “Top One Hundred” and gives it four stars out of five.

The Church of St. George in Dunster, West Somerset.

Brexit surrender - echoes from the Forest of Compiegne.

It seems that some people see the Government’s Withdrawal Agreement with the European Union as a surrender document akin to the armistice which the Germans were obliged to sign in order to avoid a total military collapse as The First World War reached its climax.

The signing took place in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiegne.

The letter below appeared in The Daily Telegraph on November 12.

SIR – I wonder if the EU will provide Mrs May with a railway carriage in which to sign the withdrawal agreement.

JJ Hawkins, Nottingham.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, MP for North-East Somerset, has been quoted as saying the Withdrawal Agreement would mean this country becoming a “vassal state” under the control of the European Union.  I could not possibly comment!

An overload of lawyers in the House of Commons. Oh for an Ernie Bevin!

I came across the letter below in the December 8th edition of The Week.  It comments on the fact that there appears to be an overload of lawyers and so called professional politicians in the House of Commons.

An overload of lawyers.

To The Times

At 15% in the Commons, and more in senior appointments, the legal profession is already over-represented in Parliament compared with other occupations.  Alongside the so-called professional politicians (Oxbridge PPE and not much else), lawyers have dominated cabinet positions disproportionately for far too long.  We need to attract a more diverse pool of talent, and boost the numbers of those who have had to concern themselves with profit and loss, investment decisions and people issues.  Perhaps with the pragmatism that comes from such experience, we could have headed off the shambles that we see in today’s politics.

Sir Christopher Coville, past chairman, Westland Helicopters.

The letter spurred me into doing a little research and I came up with the following facts.  Of the MPs elected in 2017 82% are graduates and 24% attended Oxford or Cambridge.  There were only 6 MPs whose occupations were described as “Manual”, another 6 were “Agricultural/Farmers” and only 4 were from the armed forces.*

Oh for a few patriots like Ernie Bevin!

*https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7483/CBP-7483.pdf

Sergeant T.E.Jones, an airman of 99 Squadron RAF Bomber Command, is remembered on the war memorial in Whitelackington, South Somerset.

The village of Whitlackington straddles the Old London Road one mile east of Ilminster in South Somerset.  Its 14th century church of St. Mary the Virgin is located well back from the road on rising ground.  Between the road and the church is a field in which the village war memorial, in the style of an obelisk, stands in splendid isolation commemorating four men who lost their lives in the First World War and two killed in World War Two.

One of those remembered is Sergeant Pilot Thomas Edwin Jones who was killed on this day in 1939 while serving with 99 Squadron of RAF Bomber Command.  The squadron was equipped with the Vickers Wellington Mk1a, a long-range medium bomber designed in the 1930s.  The Wellington, which had a crew of 6, was powered by 2 Bristol Pegasus radial engines giving it a top speed of 235 mph and the ability to carry a 4,500 lb bomb load.  The aircraft’s defensive armament was four .303 machine guns, two in a front turret and two in a rear turret.

On the 14th December 1939 twelve Wellingtons from 99 Squadron took off from RAF Newmarket in Suffolk and headed across the North Sea to carry out a shipping strike against German warships in the Schillig Roads.  The officially commissioned history reports: “There they sighted a number of the warships, only to find the cloud base, at 800 feet, too low to attack with Semi Armour Piercing bombs.  Under heavy fire from the warships and from nearby trawlers or ‘flak-ships’, the Wellingtons maintained formation and shot it out with the fighters who soon came up to join the battle; but five of the twelve failed to return, and another crashed when almost home, as against the enemy’s loss of one fighter.”*

Wellington N2911 was one of those which failed to return.  Its crew of six, including 27 year old Sergeant Jones, did not survive.

The war memorial adjacent to the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in the village of Whitelackington, South Somerset.

Thomas Edwin Jones is also commemorated at the Runnymede Memorial, sometimes known as the Air Forces Memorial, on Cooper’s Hill in Runnymede, Surrey. 

*Royal Air Force 1939-1945, Volume 1, The Fight at Odds, Denis Richards (HMSO.1953).

Robin Tilbrook, Chairman of the English Democrats, mentioned in Quentin Letts’ book Patronising Bastards.

Earlier this year I read Quentin Letts’ Patronising Bastards – How the elites betrayed Britain (Constable, 2017) a hilarious, but barbed take-down of the “furtive elite” who want to “control opinion and dictate attitudes”. 

I was pleasantly surprised to come across a mention for Robin Tilbrook, Chairman of the English Democrats Party.  Mr Tilbrook, I hasten to add, is not one of Quentin Letts’ Patronising Bastards.  The mention in the book comes in a reference to Professor Nicholas Boyle from the University of Cambridge who wrote of the English in the New European: “Like resentful ruffians uprooting the new trees in the park and trashing the new play area, 17 million English, the lager louts of Europe, voted for Brexit in an act of geographical vandalism.”

Quentin Letts informs us that Robin Tilbrook reported Boyle to Essex police for a “hate incident” claiming that: “As an Englishman I am offended by such a tirade by a person who is supposed to be and is paid to be a role model for students.  Attacking the English is just as much “racist” as attacking any other groups.”

Professor Boyle is number 96 on Mr Letts’ list of the top 100 Patronising Bastards.

English voters are " . . . ignored, marginalised and abused in political debate."

I came across this letter in The Week (December 1) from former Labour MP John Denham who is now the director of the Centre for English Identity and Politics at the University of Winchester.  In his letter he notes that: “Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and Vince Cable managed to mention England just once between them at this year’s party conferences.”  He also states that English nationalism has no serious political party; it seems he is yet to be impressed by the English Democrats.

Without an English Parliament the people of England have no dedicated political representation and therefore no effective collective voice.  Quite rightly the Welsh, Scots and Northern Irish have their own parliaments and assemblies to represent them.  Aren’t they lucky!

Below is Professor Denham’s letter.  It was first published in The Guardian.   

An overlooked nation.

To The Guardian

It is far too lazy to blame Brexit chaos on English nationalism.  It is a strange type of nationalism that never names the nation, has no serious political party, no leaders or public intellectuals, and no significant cultural expression.  Neither Leavers nor Remainers made an argument about what was best for England (though they did for Scotland and Wales).  Brexit is being led by elite politicians who identify as British, not English.  And Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and Vince Cable managed to mention England just once between them at this year’s party conferences.  If English voters have a problem, it is that they are frequently ignored, marginalised and abused in political debate.  Asserting distinct English interests reflects frustration much more than nationalism.

Professor John Denham, director, Centre for English Identity and Politics, University of Winchester