The Church of St. Aldhelm and St. Eadburga in the South Somerset village of Broadway, and an epitaph of note.

 The village of Broadway is situated to the west of Ilminster in South Somerset, just a few hundred yards off the A358.  Writing over 50 years ago in his The King’s England – Somerset (Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., 1968) Arthur Mee tells us of Broadway: “It stands on an ancient track cut through a royal forest, leading straight as an arrow to the fortified hill of Castle Neroche; it is said that the wide verges of this old road were for preventing robbers from hiding close enough to spring out on the unwary traveller.”  I am not sure where the “wide verges” are, but when I visited the village, on the way to the parish church the 13^th century Church of St. Aldhelm and St. Eadburga, the lanes were narrow and the hedgerows thick and tall.

Broadway’s village church stands some way outside the village because, it is thought, of an outbreak of the plague.  Ronald Webber in his The Devon and Somerset Blackdowns (Robert Hale & Company, 1976) informs us: “The church of St. Aldhelm and St. Eadburgha (sic), well outside the village, has a chancel and transept of late 13^th century or early 14^th century construction.  The interior abounds with solid oak bench ends with a preponderance of poppy heads.  The chancel has carved beams and bosses while the 16^th century pulpit has carved panels depicting the five wounds of Christ.  An octagonal font of the Perpendicular period has a small figure on each side.”

The Church of St. Aldhelm and St. Eadburga in the South Somerset village of Broadway.

There does seem some uncertainty as to who the church is dedicated.  St. Aldhelm was an Anglo-Saxon literature scholar born in the 7^th century.  He became Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey and Bishop of Sherborne.  However, there is some confusion over St. Eadburga.  Is the dedication meant for St. Eadburh of Winchester granddaughter of King Alfred, or St. Eadburga of Bicester an English saint from the 7^th century and a daughter of King Penda of Mercia?  English Heritage gives the dedication as St. Eadburh while outside the church a sign names it St. Aldhelm and St. Eadburga. 

Whatever its name may be, it is a charming little church with a well maintained graveyard.  Several of the gravestones have interesting epitaphs, but the following one in particular caught my eye.  It was on the reverse of the gravestone of one Frank Fawcett who died on 13 June 1971, aged 73 – the words suggest he was a farmer:

Teach me to work

diligently, with courage

and fortitude, but above

all with meekness and

humility, not striving for

profit or the gratification

of vanity, but seeking

rather to produce the fruits

of your good earth so that

my fellow creatures and

the community in which

they live may enjoy them.

Will breaking the Brexit withdrawal agreement damage Britain's reputation? A letter in the Western Daily Press.

 Letter in the Western Daily Press 22 September 2020.

Treaties only last while they last.

It is all very well for Geoffrey Cox MP, the former Attorney General, to say breaking agreements and treaties does “unconscionable” damage to Britain’s reputation, but there are circumstances when standing by them can be disastrous.

In 1914 those in government didn’t want conflict with Germany, but because they did not wish to break the treaty which guaranteed Belgian neutrality ministers reluctantly decided war had to be declared when German troops marched into Belgium.  They felt it was a matter of upholding Britain’s honour and reputation to do so.

Devastatingly, to put it mildly, World War One cost Britain and The Empire millions of dead and wounded to defeat Germany and her allies.  That victory lead to an unjust peace, the rise of Nazi Germany, and another world war.

With the benefit of hindsight one might think fighting for Belgian neutrality and maintaining Britain’s reputation came at too high a cost.  

Perhaps, in present circumstances, Mr Cox might consider the words of President de Gaulle: “Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.”

S.W. 

Ilminster, Somerset.

Morning sunflower and evening sunset in South Somerset today.

 Absolutely clear blue sky in South Somerset this morning so I took a photo of a neighbour's sunflower peering over the garden wall.  

In the evening there was a pleasing cloudscape as sunset approached.

The British Army's Main Battle Tank. To ditch or not to ditch.

My late grandfather was a regular in the Somerset Light Infantry, but during the First World War he was transferred to the Royal Tank Corps and took part in the Battle of Cambrai where tanks were first used successfully, and en masse.

Therefore I was interested to see in the press that there are those in our Conservative government who advocate abandoning the use of tanks in the British Army.  I came across an article and a letter in The Week (5 September) which argued for and against the retention of the tank.

The case against was made by Jack Allen, a former Cold War tank commander, in an article originally published in Reaction. Life.  I reproduce the points I found of interest below:

Tanks for the memory, not for war today.

MBTs were already proving ineffective when I was a tank commander at the end of the Cold War: they’re even more so today.  For a start, being huge (some weigh 70 tons) they’re hard to move around the battlefield, hard to hide from drones and attack helicopters, and notoriously bad at fighting in cities.  On the modern battlefield – think Iraq or Syria – they’re easy prey to the lone operator on a moped with an anti-tank gun.  Or to roadside IEDs.  Even if the attacks only damage a tank, it all adds to the vast amount of support needed to keep the tanks on the road.  It’s not as if NATO general staff believe the next conflict will be fought on the open North European Plain, where MBTs come into their own.  No, Moscow prefers to work by destabilising governments and infiltrating militias.  By all means let’s invest in light armoured vehicles.  But let’s ditch the tank.    

The case for retaining tanks was originally made in The Times. I reproduce it below as published in The Week.

Why tanks are vital.

To The Times.

In all the articles (about the rationale for scrapping tanks), we could find no mention of deterrence.  Is there anyone left in Whitehall who understands deterrence strategy, which we are all signed up to in NATO?  Simply put, it requires an ability to outdo an enemy at all levels of conflict up to and including nuclear; if you can’t do this at each level, with a reasonable level of assurance, the strategy loses credibility.  The test for disposing of a capability that an enemy might retain is whether whatever is deemed to be a replacement will deter that enemy.  If not, then escalation or capitulation are the only responses.

When our conventional forces are as limited in number compared with those of our potential enemies as they now are, escalation could quickly rise towards a nuclear conflict.  Under these circumstances, our nuclear capability might well become a cuckoo in the nest.

Air Chief Marshall Sir Michael Graydon; Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham.

 

Without a big increase in attack helicopters to replace the tanks, I lean towards agreeing with Sir Michael and Sir Jeremy.