This year we are in the hands of
politicians who have the power to keep us safe and save lives.
Politicians have decided people are allowed in 2020 to have a little respite from Covid and meet loved ones in a limited way over the festive period.
Many think this is too lenient. Who am I to say.
It's a sort of truce.
There are politicians and there are murdering politicians and just over a hundred years ago, during the First World War most were the latter.
Twenty years ago while running a campaign to save the Chambre Hardman archive for the people of Liverpool I received a phone call with the offer of help.
http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/2020/09/edward-chambre-hardman-59-rodney-street.html
“It's Lady French” she had said on the telephone.
Expecting to meet an old dud in a tweed suit I was surprised, as she was quite young. We chatted over a coffee and after a while I asked her about her title.
“Oh my Grandfather got his title from World war One, Lord French”
“Wasn't he that murdering General that sent hundreds of thousands of people over the top to death”
She looked at me hardly surprised and said “Yes that's him”.
I did not receive any assistance, though we stayed friends.
We have had the hundred years commemorations for WWI.
Individual stories of heroism has given way to the endless lists of tragic deaths.
Murdering Generals have been replaced by stories of heroes.
Recently during a recording at an Antiques Roadshow valuation I was asked to appraise a FA Cup Final medal from 1914.
King George V presented the medal and was, at that time the patron of the Football League.
Not to give too much away as it has not been aired yet.
The recipient of the medal was a bit of a card and the story that unfolded was of extreme interest to me. The story is mesmerizing. I hope I have done it justice. It will be aired sometime in 2021.
I learnt a lot from delving into these war years. I learnt a lot through football.
If I don't learn something new every day I am very disappointed.
I entered the debate before Liverpool became European capital of Culcha in 2008. (Some people were saying the only culture in Liverpool, was, in the yogurt, in the fridge, in the Kwik Save, in Old Swan). But I disagreed. The debate of' 'Is football culture? Intrigued me, as I grew up a stones throw from Anfield. Football is part of my, modern day culture. Its in my DNA. All great cities such as Napoli and Rome embrace football. The highs and lows and.......the art of football.
If a skilled craftsman can be a silversmith. Why cant a skilled footballer be treated the same way off the terraces.
I learnt more than I needed by handling this medal my mind began to race. That's just the way I like it. So it the story grew and grew.
The following year, after the medal was won, the 1915 Cup Final would be known as The Khaki Final because nearly all the crowd was dressed in uniform. I wonder if you did one of those images that took away all those who later died how many faces in the crowd would remain.
In between these two finals was of course the famous Christmas Truce.
Christmas Day 1914 where soldiers from both sides played a game of Togger in No Mans Land. They had both sung Silent Night in their mother tongues. The voices had hovered over the trenches in honest sentimentality. Fifty to hundred yards away from each other. It was a Christmas favorite in both homelands. The Germans had decorated little trees on the parapets of the trenches. These trees had been sent by their families and candles were put in jam jars lit up the night sky.
Shouting took place amidst the choirs.
“Happy Christmas Tommy”.
“Happy Christmas Fritz”.
Who would want to kill on Christmas day.
It was said, that a sign was held up.
Happy Christmas No Shooting”
And some brave soldier walked over the top. He was not shot and this started a unbelievable sight. Where enemies met and shook hands and swapped cigars coffee tea, and chocolate. Someone got a ball out and they had a kick around. That leather ball must have weighed a ton with the build up of mud amidst the bomb pocks and craters. What a match that must have been.
Enemies playing a game in good spirit.
There was also talk of a British officer being blindfolded and taken behind German lines for Christmas dinner. He was given a slap up, by trench standards and was taken back soon afterwards. There were stories of people recognizing Germans who had worked in London. One even was said to have had his haircut by his barber who was German and had returned home to fight in the war.
Some truces lasted for days.
It is of course the season of goodwill. Photographs appeared in the British papers.
The scorn that was poured on both Tommie's and Fritz's who nodded a ball around a field in some distant land meant that they were ordered to stop fraternizing and bomb the gubbing's out of the opposition shortly after. Orders were given by the murderers who probably never got anywhere near the front line.
Where these fraternizers the clever people. Could they have spoiled Churchill's war.
I respect the heroism of my Grandfathers generation who fought in that war and I have even come around to having a bit of sympathy for the German soldiers who were also led like lambs to the slaughter for the honour of their King and Country.Now if the people had known what we know now about the Cousins, the spawn of the mentally disturbed Queen Victoria. King George his lookalike, Tzar Nicholas and the evil Wilhelm of Germany, would they have allowed themselves a glorious death.
Is there a glorious death?
Its strange the way time gives you more insight, to digest and when writing about the Next of Kin medal designed by the father of a lady I knew, I was quite emotional at the way solemnity and dignity could be designed as symbolism. A symbol of lament. Death.
https://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/2014/09/dead-mans-penny-edward-carter-preston.html
But recently I have started to feel that the dignity was manipulated to make up for the stupidity of murdering politicians now PR'd in the case of Churchill into saviors of our nation. If the word of peace had of been spread on Christmas day forthwith to both homelands maybe it would have saved 2 million peoples lives and a Second World War. The whole truth of The American Flu pandemic that was PR'd into The Spanish Flu killed near a hundred million souls. It is only with the outbreak of Covid 19 that people have become aware of the great death during WWI.
They also PR'd The Murderous act by the Hun of torpedoing The Lusitania. As a recruitment exercise to send more soldiers to their doom.
https://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.com/2015/04/lusitania-medal.html
DID THE FLU STOP THE WAR. That would have been an unacceptable response. A insult to all those relatives that received The Dead Mans Penny.
I grew up with stories of Great Britons the likes of Scott, Shackleton, The Charge of The Light Brigade. Scott of the Antarctic and the brave fool Shakleton. Only to now look back at the whole bouncy build up of British heroes as no more than lies spun on heroic failure. They have just named the Nightingale Hospitals to hide another con just like the invention of The Lady With The Lamp, Florence Nightingale. No matter how kind she was, her fame just hid the abominable state of medical treatment in The Crimea.
So what of those soldiers who met to spread a bit of Christmas cheer. A little respite to horror before they may have met a glorious death. Up to their necks in mud and lice they sensed a small respite from the horror of war.
They knew what death was in reality. It was all around them. Not a public relation invention by the suppressed newspaper magnates, in on the con. Feeding the flames
Where these honorable soldiers the clever people?
These men most of whom had little or no education.
Who had nothing against the opposite of themselves. Barbers plumbers shopkeepers. Who went along with the propaganda of the evil Hun. Spun by the evil murdering politicians of Britain.
Most may have been wondering what they were really fighting for. What Belgium had to do with them. Most would not know that Leopold The King of the Belge was one of the most cruel people ever to walk the face of the earth. He was responsible for real evil in his African Congo Kingdom.
So what was it really all about?
When the murdering politicians on both sides were a confused bunch of confidence tricksters.
Running amok.
One thing I have learnt, is that football was and has become a symbol of humanity. They shake hands after every match.
All politicians should be made to go out in a pair of muddy shorts and be made to play for a team on a wet windy Sunday morning. Because the game of life is like match. Once you start disrespecting yourself what chance for your opponent.
That those simple folk on the terraces. The Spion Kop (another con) are the salt of the earth and that modern culture is inextricably tied together with football.
For one thing I have learnt. From learning. Is that.
When it's foolish to be clever. It is folly to be wise.
Update 22.12.2020.
There are now thousands of lorries waiting to get to France. The 2020 Christmas truce called by buffoon politicians is all but cancelled. Brexit is looming.
France has banned the returns of lorries because the murdering politicians of Britain's current crop have made such a mess of dealing with Covid 19 that a new strain has developed. What a mess.
And they are still lying to us. Through Their teeth. What will the new year bring.
