PS. Apologies! What I sent was from this week's Spectator magazine. -------- Sandy Finlayson Philadelphia, PA
> On Jan 29, 2015, at 7:26 AM, Sandy Finlayson <bbcradio...@gmail.com> wrote: > > And here's another take on Paxman's (on the whole) fair approach to Churchill. > ----------------- > In January 1958, the British government began working on the significantly > titled Operation Hope Not: its plans for what to do when Winston Churchill > died. The plans, it turned out, wouldn’t be needed until January 1965 — but > the intervening seven years were obviously well spent, because, as Churchill: > A Nation’s Farewell (BBC1, Wednesday) made resoundingly clear, the farewell > in question was a triumph. London came to a standstill and Big Ben fell > silent as huge crowds watched the procession of the coffin from Westminster > to the spectacular state funeral in St Paul’s — and its boat journey along > the Thames afterwards. > > For the 50th anniversary, Jeremy Paxman talked us through the day with the > aid of some of those who took part. A member of the bearer party recalled > how, going up the steps of St Paul’s, the coffin had begun to slide off the > bearers’ shoulders — and how he’d said aloud, ‘Don’t worry, sir, we won’t let > you down.’ Asked about the many tears he’d provoked, the cathedral trumpeter > explained with some satisfaction that, ‘The “Last Post” always gets them.’ > One of the bellringers remembered nipping out on to a gallery for a look at > the service, and being confronted with the unexpected sight of a garden shed > — inside which Richard Dimbleby was doing his TV commentary. > > The programme also featured the memories of the Churchill family, and several > contributions from Boris Johnson, who claimed that these days Churchill would > be ‘a terrific blogger and a self-Googler of epic proportions’. Paxman > himself supplied the somehow melancholy news that Churchill and Mrs Thatcher > are now the only former prime ministers in Madame Tussauds. > But despite these many treats, the most surprising aspect of the programme > was possibly inadvertent. In the approved BBC way, Paxman regularly > emphasised how much the country has changed since Churchill’s death. And yet, > in between times, both the tone and content of almost everything else > wouldn’t have been out of place 50 years ago. If you just read the > transcripts, in fact, it would often have been hard to distinguish Paxo’s > words from those of Richard Dimbleby. > > Admittedly, Paxman probably wouldn’t, as Dimbleby did, refer to St Paul’s as > ‘the great mother church of the Commonwealth’. Dimbleby probably wouldn’t > choose, as Paxman did, to tell us what Britain was like in the 1960s (pretty > swinging, apparently) while driving a Mini that he could barely fit into. > Nonetheless, Paxman’s line was essentially that we shall never see > Churchill’s like again, and that ‘when the nation needed it, he expressed the > determination of a bulldog’. (On a particularly old-school note, he also used > ‘England’ and ‘Britain’ interchangeably.) > At one stage, Paxman met an ex-docker who declared that, like most > working-class people, he didn’t like Churchill much and revealed that his > colleagues had to be paid to lower the cranes that bowed so movingly towards > the boat carrying Churchill’s coffin. But even when faced with such a > spoilsport, Paxman didn’t hesitate for long. Churchill, he pointed out, may > have been no friend to the trade unions, but ‘he did lead the fight against > German fascism’. And with that, it was back to the eulogy. > > All of which made Martin Bell’s contribution seem distinctly odd. Wearing > what he clearly (if a little tragically) still regards as his ‘trademark’ > white suit, Bell remembered covering the day as a young reporter. The > funeral, he concluded ringingly, ‘represented the passing of the old Britain’ > — a verdict that rather suggests that he didn’t see the rest of the programme. > > > >> On Jan 29, 2015, at 5:34 AM, 'Antoine Capet' via ChurchillChat >> <churchillchat@googlegroups.com> wrote: >> >> For those who watched J. Paxman's BBC programme last night : comments in The >> Guardian : >> >> Winston Churchill defended as Paxman calls him ‘ruthless egotist’ >> >> http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/20/winston-churchill-anniversary-jeremy-paxman >> >> >> Antoine CAPET, FRHistS >> Professor emeritus of British Studies >> University of Rouen >> 76821 Mont-Saint-Aignan >> France >> antoine.ca...@univ-rouen.fr >> >> 'Britain since 1914' Section Editor >> Royal Historical Society Bibliography >> >> Reviews Editor of CERCLES >> http://www.cercles.com/review/reviews.html >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "ChurchillChat" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to churchillchat+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> To post to this group, send email to churchillchat@googlegroups.com. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. 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