I ask myself again: do our politicians - of any party - really know what they are doing?Īll of this leads me to ponder another point. Yet here we are, just months later, and already we are facing problems. When the Strategic Defence Review was completed we were assured that our armed forces - even in their slimmer state - would be sufficient to safeguard Britain's world-wide interests. That leaves only 15 to replace those currently based in Italy. Of the rest, 24 are committed to the Quick Reaction Alert protecting Britain’s air space and 12 are in the Falklands in a similar role. Of those 69 pilots, 18 are currently at a base in Italy enforcing the flying ban over Libya but the squadron is due to be rotated in a few weeks' time. Those 69 include trainers but they have now been drafted to front-line positions and no further training on this aircraft can be undertaken. In connection with all that, it was instructive to read a report in yesterday's newspaper that we have in this country just 69 trained pilots for its Typhoon planes that are currently the mainstay of the RAF. On top of this, our Government has pushed for, and taken a leading role in enforcing, a no-fly zone over Libya.
This at a time when we are heavily embroiled in Afghanistan and look like being so for years to come. Already some pilots in the course of training have been told they are being made redundant. It has also been announced that the RAF will be faced with a reduction in manpower of (I think) in the region of 12.5%. Britain's last aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal, is now out of commission and the Harrier jets that flew from her are in the process of being scrapped. But I also think we should be wary of cutting too deeply in our expenditure, in particular, our expenditure on the defence of the realm. It is certainly not something I think we should be leaving for future generations to deal with. OK, so nationally we have a bit of a financial problem and I fully agree that this needs to be sorted sooner rather than later. I have listened to several versions on YouTube and selected what I consider to be a very good one with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Colin Davis. This is quite possibly the most moving piece of music I have ever heard and, to me, is just so expressive of the rolling English countryside, especially the South Downs. My icon of England is Nimrod, from Elgar's Enigma Variations. Can an icon be aural, I wondered? Well, if it can, that makes my decision easy. One of the icons in the book was the dawn chorus. Arthur Brown or John White might have been factory hands, farm workers, shop assistants or sons of the local squire with no need to earn a living: they are all recorded for posterity in exactly the same way.īut then I thought again. What is more, they record both the great and the small without differentiation. That understatement makes them, to my mind, particularly English. Most of the war memorials in this country are English in that they are understated, unlike to flamboyant memorials seen in so many French villages. My first thought was village war memorials.
But what, I wondered, would I have written about had I been asked to contribute? Having read the book, I was a little surprised, but gratified, that there had been no mention of those old clichés such as the white cliffs of Dover, policemen's helmets, London buses or Big Ben. The subjects range "from pub signs to seaside piers, from cattle grids to canal boats" (I copied that from the blurb). Numerous celebrities have contributed short (sometimes very short) essays on what they see as an icon of England. It is in that capacity that he has edited a volume of essays entitled Icons of England. Indeed, he is almost an honorary Englishman and is President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England. He is, of course, an American but has now made his home in our country.
He was, I felt, trying too hard and his humour was falling flat. By the time I reached A Walk in the Woods I had just about had enough. I found his humorous style to my liking and read his following books with increasing disappointment. I first came across Bill Bryson's work with his Notes from a Small Island, his impressions of England, warts and all, when he first visited us.
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