Some years ago I went sailing with friends.
We chartered a boat and circumnavigated the Clyde Estuary, twice round Arran and back to base after failing to visit a Distillery in Campbell Town, all the while singing Mull of Kintyre, thinking we were Pirates on the Spanish Main (whatever that is or was!).
On the return leg of our hazardous trip, feeling like sailors returning from the sea, which of course we were, we passed Faslane. Fast approaching our heading, to use a nautical term, was a rather large submarine.
I pointed this fact out to the helmsman who was then instructed by Captain Francis, not, Drake but our somewhat less illustrious commander, that in the conventions of the sea, steam gives way to sail, there was no mention of Nuclear's relationship to sail and we stayed on course and the submarine went into reverse, as we passed his bows, we waved in a friendly 'all sailors together' fashion and he responded.
Presumably his 'V' for victory sign indicated that he was contemplating a successful voyage himself?
It was a precursor after a fashion of the now famous saying, 'you do the fighting and I'll do the talking', although in our case it was more, 'we are sailing, so please don't run into us'.
Now the Con Dems have raised the stakes even higher and made it clear that even when, like the Home Guard in the Second World War, the Ministry of Defence only has, brush handles and wooden rifles to issue, the fighting must continue.
We are it seems, struggling to come to terms with the new world order.
As a young curate in the 1970's I went to an airshow. During the show there was a visit from a fleet of Harriers, these were amazing machines flown by the amazing men of the Disney mythology, the jets would rise off the ground vertically, hover, roar off in a resounding declaration of power, and return amidst cheering from those attending the show.
It was easy to be proud of both of the machine and the country it represented.
At the same airshow there was a visit from Concorde, and even though I knew, and I was right, that I would never fly on the aeroplane, I could not help feeling a tremendous sharing of national pride, slightly tinged by the recognition that it was an Anglo-French collaboration, in this magnificent plane, as it came in for a faux landing.
The airstrip being too short it pretended to land then 'took off ' again, with its nose lowered approaching its 'landing' for all the world like a bird of prey, it was a magnificent spectacle and an illustration of Harold Wilson's, the then Prime Minister's, claim that we were experiencing the 'White heat of a technological revolution', that society was being 'forged' by it.
Now of course China and India are forging ahead.
Concorde has gone, as have the Harriers, the Aircraft Carriers too, although the submarines still ply out of Faslane on their secret missions.
But the influence has gone, even while we pretend that it remains.
Big Society?
We chartered a boat and circumnavigated the Clyde Estuary, twice round Arran and back to base after failing to visit a Distillery in Campbell Town, all the while singing Mull of Kintyre, thinking we were Pirates on the Spanish Main (whatever that is or was!).
On the return leg of our hazardous trip, feeling like sailors returning from the sea, which of course we were, we passed Faslane. Fast approaching our heading, to use a nautical term, was a rather large submarine.
I pointed this fact out to the helmsman who was then instructed by Captain Francis, not, Drake but our somewhat less illustrious commander, that in the conventions of the sea, steam gives way to sail, there was no mention of Nuclear's relationship to sail and we stayed on course and the submarine went into reverse, as we passed his bows, we waved in a friendly 'all sailors together' fashion and he responded.
Presumably his 'V' for victory sign indicated that he was contemplating a successful voyage himself?
It was a precursor after a fashion of the now famous saying, 'you do the fighting and I'll do the talking', although in our case it was more, 'we are sailing, so please don't run into us'.
Now the Con Dems have raised the stakes even higher and made it clear that even when, like the Home Guard in the Second World War, the Ministry of Defence only has, brush handles and wooden rifles to issue, the fighting must continue.
We are it seems, struggling to come to terms with the new world order.
As a young curate in the 1970's I went to an airshow. During the show there was a visit from a fleet of Harriers, these were amazing machines flown by the amazing men of the Disney mythology, the jets would rise off the ground vertically, hover, roar off in a resounding declaration of power, and return amidst cheering from those attending the show.
It was easy to be proud of both of the machine and the country it represented.
At the same airshow there was a visit from Concorde, and even though I knew, and I was right, that I would never fly on the aeroplane, I could not help feeling a tremendous sharing of national pride, slightly tinged by the recognition that it was an Anglo-French collaboration, in this magnificent plane, as it came in for a faux landing.
The airstrip being too short it pretended to land then 'took off ' again, with its nose lowered approaching its 'landing' for all the world like a bird of prey, it was a magnificent spectacle and an illustration of Harold Wilson's, the then Prime Minister's, claim that we were experiencing the 'White heat of a technological revolution', that society was being 'forged' by it.
Now of course China and India are forging ahead.
Concorde has gone, as have the Harriers, the Aircraft Carriers too, although the submarines still ply out of Faslane on their secret missions.
But the influence has gone, even while we pretend that it remains.
Big Society?
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