Letters: Prommers have good reason to be proud when they sing Rule, Britannia!
SIR – The cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason describes feeling uncomfortable about the playing of Rule, Britannia! at the Last Night of the Proms (report, January 21).
Perhaps if there was wider awareness of the origins of these words, minds might be set to rest.
Rule, Britannia! was inspired by a lad from Penryn, Cornwall. Thomas Pellow was 11 years old and on his first sea voyage with his uncle when they were captured by Barbary pirates and taken into horrific, cruel, brutal slavery under Sultan Moulay Ismail in North Africa. Pellow was one of over a million Europeans who were enslaved in North Africa between the 16th and 19th centuries.
After 23 years he made his escape and returned to Penryn in 1737. He wrote a book about his enslavement, which helped inspire a poem by James Thomson, which was then set to music by Thomas Arne in 1740.
So, Rule, Britannia! is an exhortation – a command to the Royal Navy to prevent Britons being enslaved by pirates who captured our ships, raided our shores and put fear into many coastal communities over a good many years.
Peter A Fish
Truro, Cornwall
SIR – Sheku Kanneh-Mason is a fine young man, but he is a better cellist than he is a historian.
If Britain had not “ruled the waves”, the Royal Navy would not have been able to enforce the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act passed by Parliament in 1807. Between 1808 and 1860 the West Africa Squadron seized over 1,600 slave ships and emancipated 150,000 slaves.
We therefore have every reason to sing this patriotic song with pride.
Francis Bown
London E3
SIR – Never mind Rule, Britannia!’s inclusion of the word slaves, the recent collision between two Royal Navy minesweepers (report, January 21) suggests that we should omit the song on the strength of the fact that Britannia is no longer capable of ruling the waves.
Rachel Palmer
Rhayader, Radnorshire
Gillick competence
SIR – The Law Lords who ruled in the 1985 Gillick case in favour of secret contraception for girls under 16 would be shocked at the dreadful consequences of their misjudgment (“Civil servant says children can ignore parents on puberty blockers”, report, January 14).
Judge-made law may be beneficial in some cases; but in this instance, Lords Fraser, Scarman and Bridge were culpably naive about the child-harming drift of society even then. For within five years of their libertarian ruling, child grooming gangs had begun sexually abusing the first of thousands of disadvantaged young girls up and down the country.
According to several of the Serious Case Reviews since 2013, the perpetrators were aided and unwillingly abetted by family planning services misapplying “Gillick comptence” guidelines, and providing the young victims with contraceptives and abortions in complete secrecy, at the behest of their abusers.
Now we have a partisan Whitehall “diversity ambassador” telling civil servants working in schools that the Lords’ ruling on secret underage contraception should apply equally to doctors seeking to override parental concerns and prescribe puberty blockers to anxious and confused pre-adolescent children, as a precursor to effectively neutering them for life.
Six years ago the Newcastle Review recommended that the Government should urgently arrange for the principles applied to confidentiality and safeguarding in sexual health settings to be reviewed, and this should entail a national debate. One suggestion might be a straightforward change in law and public policy: set both the medical and sexual age of consent firmly at 16.
Victoria Gillick
Lincoln
Trump’s triumph
SIR – Donald Trump’s trouncing of Nikki Haley in New Hampshire (report, January 25) means we are likely to be facing a presidential election between a narcissistic fantasist and an elderly Democrat addicted to wokery and with declining faculties.
If Mr Trump wins and acts on his boast about ending the war in Ukraine “in 24 hours”, we will see Vladimir Putin rewarded for his aggression. Evil dictators do not behave well when met with appeasement. European security will be threatened, and China will wonder if the moment has come to invade Taiwan. We must pray for a Biden victory, as the lesser of two evils.
John Hicks
Manchester
SIR – You report (January 20) that Donald Trump spread false claims about his rival, Nikki Haley, saying that she is ineligible to become president as she was born to immigrant parents.
Aren’t the vast majority of American folk the sons or daughters of immigrants at one time?
Cherry Tugby
Warminster, Wiltshire
SIR – It is strange that educated people in the media who criticise Donald Trump also insult a large number of Americans who intend to vote for him. Are these millions of people deluded? That is what the commentators say.
I do not agree with many of Mr Trump’s policies and am no disciple – but millions of Americans seem to be.
Martin Henderson
Zermatt, Valais, Switzerland
Why young people still want to get married
SIR – Having worked as a registrar for marriages for the past year, I was surprised at the great number of young people wishing to marry (Letters, January 21).
The majority don’t seem to be doing it for financial or family stability, or because it’s expected of them in some way by their families, or for social or cultural reasons.
They’re marrying because they love each other dearly and the symbolic bond of marriage is a way of showing the world just that.
It’s rather lovely.
Leona Naish
Cossington, Somerset
SIR – Rachel Johnson portrays marriage as full of doom and gloom (“‘My kids have left home and my husband thinks it’s an opportunity to reinvent our sex life. Help!’”, Sunday, January 21).
There are plenty of women continuing to enjoy fulfilling sex lives with their partners in later life, and who “want to rip their chap’s clothes off with their teeth”. But others, like Mrs MW, who wrote to Ms Johnson, might not be – and may need a little helpful advice on how best to get there, if they want to.
I feel sad to think of any young people being put off marriage completely. I hope they will discover that they don’t all end up this way.
Lesley Bowman
Bath, Somerset
SIR – The argument that couples sacrifice marriage or civil partnerships for a “focus on homes and children” is bizarre (report, January 26). Surely these ideas are complementary.
Phillip Parr
St Albans, Hertfordshire
Short-termist Tories
SIR – The Chancellor’s claim that his tax cuts (Business, January 21) will presage a Lawson-style boom is risible. He should reflect on the damage done to the economy by the failed policies – or lack of them – towards business and industry since the Conservatives came to power in 2010.
We now live in a country with crumbling infrastructure and utilities that are largely foreign-owned – and so heavily laden with debt that they struggle to improve their operations. We rely on foreign companies for our nuclear power, and the small modular reactor competition continues at a snail’s pace, with it being predictable that a foreign company will win.
Taxation of companies operating in the North Sea basin is now set at levels calculated to bring about its demise. The Government seems incapable of controlling near-monopolies such as the NHS, BBC and the Post Office, and the “service” provided by the likes of HMRC and the DVLA is beyond description.
We are so in love with regulation that our once-powerful City seems to be in terminal decline; this is coupled with an open-door policy for foreign predators that gorge on our best companies. This can’t all be blamed on the current administration, but it has shown no inclination to change the ways of successive governments.
With taxation generally at near-record levels by most measures, any minor reductions we are likely to see will not make much difference.
All this points towards a fundamental lack of any long-term strategy for the economy, business and industry, which is perhaps best summed up by Boris Johnson’s notorious comment: “F*** business”.
Jeremy Hunt’s proposals are little more than nonsensical electioneering.
Nigel Luckett
Kinver, Staffordshire
Covid WhatsApps
SIR – The evidence given by Liz Lloyd, Nicola Sturgeon’s former chief of staff, to the Covid Inquiry was very useful, as it showed how the Scottish government operated using informal messages (“Sturgeon’s WhatsApp denials torn up by ex-aide”, report, January 26).
What came to light was that, between herself and Ms Sturgeon, some decisions were made with a very hasty and lackadaisical method. Proposals on how many people could meet from different households were discussed on WhatsApp, and a decision took less time than it would for me to choose an Indian takeaway. There appears to have been a very casual attitude towards the restrictions being imposed on us, and little scientific backing to them.
It is clear now why so many politicians deleted their WhatsApp messages. Luckily some individuals did not rush to hide these facts.
Jane Lax
Aberlour, Banffshire
SIR – It is difficult to see how the systematic deletion of WhatsApp messages between Scottish government ministers and officials can have been for any other purpose than to hide what these people were actually saying to each other.
For them to now insist that this was in line with “Scottish government Guidance at the time” (report, January 26) illustrates how deeply corrupt the Scottish government was “at the time”.
Mark Lichfield
Blandford Forum, Dorset
Unkind Kindle
SIR – Looking for a new read on my Kindle, I saw a book described as a “historical thriller”. Not having read anything “historical” for a while, I got it. Imagine my amazement when I found that it was set in the 1960s.
It really made me feel old.
Janet Ratcliffe
Chetnole, Dorset
Poetic escapes
SIR – In 1981, during a three-month platoon commander’s battle course at Warminster, I’d pass the time during the weekends’ long drives to and from my unit by writing out favourite poems, taping them to the centre of my steering wheel, and learning them by rote (Letters, January 21).
A favourite was Dylan Thomas’s beautiful recollection of childhood, “Fern Hill”. Thereafter they provided an instant, private escape whenever summoned. I was especially thankful to have them with me the following year in the Falklands. I can remember a handful of them, though “Fern Hill” sometimes muddles itself.
Major Nigel Price (retd)
Wilmslow, Cheshire
SIR – Rote learning certainly implants interesting information in one’s brain.
After 60 years I still use “Sunwac” to remember the tributary rivers of the Yorkshire Dales (Swale, Ure, Nidd, Wharfe, Aire, Calder) – for which I must thank my geography master.
David Dunn
Málaga, Spain
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