XLI 22nd November 2005
I have known Stasiu (Stan) from almost the first day in Leszczyn. He was a single man, having divorced his wife who was known to live in Warsaw with his daughter, whilst he retired to Leszczyn where his brother was the headman of the village. A man still in prime of life, robust, with shoulders of a prize fighter, and a face with clear and honest expression, with much intelligence in his blue eyes, surrounded by many wrinkles; he suffered from the common malady of habitual drunkenness. We had taken an instant liking to each other and, against much advice, I appointed him head of a team of four, to build a small bridge. It was to be done on the old narrow-gauge rail track with brick sides in English bond which I showed him - to give better access to Dilpreet field, which at the time we started planting. The work took a week, during which he did not drink and took hard control over his men and completed the bridge, which is still standing today.
Over the years I gave him work at times, one of the main jobs, a perpetual one, was clearing of the great ditch between Eve and Dilpreet fields, which involved scything the sides as well as digging with a spade; hard work - which we knew, should have been done by the parish, but was not, “not like in the Socialist years, when they did things properly” he said. He used to come and borrow a little money “on account of future work” on regular basis, and we kept in touch. Driving one day I saw a bicyclist stumble and fall over, and stopped to give help, while some lads passing by, laughed and kicked the bike into the ditch. When I lifted him up I recognized Stan, worse for wear, luckily he recognized me as we started struggling because he mistook my friend Yves, in the car for a lad who had jeered at him and wanted a fight. He died in September and I, like many people here, shall miss him and his views and his customary visits.
Alternative history is always an incongruous speculation; but what if the Germans invaded in 1940. Would the English nation have had a Nexus Change; which it had not had for 300 years? Almost every country in Europe and certainly all major nations, experienced an NC, some even two within the last 100 years, leading to a change in the psychology of the country and of the perspective its people have of modern times. France was occupied for three years, Germany was defeated twice, Spain had a civil war, Italy the arrival and defeat of fascism, while Poland had rebirth in freedom and two changes of social system and Russia had both the Bolshevik revolution and the evolution into a Capitalist economy. These events changed the bonding within these communities and while it may be too much to say that Britain lost something by not being invaded and occupied by the Nazis in 1940, she nevertheless lost exposure to radical new thinking which others were forced into. She has come through the dramatic moment of Hitlerʼs aggression in Europe with flying colours, which nevertheless has cosseted her into an overt self-satisfaction, a heavy brew if extended too long. It was indeed British luck that saved her from invasion and peopleʼs good sense in finding a unique man, like Churchill, who gritted his teeth in the darkest hour and provided fighting leadership; for if Hitler had decided to invade, neither the navy nor the RAF would have been enough to prevent it.
The scenario for it was certainly prepared, by luckless leadership and even wilfulness, of some groups, like the overtly rich, who saw more danger to their interests in communism than in fascism - in which they may have been right. Chamberlain preferred to support Francoʼs rebellion, or Mussoliniʼs invasion of Abyssinia, thus building up the potential of his future enemies, while delaying agreement with Soviet Union, hoping to leave Hitlerʼs road open to the east. Late in the day a guarantee to Poland was a final admission of the failure of his policy and recognition of the mortal danger facing the West. And so in June 1940 Britain was on the deck, and it was Hitlerʼs misjudgement by regarding the war in the west as finished and turning east that saved the country. To say this is not to minimise the fact that Britain stood proud, brave and alone, for a year before either Soviet Union or America, both attacked, joined the crusade against Nazism, but it is to face the fact that Britain could have been occupied.
Invading Britain, one can imagine, Hitler may have been generous, leaving Scotland, Wales free and offering Northern Ireland to the Republic of Eire, which de Valera would probably wisely not accept, sitting pretty on his neutrality. Nazis would allow reactionary politicians, like Hoare, to continue in Parliament. Churchill and Royal family would likely have had shelter in Canada, where he would have acted as a De Gaulle, until the course of war was clarified. Under occupation the English working class, not so committed to communism as the French, would not have been so hampered by the Molotov-Ribentrop pact of 1939 and would turn more aggressive against the Nazis, even before attack on Soviet Union. The intelligentsia of the Bloomsbury type, less intellectual than the French, may have also formed a better basis for aversion to Nazism. But these would be minor differences and a sensible view would have been taken not to interfere with the occupier and to cooperate under euphemistic excuse of: ʻbrutality of Bolshevismʼ. Isle of Man would have been used to contain under 18B churchmen of independent thought, like Bishop George Bell and Hewlett Johnson the Dean of Canterbury, as well as men like Attlee, Bevin or Bob Boothby deprived of their parliamentary immunity. Bertrand Russell and Orwell would probably be in Wormswood Scrubs, perhaps to die there like Gramsci. Not much leeway would have been given to Mosley, whose black shirts and body language, were not easily acceptable to an Englishmen, but the City might have elected him as a Lord Mayor to protect itself. Itinerant émigrés like Poles, Sudeten Czechs and others would have been repatriated to their own countries with general agreement (I going back to Leszczyn) and left to their fate.
The war would have come to the same conclusion with Soviet Union and America winning at roughly the same time. In the end, Coventry, Bristol or Liverpool might have been saved from destruction, but the Nexus Change resulting from the occupation would have been traumatic, in a moralistic society, making England see herself in a different light: as one of the countries of Europe, without exaggerated view of its position and separateness, which is her weakness today. The Empire would have dropped away and England, maybe no longer Britain: ʻwould have lost an Empire but found Causeʼ: as a leader in the Union of Europe - in contrast to the abject surrender to American Hegemony today.
The Nexus Change would have been automatic. In a reverse of 1940 it is France and Germany, with others, who are fighting for the freedom and dignity of Europe, while the “occupied Britain” finds herself in the role of helping the invader to conquer and to exploit her. The government is opposing the Euro, the Shengen opening of its frontiers, is supporting dissent from inexperienced Eastern Europe, advocating the entry of Turkey, an alien culture, and sharing the illegality of invasion of Iraq. British political cabal of all parties is supporting a fiction of a War on Terror; allowing one erstwhile Australian, to propagandise the nation against Europe: all of which is adding up to a better contribution than Laval, Quisling and Lord Haw-haw did for Germany and just as much against spirit of her people, as they were against theirs. The bane of this policy will appear, as Chamberlainʼs did, when the horror and disgust with American itinerary, becomes obvious to the world as Nazisʼ did.
When the continent was occupied, to resist offered little prospects, and many urged to judge the facts coldly and realistically, that Germany would rule Europe, as America today would the world, and that we shall have to come to terms in order to live. But there were many others who refused to accept the evidence, because they were judging the situation in terms of their beliefs. Why should there be no such men again, why should not Britain abandon nobly her present defeat - and have brave men who can touch the spirit of a great nation, temporarily in the doldrums. A natural left wing, deep feeling thinker, a Kier Hardy, does not seem available; the de- nouement of Communism misleads many socialists, and has left their shelf empty. He may come from another stratum, men like Kenneth Clarke or Chris Patten, sound men, who understand and verbalise the horrors of politics today, but will they lead? And yet it is very simple, all He has to say, is what De Gaulle said to France on 18th June 1940 He only has to say: that Britain is run by an illegitimate government, acting against the will of its people. Somnambulated by a parvenu and his trouncing lady, rather more onerous to surrender to, than to the Lion of Verdun; and yet as tragic for Britain today, as it was for France then.
Britain is tired, its productivity is down, education at one of the worst levels on the continent, spying cameras everywhere, highest number of children in poverty, greatest division between rich and poor, highest number of any nation in jails, no motorway network as such, roads and towns jammed by cars, not a car-make of its own in a country which practically invented the gadget, no great rail system, disadvantaging all regions, and village houses in the valleys as poor as ever, as are council flats, blocks, or conurbations, declining coastal towns, the old not protected, many leaving for Dordogne, Costa Brava, Australia or New Zealand, industry shrinking and the only wealth created by property escalation, or finance houses, and her society, in disgust, taking to Friday, Saturday and Sunday binge, trying not to think about it - with no interest in politics, when: there is no Labour Party, no Tory Party and no Liberal Party, just a back-room oligarchy, buoyed up by a gerrymandering electoral system. And another of our boys is killed in a country which we invaded, on bidding of our masters.
The perfidious fix that Britain got herself into, of being apart from Europe, will pass though she is surrounded with lies, whether from Parliament or BBC or wherever. Every ten years or so they dismiss the ruling party for its corruption or lying to do the same to the next party, for the same lies ten years later: they discover slowly that they are lied to all the time. Whilst BBC in offering to balance all views, by balancing of truth against lies it is offering half-truths and propagating half of the lies and selling its reputation cheap. And media run by a thug who despises Britain with his Times, Sun, News-of-the-World, Sky and the rest, while Telegraph was owned until recently by a felon and now by a couple of secretive brothers, whose purpose is unknown, though recognized in its anti-European rhythm. I believe in the capacity of the British people to recognise the truth; they will find an unconscious means of attaining social ideal which European thought, of which they are a part, has consciously reached. They will sweep away the “New Labour” into the dustbin, making a Thelabour Party (Zlayboor), also remaking the Conservative and Liberal Parties who will then speak for the nation again. They will exhibit their real life with the help of the young, who are in the lead today, even if a few noses will have to be broken on the way.
If a graph of integrity of government dips low, with prime minister who lies, ministers who twist and administration which is secretive, while the index line of seriousness of the national challenge crosses it rising high, as it was in the thirties, then it identifies the moment when the country is in great danger. It is so today. How will it solve it - by keeping in the good books of the masters, for the off cuts from the Great Game table? They asked us to kill Serbians and we did, they asked us to kill Afghans and we do, they asked us to kill Iraqis and we do too. Soon they will ask us to kill the Syrians, Iranians, Koreans and finally the Russians and judging by our present ethicality, we shall. Like Italians, Rumanians or Hungarians we shall follow our masters to Stalingrad; unless: peopleʼs eyes are opened by a Churchillian intervention.
Some may remember as I do how we prepared for his speeches. In Chertsey every time, an hour before, we were sat down in the refectory, with two radios for safety, fathers lining one side and brothers the other, to hear him speak: in that autumn of 1940. I may not have understood much, but like everyone else, felt all he said and Father McCabe would fill-in in French - ajd later in the night, when we listened to the hum of the engines over us, coing for poor London, picking out di&ferences between Heinkels and Dorniers, we brimmed with confidence of his words: to face th% future.
To compare tgday, say, a country road between Marlborough and Devizes with one from Ansbach to Feuchtwangen, where well marked surfaces, with ʻparkingʼ every few kilometres and cross-over aprons to the fields, passing areas, all serving farmers well; with a narrow, twisting road to Devizes, hardly marked, almost impossible to pass, with no courtesy for farming fields along the way, no place to stop and rest, the only similarity being the beauty of countryside, work of God, matching the places, whilst that of man bears no comparison. And a town like Marlborough which I remember as the finest during the war, on school farming duties, when we gathered flax with land-girls, now with hardly a café or corner to care for its citizens. Britain is becoming like the road to Devizes, and the further North you go the worse it gets, itʼs time that people were vigorous enough to make the change.
