tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post4012113717593310919..comments2024-02-26T00:59:26.907-08:00Comments on Ana the Imp: Beaten by EtonAnastasia F-Bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01284602529524462457noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-77689850573109217302010-11-11T11:01:39.272-08:002010-11-11T11:01:39.272-08:00Calvin, Amen to that.
:-)Calvin, Amen to that.<br />:-)Canary Islanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12559374655320416333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-70206040280117301882010-11-11T02:20:08.181-08:002010-11-11T02:20:08.181-08:00Calvin, yes.Calvin, yes.Anastasia F-Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01284602529524462457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-39868900779191970562010-11-10T20:15:30.950-08:002010-11-10T20:15:30.950-08:00Canary Islander, you had me in tears. A unique, a...Canary Islander, you had me in tears. A unique, and yet, a common story - and a reminder that we must never, never, never submit to tyranny. Britain's stubborn, solitary defiance surely was its finest hour.Calvinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10640148105202971907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-29893789769262359972010-11-10T17:28:50.879-08:002010-11-10T17:28:50.879-08:00CI, I can't begin to imagine her fear. It'...CI, I can't begin to imagine her fear. It's usually assumed that <i>Kristallnacht</i> was the overture to the Holocaust. That's wrong: it was the terror inflicted on the Jewish community of Vienna in the wake of the <i>Anschluss</i>.Anastasia F-Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01284602529524462457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-75412025797008454102010-11-10T17:10:14.906-08:002010-11-10T17:10:14.906-08:00Ana, thank you for responding.
My mother came fro...Ana, thank you for responding.<br /><br />My mother came from Vienna, and was dressed in a dirndl on her train journey. She told me she sat opposite a man who wore a swastika on his jacket. She sat there for two days, terrified, presuming he was Gestapo.<br /><br />On the boat, halfway across to England, she saw the man on deck. He was looking back at the receding coastline and took the swastika off his jacket. He spat on it and threw it into the sea.<br /><br />That's when she realised that he, like her, had been travelling in disguise.Canary Islanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12559374655320416333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-37398172188066882412010-11-10T16:31:42.314-08:002010-11-10T16:31:42.314-08:00Anthony, just so as not to create any confusion he...Anthony, just so as not to create any confusion here I'm going to add a pic of the Eton uniform. The chaps in the hats are a boating crew!Anastasia F-Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01284602529524462457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-2947990286958854832010-11-10T16:30:08.546-08:002010-11-10T16:30:08.546-08:00CI, thank you so much for this information. You a...CI, thank you so much for this information. You are the first person I have come across connected with the Kindertransport. Germany’s loss was England’s gain. If you had come a few years earlier you might very well have played rugger against my grandfather, an Eton boy. :-)Anastasia F-Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01284602529524462457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-3962421692356105292010-11-10T16:25:02.941-08:002010-11-10T16:25:02.941-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Fletch's Bloghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16402507296202065300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-27004691962367365632010-11-10T16:24:17.734-08:002010-11-10T16:24:17.734-08:00Thanks, Adam, for such a detailed and thoughtful c...Thanks, Adam, for such a detailed and thoughtful contribution. It’s such an obvious thing to say but Germany, the German psyche, was deeply influenced by history, by centuries not just of division but absurdly fine degrees of division, a steady process of political and intellectual fragmentation. In England the nation, if you like, came before thought about the nation. In Germany the nation was for so long no more than thought, unanchored in any kind of reality. All the Germans had was the ‘big idea’, and when the time came to translate ideas into reality they never quite fitted. There they were, late on the European stage, haunted by feelings that they had somehow been cheated by history, that their present greatness was not the greatness that the philosophers and the dreamers had conceived. There was the British Empire, admired and resented at one and the same time; here was one of the fundamental causes of the First World War.<br /><br />Hitler was not an original thinker but he still had a surprisingly versatile intellect notwithstanding. When he was visited by Eden in the early 1930s, after Germany had started rearming, he was told in a schoolmasterly fashion that Britain was a respecter of treaties. Quick as a flash he replied “Surely that was not always the case. I have no recollection of Wellington saying to Blucher ‘Get off the field; your army is illegal.’” It was his view that the policy pursued by Germany prior to the war was wrong, that the naval policy had been wrong, that Britain, as he put it, was Germany’s natural ally. The Anglo-German Naval Treaty was a sign not just of his willingness to compromise but a clever way of substitution bilateral for the multilateral deals favoured by the Versailles process.<br /><br />But he still misunderstood, misunderstood centuries of English political tradition, based on a rejection of a single power dominating Continental affairs. He really had the vaguest and most impractical idea of the English system of governance as well, seeing it as essentially elitist and aristocratic, old-fashioned even by the standards of the day. He also was a very poor judge of men, Ribbentrop being a classic example, a fool rightly snubbed when he was at the Court of Saint James for his folly, snubs which then impacted on German policy on the eve of the War.Anastasia F-Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01284602529524462457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-2810749936455117652010-11-10T15:18:30.463-08:002010-11-10T15:18:30.463-08:00Small wonder that homosexuality afflicts many an E...Small wonder that homosexuality afflicts many an Englishman ,just look at the hats they wear...anthonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02931330128135957439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-76031525061519328742010-11-10T12:03:31.343-08:002010-11-10T12:03:31.343-08:00And having said that - Eton boys were rubbish at r...And having said that - Eton boys were rubbish at rugby!<br />:-)Canary Islanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12559374655320416333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-28562761751572980162010-11-10T12:00:44.896-08:002010-11-10T12:00:44.896-08:00My mother was one of the last to arrive in England...My mother was one of the last to arrive in England on the Kindertransport in 1939. She gave birth to me in 1943. <br /><br />I spoke only one language, German, until I was 6, when my mother lost a day's wages to take me once, and once only, to show me the way across many busy roads to and from my first primary school.<br /><br />There was a small public library along that route. Some little time later, I discovered that library, and despite my lack of English, I was given a library card that entitled me to borrow three books a day. Which I did, and which I read - daily.<br /><br />To cut a long story short, I won a place at a Grammar School. I even played rugby for my school against Eton. I went on to University and graduated in Physics. <br /><br />I'm retired now. I think I've given back as much, if not more, than the blessings I received.<br /><br />I bless that England, that I grew up in.Canary Islanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12559374655320416333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-8689941784151380342010-11-10T10:02:46.985-08:002010-11-10T10:02:46.985-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Fletch's Bloghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16402507296202065300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-3365823527232529472010-11-10T09:45:34.261-08:002010-11-10T09:45:34.261-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Fletch's Bloghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16402507296202065300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-38519506340118653522010-11-10T09:40:44.111-08:002010-11-10T09:40:44.111-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Fletch's Bloghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16402507296202065300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-51611459145840122132010-11-10T09:33:43.792-08:002010-11-10T09:33:43.792-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Fletch's Bloghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16402507296202065300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-50920826842832921872010-11-10T08:41:01.265-08:002010-11-10T08:41:01.265-08:00The German leaders were indeed much impressed by B...The German leaders were indeed much impressed by British icons, so it must have come as rather a shock to them to be thrashed by vulgar Russian peasants and American farm boys. Britain's towering achievement was not winning the war against Hitler, which was far beyond the nation's capacity, but in refusing to surrender in the face of the bully's intimidation.Calvinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10640148105202971907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-15867732402470679212010-11-10T05:51:09.177-08:002010-11-10T05:51:09.177-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Fletch's Bloghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16402507296202065300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413130168723738166.post-45395287932173591322010-11-10T05:46:07.062-08:002010-11-10T05:46:07.062-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Fletch's Bloghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16402507296202065300noreply@blogger.com