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Epilogue

A war child's thoughts about England and the English

    My first real recollections of any knowledge of England and the English people was in May of 1953. I was in the fourth grade at St. Philomene's, a Catholic parochial school in Sacramento, California. All the nuns were astir because the United Kingdom was to have a new monarch, a young girl, Elizabeth, probably about the same age as some of the younger nuns themselves. Televisions were still rare but somehow our sister was able to get one for our classroom. In fact, I think they secured a TV for every classroom. 

    Sister told our class of 60, (yes, 60 kids in one room with one sister, and you could hear a pin drop) that we had to pay very close attention to the coronation that we would be seeing. We were told that we were watching it one day late, the film was being flown overnight from London to New York for national broadcast. We watched spellbound at sister's instruction, not because what we were seeing was interesting to us, after all coronations are pretty slow moving for 10 year olds. We watched because the sister told us that this was important and there was a good chance that this was the only coronation of a King or Queen of England that some of us would ever watch. Because of Elizabeth's young age, she would most likely live beyond some of us. We learned that she would now be the Defender of the Faith, a title granted to every British monarch by a pope long ago and  even though Henry VIII had broken with the papacy, the title had never been rescinded. 

        I had just seen Ivanhoe starring Robert Taylor. The pomp and circumstance of the coronation and the costumes worn convinced me that England was inhabited by knights and lords, and was a land of swordfights and jousting. A very exciting place to live for a boy of ten. I was an avid reader and soon found the story of Arthur, the noblest of kings, and his fair lady Guenivere, Sir Lancelot, Sir Gawain and the host of other knights of the round table. I spent many nights and days in class, day dreaming of going on great adventures, seeking the holy grail, what ever that was.

    My next recollections were a mix of TV shows, Victory at Sea probably one of them, that featured the images and speeches of Winston Churchill and Edward R. Murrow. My mother and father were in awe of both. Whenever they were on TV, either in film or live, everything stopped and all focus was on them. In the following years I focused on Churchill and Murrow and learned of the Battle of Britain, the London blitz, Dunkirk, the Bismark and Hood, the Desert Rats, and of course, Normandy and the eventual fall of Nazism. By eighth grade, the sisters had educated us in the bond that existed between America and Europe but especially England. We learned of the Magna Carta, the Pilgrims, the Mayflower Compact, the French and Indian War, the Redcoats and the American Revolution. They did an excellent job in making us aware that, until 1776, we were all Englishmen and that, even after the war, our heritage and customs, law and government were derived from England.

    By high school I realized that our union extended to being blood brothers. That from the Revolution on, Englishmen and Americans have bled together, either as enemies or friends. The wars of the 20th century further bound our fortunes as countries and as a people. We fought and sometimes died together,  agonized in defeat and rejoiced in victory. We had a shared appreciation of freedom, liberty, government and fairness. We spoke a common language and practiced a common religion, Christianity,

    In the years that followed I learned of Captain James Cook, Admiral Lord Nelson, Darwin, Livingston and his counterpart, Stanley, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh and in almost every case, some relationship between our two countries could be found. I read English literature and knew the books of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, Coleridge and Dickens. I knew bits of poems about battles and sacrifice, duty, honor and country, some written by Americans, some by Englishmen, all focused on the ideals and goals that both peoples felt were as important as life itself.

   It was 50 years almost to the month after watching Elizabeth II's coronation that my wife and I visited England. In some ways it was a pilgrimage. When I was in Canterbury and stood at Thomas a'Becket's murder site, I felt a bond. When I visited the Battle of Britain monument, I felt a bond. When I stood in front of a vacant lot in Hastings where a house once stood until destroyed by a Nazi bomb, I felt a bond. When I talked to the gardener at Herstmonceux and recalled the poem, "In Flander's Fields," I felt a bond.

    I felt that bond in so many places when seeing so many things, when viewing the Magna Carta, when looking on the Thames, when seeing The Needles and when riding my bike in downtown London. But even more, I felt a bond to the English people. It became apparent to me at Freshwater when we sat in The Vine Pub and enjoyed the musicians, patrons and bar tenders. When we were recognized as Americans and treated so kindly, almost offhand by total strangers. I felt a bond in the small stores, talking to the shop owners. I felt a bond at the hostels, talking to the young teenagers and to the older adults. I especially felt a bond when we stayed with Susan and Mike and met their friends and were so warmly accepted and welcomed.

    The world is changing and America is changing. Fifty years ago, when Elizabeth II was crowned, our society was predominantly European in heritage and culture. The wars of the 20th century and the resultant immigration have changed that to a large extent, America now has a large populations of peoples whose forbearers are from Asia or Latin America. These are wonderful, hardworking people that have come to this country because they want the best for themselves and for their children. This country is not disappointing them. In many cases, they exhibit a love for America that is much more ardent than others given the gift of being born here.

    American school curriculum still teaches of the Battle of Hastings, the Magna Carta, the Pilgrims, the War for Independence and the First and Second World Wars. It still teaches of William Penn, Thomas Paine and Alexander Hamilton. It teaches of Washington as a lieutenant colonel in the British Army, a loyal British subject. It also teaches of our breech with England and Washington's assault on the Hessians at Trenton and the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown. 

    I worry however if, in the rush to educate our students for the "modern world," some of those things I was taught will be left behind. Hopefully our students will continue to learn of parliament, and the English heritage of fairness, justice and the law. Hopefully our students will continue to learn that despite our early differences, our countries have found that our shared hopes and dreams have unified us across 2,000 miles of ocean. Hopefully our students will continue to learn that, in the face of a common enemy, our nations have joined hands and made the hard choices and sacrifices necessary to bring the world back to peace. If these things are taught, our new generation will realize that our mother country is England, regardless of where their ancestors came from.

   The bond that I was so conscious of while in England has served our countries well for four hundred years,  175 years as British subjects and another 225 years as friends. It is not just a bond of governments or language but of a people. I believe that if we honor that bond, our countries and our peoples will be strong enough to withstand any threat or foe. Our fates are irrevocably entwined both by blood and heritage. As an American, there is no  better people or country I'd rather be bound to.

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