A heritage lost. Ignored, un-taught and derided:

Posted on April 15, 2012 by KG

Trafalgar: (from a book Wabbit just finished)
‘..Sharpe just gazed at the fleet in awe,doubting he would ever see a sight like this again. This was the majesty of Britain, her deep-sea fleet, a procession of majestic gun batteries, vast, ponderous and terrible.
…Their sails, yellow, cream and white, made a cloud bank, and their names were a roll call of triumphs: Conqueror and Agamemnon, Dreadnought and Revenge, Leviathan and Thunderer, Mars, Ajax and Colossus. These were the ships that had cowed the Danes, broken the Dutch, decimated the French and chased the Spanish from the seas. These ships ruled the waves, but now one last enemy fleet challenged them and they sailed to give it battle..’
From ‘Sharpe’s Trafalgar’. Bernard Cornwell.

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42 Responses to A heritage lost. Ignored, un-taught and derided:

  1. KG says:
    April 15, 2012 at 07:48

    When I was a kid (back in the Age of Steam) I could sketch the order of battle and name every ship in both fleets. And a mis-spelling of names such as Bellerephon and Belleisle earned a rap across the knuckles with a ruler from my tutor. :lol:
    But much more than that, we were taught the political and social background of battles such as these and we absorbed what it took to keep a country (relatively) free.
    What are your kids being taught?

  2. mawm says:
    April 15, 2012 at 08:06

    Bernard Cornwell has written several modern-day novels – usually involving yachts somewhere in the story. They’re pretty good.

  3. The Gantt Guy says:
    April 15, 2012 at 08:28

    There are (I think) 22 novels and 3 short stories in the Sharpe series (there are also half a dozen tele-movies starring Sean Bean as Sharpe which Gecko might like :) ). They cover a period with Sharoe in India, then the entire Peninsula war (plus Trafalgar), with Sharpe starting as a sergeant and ending a Lieutenant Colonel at Waterloo. The historical research is amazing, and the storytelling mesmerizing.

    Cornewell also wrote a 4-book series called The Starbuck Chronicles about a Northerner fighting in a Virginian regiment during the (first) American Civil War. They’re also excellent, but Cornwell dropped Starbuck because he was too similar to Sharpe.

    • Gecko says:
      April 15, 2012 at 17:25

      Who’s Sean Bean, Gantt?

        • Gecko says:
          April 15, 2012 at 18:33

          Ahh, I can see why Mrs Gantt is a fan ;-)

        • Byron says:
          April 16, 2012 at 09:46

          “half a dozen tele-movies”
          16 of them to be exact , so if You ever need to bribe Yourself out of trouble with Mrs Gantt the first 14 are availible in a boxed set online ( ebay, amazon etc. )

          (I have all of them on DVD , as well as almost all of Bernard Cornwell`s novels )

          • The Gantt Guy says:
            April 16, 2012 at 09:54

            :) we have the box-set, plus the reprise where Sharpe returns to India. Mistake on my part – the series is a 6-disk set, not 6 movies :oops:

            I have all of the Sharpe novels and all of the Starbuck series, plus a couple of the medieval ones. I’ve not read the medieval series but they have almost found their way to the top of the list.

            The Hornblower series is also in the same vein and quite well done (Mrs Gantt again, this time with Ioan Gruffud).

    • James Stephenson says:
      April 16, 2012 at 06:18

      I think I’ve read just about everything BC has written – I can especially recommend the Saxon / Viking series and his “historisation” of the King Arthur story is pretty good too.

      • KG says:
        April 16, 2012 at 06:39

        I’m just about to start his book ‘Vagabond–the Grail Quest’ James. (the local Red Cross op-shop had quite a few of his books)

  4. KG says:
    April 15, 2012 at 08:41

    Good stuff, aren’t they? Kind of addictive. Right now I’m reading a Flashman (George MacDonald Fraser) book:
    ‘..Withour second mate dead and our third apparently dying, I found myself having to work for a living. Even with men who knew their business as well as these, it’s no easy matter to pack six hundred terrified, stupid niggers into a slave deck; it’s worse than putting Irish infantry into a troopship…’
    :lol: :popcorn
    I’m sure that would go down well in the modern lit. academic circles nowadays. :twisted:

    • The Gantt Guy says:
      April 15, 2012 at 08:52

      I smell a Premier’s award and$90,000 in there!

    • Flashman says:
      April 16, 2012 at 05:39

      In my opinion, one of Ol’ Flashy’s greatest achievements occurred during the Indian Mutiny when he deliberately gutshoots a pandy with a Colt revolver and muses [with heartfelt satisfaction] that it will take the victim a few days to die in screaming agony.

  5. mawm says:
    April 15, 2012 at 08:52

    Slightly off topic but it will put a smile on your face. :cheers

    http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/you-could-have-heard-pin-drop.html

  6. KG says:
    April 15, 2012 at 09:04

    “..”Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn’t find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to.” ‘
    Beautiful! :mrgreen:

    • Andrei says:
      April 15, 2012 at 09:14

      Alas – now the Germans rule Europe and the USA is in sad decline.

      They couldn’t pull of an “Omaha Beach” today – I doubt that Omar Bradley would fit today’s US military and I know George Patton wouldn’t

    • The Gantt Guy says:
      April 15, 2012 at 09:14

      Beautiful, in a sad sort of way. That anti-US attitude (and more generally, anti-military attitude) so pervades our society now that the punch-line in each of those cases could, in some circles, be considered hate-speech.

      Sorry to be a downer, I get a little pensive in the lead-up to ANZAC Day. I can’t help but wonder if those brave young men who went off to Gallipoli, France, PNG, North Africa, the Korean Peninsula, VietNam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq and a thousand other shit-holes to defend freedom, to stop tyranny and to halt the march of global communism, now think to themselves “why did I bother?”

      • KG says:
        April 15, 2012 at 09:24

        I can’t speak for them, Gantt, only for myself but perhaps a lot of them (the volunteers, at least)would say the same:
        We fight because that’s what we do, what our fathers and their fathers did. It’s what young men the world over do, not necessarily for any higher reasons other than comradeship and desire to find out if we have what it takes.
        As Hemingway said (roughly), having tasted battle, all life afterwards is like unsalted food. It’s simply a genetic imperative.
        So relax, enjoy the day and remind yourself that those young men, were they here today, would probably shrug and get on with things and leave the politics to those interested in such stuff.
        :smile:

      • Flashman says:
        April 16, 2012 at 05:46

        I too get a mite pensive around this time – although 11th November is most meaningful to me.

        The little patches of lawn, recycling bins, city council non-entities squabbling over how to squander Other People’s Money, boofhead rugby television chat shows, and the like. Is this really what all those millions of young lads put down their lives for?

        • KG says:
          April 16, 2012 at 06:02

          11th November is also Poland’s Independence Day, isn’t it, Flashy?
          As I get older, I’m more than ever convinced that very few soldiers die for an ideal. All sorts of either reasons, though, and I’m very, very leery of anybody who starts banging the patriot tub. Any politician who does so should be immediately offered the chance to sign up in the ranks or be taken out and hanged.
          Either will do.

        • The Gantt Guy says:
          April 16, 2012 at 07:55

          Yeah, well said Flashy. It beggars belief to me that Remembrance Day isn’t even acknowledged in New Zealand. At least here in Oz there’s the 2 minutes silence and reciting the Oath.

  7. Darin says:
    April 15, 2012 at 12:24

    Saw a documentary this morning on the Battle for the Aleutian Islands.Of particular interest were Castner’s Cutthroats

    http://youtu.be/MBYLHqSOqZg?t=35s

  8. KG says:
    April 15, 2012 at 16:17

    That’s pretty cool, Darin. I didn’t know about it at all.

  9. The Gantt Guy says:
    April 15, 2012 at 21:33

    And as if by some coincidence, I read this today:

    http://austeaparty.com.au/web/19th-of-july-1916-worst-day-in-australias-history/

  10. KG says:
    April 16, 2012 at 05:56

    Good site, Gantt. Thanks. It’s hard to imagine nowadays, that many casualties in one day–and from such a small population. Those wars tore the hell out of rural communities. (but not the heart. Nothing can do that.)

  11. kowtow says:
    April 16, 2012 at 09:26

    On naval history and great novels,can I recommend the Patrick O’Brian series starting with Master and Commander, about Captain Aubrey and his surgeon Maturin.Historically accurate and very well written.
    The movie Master and Commander, Far Side of the World was an adaption of 2 of the books.
    If you like history and the navy these really are the thing.

    • KG says:
      April 16, 2012 at 09:29

      I like both, Kowtow but I was very disappointed with the movie version of Master and Commander–it seemed to be pitched at about the idiot level and there were a number of glaring technical mistakes as well. :sad:

      • kowtow says:
        April 16, 2012 at 09:55

        The movie was made for a mass audience and to appeal to that important American market. Thus the enemy boat in the movie was French when in fact the book’s villain was an American ship.
        The movie did capture the spirit of the books though. Don’t let that put you off. Have a taste of the first novel,you won’t be disappointed.They really are so good that they are in the can’t put down till finished category.

  12. WAKE UP says:
    April 16, 2012 at 14:13

    My father built this country (and made armaments during the war). My uncles fought for it. Not one of them had a racist bone in his body. Good men all, I fear we will not see their like again.

  13. KG says:
    April 16, 2012 at 14:31

    I think not, too, Wakey. :sad:

  14. kowtow says:
    April 16, 2012 at 15:04

    KG,I’ve just been over at Bolts and he has listed at #4 one of that series by OBrian.I’m in good company. :smile:

  15. KG says:
    April 16, 2012 at 16:34

    :grin: I saw that, Grappler. The graphic is on my desktop, as a reminder.