We here are a 'beach nation'. I don't get the sense that Australians even like the sea. Far too 'out there' and anyway we have an 'outback' which with its deserts and vastness is dangerous enough. The seas around Britain are dangerous too, but the solid folk for generations have faced it with courage and self sacrifice, voluntary action and a generous public spirit. How long that will last I don't know. It shows that face in the RNLI.
I miss the RNLI.
Go almost anywhere around the coast of Britain and you will find the familiar buildings by the shore with the 'Ramp'. Go in any pub and you will find a collection box for the lifeboats. It is Tradition. We don't have that in Oz.
We do have helicopters though, financed by Banks. I see them going off but they could be going anywhere, couldn't they. But it's not quite the same, is it? The choppers are 'hi-tek', but lack the 'elan'; the romance of the sea. And of course the chopper crews are 'professionals' whereas the lifeboat crews are volunteers. The guy down the road, who is 'called out'. We have the SES, for fires: Britain has its lifeboatmen.
Fine chaps....and chapesses.
They have specialist boats that 'self-right' if they are capsized in high seas. Brilliant. And smaller, in-shore rubber duckies. They capsize too but seldom right themselves ! Spectacular when they do go over though !
There is a British 'spirit' which is missing in Oz. Pretty well missing in Britain too, I hear. We worried about our 'National Character' a while back and decided we were 'Multicultural'. It was then and still is a nonsense. We are a predominantly British, white, post-colonial nation but seem to dislike that. The Brits here don't dislike it of course: its all the 'new Australians' who want to determine a different character but they can't decide what it is to be - poor european, asian, indian, chinese. We have them all here from all over. But they came because we were a British-extract nation, which has had its Britishness extracted like teeth, unfortunately.
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| The People's Boats |
We need to get some of that old British spirit back. But I fear it is too late. We are no longer British. We are a mixed with American culture as are most western countries. We, as it does, have 'westernitis'; a complex of dis-eases, viruses, mental deficiencies, socialism, feminism, cowardices galore foisted upon us and infecting the 'Character'.
Anglophile Nations are capsizing. An angry alien sea is flooding in. Do we have the spirit and character still to self-right?
Anglophile Nations are capsizing. An angry alien sea is flooding in. Do we have the spirit and character still to self-right?
Drink up.
Pax
And there is the tale of Grace Darling & her father William :-)
ReplyDeleteI was thking of her as I started the post but became side-tracked. So, here is the chance for YOU to tell all. :)
DeleteI lived for some time in Whitby, which is one of the famous lifeboat stories.
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly treacherous but Australian waters are just as wild. difference seems to be there are more places to put into in Oz, e.g. beaches.
On Port Phillip Bay, for example, if something goes wrong and the boat is swept onto shore, it's not onto rocks but onto shallow beach, with people coming to have a squiz.
In Britain - lee shore, gale, high seas, current, it's over.
The story of Grace Darling:
ReplyDeleteAt four in the morning on 7th September 1838 during a violent storm, the steamship Forfarshire struck the Big Harcar rock on the Farnes, and over 40 lives were lost.
Grace saw the wreck, half a mile from the Longstone, and at 7 a.m. spotted survivors. William Darling thought the conditions would prevent the launching of the Seahouses lifeboat, so together he and Grace launched their coble in the atrocious weather. The strength of the tide and wind forced them to row nearly a mile to avoid the jagged rocks and reach the survivors. Here William went ashore while Grace alone kept the coble in position. Rowing against the tide and the gale, they took five survivors back to the lighthouse. William and two of the crew then returned to fetch the rest.
Grace was only 22 at the time and she became famous locally. Sadly she died four years later of tuberculosis.
She is buried facing the in St Aidan’s churchyard at Bamburgh. A large gothic memorial stands over the grave. Inside the church, in a small chapel, grace darling is commemorated in a series of stained glass windows.
http://www.cheriesplace.me.uk/blog/index.php/2014/03/28/grace-darling/
Indeed and we have over 10,650 beaches too.
ReplyDeleteA bonny and brave Lass. A fine dad too.
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