Before the hundredth commentator says in front of the world’s biggest television audience today that the British and in particular our royal family are so good at ceremony can I put a spanner in the works and say it was not always thus…..

Prior to 1870 (that’s less than 150 years ago) the nineteenth century royals deliberately avoided showy ceremony and ostentatious celebration which was considered vulgar and unnecessarily extravagant. Most royal pageants in the first three quarters of the 19^th century ‘oscillated between farce and fiasco’ (Cannadine) and the national anthem wasn’t even sung at Victoria’s coronation. And try as he might Gladstone did not manage to convince the reclusive Victoria that the visible functions of monarchy were vitally important for the social well being of the country.

However after 1870 with the expansion in the electorate and the increasing political impotence of the monarchy there was a silent exchange between the masses and the royal family with power exchanged for popularity. Indeed it was Walter Bagehot who predicted ‘the more democratic we get, the more we shall get to like state ad show which have ever pleased the vulgar.’ And sure enough private ceremonial was swapped for glorious pomp and ceremony

This was a deliberate move actively encouraged by Westminster, in particular Victoria’s darling Prime Minister Disraeli who sought to unite the newly enfranchised working man behind his vision of Great Britain, her Empire and her Empress Queen Victoria.

The advent of the ‘yellow press’ (the Mail, the Mirror, the Express) all helped of course. These conservative papers elevated the monarchy to an almost sacrosanct position meanwhile events such as the truly imperial Diamond Jubilee of 1897 and Edward’s lavish Coronation gave them something to write about.  There were musical smash hits (thank you Elgar), a mass of royal commemorative pottery and niknaks and London had a face lift (the refronting of Buckingham Palace, the building of the Admiralty Arch, the widening of the Mall etc). And so it was that the British establishment headed up (symbolically at least) by the Royal family became dab-hands at showy ceremony. An achievement which has stood us in good stead ever since. That is if you like tourists in London, a free day off work and bunting ………..

In the 1920s the BBC as a new national service aimed to focus on events surrounding the revamped monarchy and in doing so give the nation that all important ‘we-feeling.’ It was John Reith who personally tried to convince the King he should speak to his subjects on our most symbolic of christian celebrations – Christmas day, a time for ‘home, hearth and happiness.’
But George V was wary. It would take Reith ten long years before the king addressed his empire on Christmas day in 1932, however the nation did not have to wait that long to hear their Monarch’s voice on the radio. In 1924 Reith obtained permission for the BBC to relay the opening of the Empire Exhibition in 1924 at Wembley including the speeches by King George and the Prince of Wales. This was the first time the voice of the monarch had ever been heard on radio and it was the BBC’s most successful broadcast to date. 10 million people heard the George V – far more than had licensed wireless sets.
But mastering the art of relaxed radio takes time. The King’s first two broadcasts on Christmas day in 1932 and 1933 were formal, stilted affairs. However by December 1934, a month before he died, George V hit his stride and his last Christmas broadcast addressing ‘all the members of our world-wide family’ was intimate and moving. The King had struck a chord with his people. The baton was duly handed to Edward VIII who, within two years, would make his own radio history with the live broadcast of his abdication speech. The stakes had been raised – cue the arrival of little brother George VI and the rest, as they say, is history. Or at least Hollywood’s version of history!
Tessa Dunlop

As promised, here’s the link to my latest report for the BBC World Service: the Romanian Roma who were deported from France six months ago….http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00d2wxs

Do let me know what you think.

Best wishes

Tessa Dunlop

Pink taffeta and tantrums, lovely legs and high moral living! Hurrah that Channel 4 showed gypsy living sunny side up in Great Britain with the flamboyant launch of ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.’ Now we’ve all learnt there’s more to a gypsy encampment than meets the eye (and without wishing to be a killjoy) could we turn out attention to the 10 million Roma who are struggling to feed their families on the other side of Europe? You may recall a rather unsavoury incident last summer when President Sarkozy decided to take it upon himself to deport thousands Romanian gypsies back to their impoverished homeland. It seems their haute couture was lost on him. Maybe they weren’t looking their best when the French police came knocking.
Some six months on they were still feeling a little dishevelled when I went to visit them in Baburlesti, the modest Romanian village to which they’ve been returned thirty five miles outside Bucharest. Claudia Raducanu is 32 years old and the mother of seven, she met me at the train station wearing a dressing gown and plastic sandals – it was -2 degrees outside.
Six of her seven children were sitting obediently on one bed inside her father in law’s shack. None were at school.
‘Why not’ I asked
‘They have no shoes, how can they go to school if they have no shoes?
The eldest son was tellingly absent. Claudia later admitted many Roma children don’t go to school because the small pence they can earn begging or working on the land helps put bread on the table.
Claudia cannot read or write and she and her husband are out of work. The Romanian government gives them 10 euros a month for each child, this modest social support it what the entire family live on.
‘Why do you keep having children?’ I asked.
‘I am pentecostal, we cannot commit sins and have abortions’
In the village there are children everywhere; some are playing, others are clearly in distress. Many are being watch over by relations and guardians, while their own parents do what needs to be done to find money elsewhere in Europe. Needless to say many of the rejected Roma have already returned to France. Claudia tells me being spat at and sworn at is better than having no food.
On the train back to Bucharest her observation is borne out, a man tells me into my microphone that all Romanians need guns so they can shoot the gypsies. He added that forced labour camps should be re-introduced like those used by Ion Antonescu. Ion Antonescu was Romania’s military dictator during the 2WW. He killed thousands of Roma.
My report is due to be aired shortly on the World Service. I will post the link asap. Claudia called me last night from Romania. She was crying for help. There are 2 million gypsies in Romania alone. What does the EU stand for if its largest ethnic minority is marginalised, impoverished and totally uneducated?

Tessa Dunlop

This year Barclays have so far set aside 1.6 billion to cover their company bonuses. This should not surprise us. Indeed the reported bonus buoyancy in the City is to be expected. Historically Britain has always cut our financial players plenty slack. Politicians have long had a vested interest in the profiteering of the Square mile’s financial jaws – essential for the success and survival of empire and thus the very essence of Great Britishness. Don’t be deluded by the idea of us as the one time Workshop of the World. Sure, we benefited from early advanced industrialisation and global exportation of semi-manufactured goods but at the height of our imperial prime in the last quarter of the nineteenth century we imported more products than we exported. The balance of trade deficit was made good by flogging invisible assets, namely capital. By the early 1800s London had over taken Amsterdam as the largest financial centre in the world. The clack-clacking of the Lancashire looms and the suffocating grime of Welsh mines may make for a romantic Lowry-like notion of a manufacturing nation on the make but the real truth of British growth and imperial might lies with the monied men in London who did not have to get their hands dirty to make a living. Theirs was a refined, gentlemanly game, the rules of which politicians have always understood.
Profit came first. It was our bankers who lent nineteenth century America and Germany the money to invest in their industrial growth. Why? Because they got a higher return investing abroad; their profits were much greater than those of their Japanese and German equivalents who have always been more loyal to local industry. By 1880 our bankers had sunk over £1190 million overseas, and reaped the rewards (often at the expense of British industry) right into the 20th century.
Fighting two World Wars quickly killed off the pre-eminence of Good Ship Sterling which has long since sunk along with almost any trace of empire, however the unregulated, beating pulse and avaricious expertise of our City sharks has proved remarkably adaptable. London is currently home to 180 overseas banks – that’s more than any other city in the world. Our government is, as it always has been, in the pocket of those bankers’ profits, tax receipts and risky game playing. Don’t expect the rules to change significantly any time soon……
Tessa Dunlop is lecturing on ‘Empires at War’ on 26-28th November at www.dillington.com

Rumours of Sarkozy’s plan to return the Roma to Romania had been circulating in the news over there for a while. Yesterday’s decision came as no big surprise. Italy, Germany, Sweden and Denmark have all followed similar policies with limited success.
‘They take our doctors but send the gypsies home,’ is the common, indignant response. But then what’s new? The EU’s migration policy is geared to suit Western Europe: we’ve welcomed millions of young cheap workers into our labour market, well educated at the expense of their poorer native countries and willing to do the jobs our young won’t.
But we don’t want their gypsies. France has a particular problem with this colourful unconventional minority. For a country which can’t cope with the burka la Republic’s response is not surprising. With so much public discourse blunted by euphemism the gypsies have become the last whipping boy of Europe. Astonishingly people can still say what they really think about the Roma – cue common references to dirty scum, thieves, beggars and child traffickers. Apparently the French government was on a push to improve their popularity stakes when they blithely announced they’d had enough. Not please note, of the Romanians per se but of one Romanian ethnic minority – the largest, poorest ethnic minority in Europe.
Given the Roma’s recent heritage you might think modern Europe would cut them a bit of slack. As recently the mid 19th century they were still enslaved by the Orthodox Church. They didn’t fare any better in the twentieth. Ion Antonescu, Hitler’s Romanian ally shared the Nazi leader’s virulent loathing of gypsies. Thousands were rounded up and imprisoned. Many perished, others were murdered. Against this grizzly background the Roma’s flamboyant resilience is all the more impressive. Historically a nomadic people of Asian origin they are the ultimate survivors – even resisting the communists’ crude attempt to assimilate them.
And now it is France’s turn to send them packing, back to the impoverished country which persecuted them in the first place. Sarkozy can try and scrub out the dirty stain on his conscience with the paltry sum of 300 euros a piece but the bigger issue won’t go away. History has taught us that the Roma don’t take ‘No’ for an answer and why should they? They will be back and many more will come so perhaps the EU would like to take a bit of time out to work out how best to protect them. Maybe we could start by according them the respect that ever other minority rightly expects in Western Europe.
Tessa Dunlop

‘Power selects its servants: people who themselves have a lust for power, those who are naturally obedient, who have bad consciences, who disclaim moral scruples and pine for well being, benefit and profit, who have fears and many children, who have been humiliated and now accept the offer of a new pride, who are by nature dumb or those who are simply badly informed enthusiasts.’
Crucially, ‘men who have power can no longer change the antihuman character of power – precisely because they are in power.’
(Kusin’s Précis of a speech by Ludvik Vaculik, writer and reformer in Communist Czechoslovakia 1967)
Admittedly this was a criticism of neo-Stalinism however it’s food for thought as we inch ever closer to the promised land of political reform. Anticipated reform which is to be executed by men put in power via the system they are being entrusted to change. Don’t hold your breath Britain.

Tessa Dunlop

David Cameron has just returned from his first Prime ministerial visit to Afghanistan. There was much talk of national security amidst fresh hopes of eventually handing over to a well-trained Afghan army. This is our new prime minister looking for solutions to a long and increasingly unpopular war. But don’t hold your breath. If Cameron knows his history he should be aware a similar approach was attempted by White House newcomer Nixon in 1969. Back then ‘Peace with Honour’ was the optimistic name for the Vietnamese exit strategy.
In ‘69 the aim was to get the American boys home with as little egg on the Administration’s face as possible. Cue the training and equipping of over one million Southern Vietnamese recruits – it was soon the largest army in the world. But by 1975, minus their US backers, the ARVN had collapsed like a pack of cards in the face of the advancing Communists. What makes Cameron and Obama think the Afghan army will fare any better once their western allies and paymasters leave?
War costs lives and lives cost democratic governments. Nixon knew that, which is why he campaigned on the promise of secret way to win the war – this involved honourable withdrawal. By 1973 most of the American troops had left; the North Vietnamese couldn’t believe their luck – they simply bided their time and within two years were in Saigon. Likewise behind the current military surge Cameron has made it clear he’s impatient to bring our troops home once ‘the job is done’. His ally Obama went even further and put an 18 month timetable on his exit plan. What would you do if you were the Taliban?
Having decimated Southern Vietnam in the first half of the war, Uncle Sam’s U-turn in 69 involved a generous pacification programme: miracle-rice, building projects, education – the works. Eight years after the war Vietnam was the 3rd poorest country in the world. So forgive me if I feel somewhat sceptical about Cameron’s long-term 360 degree pledge to work with Afghans. Who exactly is going to pay for this promise? NGOs?

From the start the American effort was undermined in Afghanistan because beyond the cries of anti-communism it was never clear who they were fighting for. A corrupt administration? A puppet president? General Thieu’s military government had neither ideology nor legitimacy – ironic given his backers claimed to be the guarantors of the ‘free world.’ Meanwhile today, despite much talk of a political surge and a recent visit to Chequers, on what authority do Cameron and Obama believe Karzai will govern his country once they’ve made good their exit plans? Allegations of corruption, election rigging and nepotism make for eye-watering stuff.
We refused to join the USA in Vietnam. In those days our Government had sufficient independence of mind to say ‘No’ to America; we avoided being tarnished by a brutal bloody conflict. But minus the stain of Vietnam on our national conscience it’s all too easy to overlook the current parallels between the conflict in un-cowed Afghanistan and the American nightmare that unfolded in the paddy fields and jungle of South East Asia.
Tessa Dunlop

It is right and proper that we take time to remember those who lost their lives during the Evacuation of Dunkirk. However the 70th anniversary of that famous day of daring-do is just one date among many yet to come where our patriotic media will bang the drum for the servicemen who fought and died to keep the Jack boot out of Britain. Certainly the 2nd WW was the right war to fight; lest we forget ours was the moral high ground seven decades ago. But amidst the British back-slapping might we also spare a thought for the newest member amidst our nation’s workforce – the Poles? As the Nazis and the Soviets played tug-of-war with their Homeland – a staggering 22% of the Polish population died between 39-45 – those Polish servicemen who escaped performed with spectacular bravery for the allied forces, not least during the Battle of Britain.
Despite the bestiality of the occupying Nazis the Polish government in exile was never cowed – on the ground in their homeland the Poles harried and resisted and sapped Nazi morale. The Home Army (AK) destroyed one in eight of the German transports to the Eastern Front and even managed to smuggle a complete V2 rocket out of Poland for examination in Britain. Overall their contribution to the intelligence war was greater than that of any other nation.
And then there was the Warsaw uprising of August 1944 when the Poles rose up against the Nazis, fearful that if they did not, they would find themselves once again piggy-in-the-middle of a German/Soviet sandwich. The Nazis suppressed the uprising with unprecedented brutality. No help came from the outside and the AK lost 200 000 men. They were a broken fighting force by the autumn of 1944 and waiting in the wings was the Red Army. More than another other nation of the East our brave noble allies did not deserve what came next and to Britain’s great shame we did not even find a place for our Polish allies in the ‘45 victory parade in Whitehall.
The 2WW was the right war to fight. Let’s try and remember it in the right way.

When Dad told me he was going to donate his body to science I was surprised. Did a 21st century medical profession need cadavers? Was human dissection still part of the learning process? The very word conjured up images of a morally murky bygone era. A medieval world to which one would rather not return and most certainly not contemplate in the context of one’s dying father.
However it turned out Dad was right. The need for bodies has never been more acute. With increasingly intricate surgery the thirst for a total knowledge of the body and its many challenges and inconsistencies demands numerous cadavers. But according to the Royal College of Surgeons there is a real shortfall. In 2008 it is estimated that only 600 bequests lead to actual donations, yet there are 45000 medical and dental students at any one time in Britain. Why then are so few people prepared to do what my father did and bypass conventional burial or cremation and instead donate their bodies? After all to quote Dad before he died ‘surely better to be useful than end up as food for the worms?
In fact the reason why many anatomy departments are left without their most vital instrument of learning is in great part due to history which has burdened the medical profession with an almighty PR problem. Over a hundred and fifty years on and the legacy of the infamous body snatchers still looms large. There’s a tendency to associate the dissection of cadavers with grave diggers and an exploited underbelly. In the early nineteenth century only the criminal dead could be given to science; this left the rapidly expanding medical world with a huge shortfall and the system was open to horrendous abuse. In the wake of murderous Burke and Hare the law changed but it wasn’t until the first half of the 20th century that a shift in attitudes witnessed an increase in donations. Two World Wars saw patriotism swell and the nation did whatever it could to help the doctors on the front line. During the 1940s and 50s body donations peaked.
But World Wars galvanise community spirit like nothing else – the ‘all hands on deck’ attitude withered on the cynical sixties vine as did the euphoric belief in the chemotherapeutic revolution and a world where modern medicine could solve everything. In came a new era of media probing and scandals: Alderhay and Bristol Hearts Babies underlined the dwindling trust between the public and the medical profession. People confuse pathology with anatomy and don’t realise that the latter is there with the sole purpose of educating future doctors. Today’s students are missing out, with what effect only time will tell.
As for Dad you can hear more from him on the One Show, 7pm on BBC1 this Monday and Tuesday…. someone who really did carry on working after death.

My father was convinced that donations have also slumped because no one likes to mention medicine’s need for cadavers. Doctors don’t feel comfortable asking for such a deeply personal gift and as a society we’re particularly bad at talking about death and the options available. Dad was sick for years but euphemisms abounded, some friends even talked of him ‘getting better.’ However he was a realist to the end. Years of working with livestock taught him that death was inevitable and a carcass no more than an empty shell – as he put it ‘food for the worms.’ Why not donate what’s left to learning instead?