A BUZZ AROUND

My thought processes are easily stimulated but the occasion for my latest pronouncement was not very promising. I read in the papers that there had been a ram-raid at a branch of Barclays, Olney in Buckinghamshire, and the thieves had made away with an ATM after wrecking the branch with a JCB.

Wrecked Barclays at Olney

The name “Olney” rang a vague bell and soon enough the penny dropped. The Olney Hymns, a collection of 300+ hymns for the edification of evangelical Anglicans published in 1779, was the work of the popular poet William Cowper and the curate of Olney John Newton. Hymn-writing and hymn-singing later became a craze in the 19^th century and matters devotional are not really my thing. Two at least of the Olney hymns remain popular – Amazing Grace and Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken. Newton in time moved to London and was rewarded with the appointment of vicar of St Mary Woolnoth, Hawksmoor’s imposing masterpiece in the City of London. Cowper (pronounced Cooper) struggled with insanity but produced The Task, the popular comic ballad John Gilpin, translated Homer and wrote affecting poems to his friend Mary Unwin. The excellent biography The Stricken Deer (1929) by Lord David Cecil does him justice.        

John Gilpin races through Edmonton

                     

Despite the claims of Scotland, Amazing Grace is nowadays set to an American tune, New Britain. The words are rather heavily theological on the subject of Redemption but it has been a firm favourite in the USA since the Civil War, reappearing strongly in the 1970s pop charts. A version with bagpipes is often played at solemn Caledonian occasions.

The other famous Olney hymn is Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken, mainly famous as the words are made to fit Haydn’s splendid tune Austria. The tune was the national anthem of the Hapsburg monarchy and also used by German liberals and radicals from 1848 using the words Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles. Adopted as the German national anthem in 1922, it became notorious in the Nazi era – now only the third stanza is allowed to be sung:

Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit              

   Für das deutsche Vaterland!

Danach lasst uns alle streben

Brüderlich mit Herz und Hand!

Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit

Sind des Glückes Unterpfand;

 : Blüh' im Glanze dieses Glückes,
  Blühe, deutsches Vaterland! 

                                                                  Unity and justice and freedom
    For the German fatherland!
Towards these let us all strive

Brotherly with heart and hand!
Unity and justice and freedom
Are the foundation of happiness;
 : Flourish in the radiance of this happiness,
  Flourish, German fatherland! 

Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit has become a German motto after all this convoluted history.

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Anthems are often a source of conflict. I think the South African Springbok rugby team has at least three to humour three sets of supporters. Scotland’s rugby team has been lumbered with the dismal Flower of Scotland, a very second-rate pot-boiler conjured up by the Corries, a local folk group. Its chippy Scottishness, toe-curling nationalism and general illiteracy is exemplified by these opening lyrics:

O Flower of Scotland, 
When will we see
Your like again,
That fought and died for,
Your wee bit Hill and Glen,
And stood against him (against who?),
Proud Edward's Army,
And sent him homeward,
To think again.

To add to the horror of it all, the tune is dirge-like and emetic – worth a least 5 points to the opposing side. How Scotland performed so well last season I cannot fathom with this anthem to weigh them down. Something stirring like Scotland the Brave would be a hundred times better.

Which brings us to Russia. The Russian National Anthem uses exactly the same tune as the Soviet one, though the words have changed. This is indicative of Russia in general – Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. President Putin, the former secret spook, was weaned on lies and reared on murder. He had absolutely no compunction about permitting his gangs to bump off the defecting spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury with their deadly home-grown Novichok nerve agent. But the gang fouled up and both targets survived. The Russians’ guilt was exposed (whatever The Guardian might tell you) and even the EU protested vociferously. I suppose Putin thought “it seemed like a good idea at the time”.

The people of peaceful Salisbury have been terrorised but they have the comfort of their incomparable Cathedral in Early English Gothic to soften the blow and a very early copy of Magna Carta to keep tyrants at bay,

Salisbury Cathedral

With its lovely spire, majestic nave and green-lawned precincts, Salisbury takes some beating. OK, it is not perfect; there is no peal of bells, the ancient clock has no face but merely goes “ting!” every quarter while Alec Clifton Taylor thought the West Front “insipid” There is a spacious 80-acre close with some very fine houses, one of which, Arundells, was the home of former Prime Minister Edward Heath for the last 20 years of his life. He ungraciously sulked during Mrs Thatcher’s transformational ministry. At his prime, Heath’s driving ambition was to lead Britain into the EEC which he signed up to in 1973.He probably meant well but it was in retrospect an historic mistake. Like Putin he might say “it seemed like a good idea at the time”

Thank you for joining my mazy buzz around from Olney to Salisbury via Germany and Russia!

SMD

30.07.18.

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2018