ROCOCO IN EASTERN EUROPE

[This article describes the penetration of the aristocratic Rococo style into modern Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and Poland. A second article will describe its prevalence in Central Europe, in the modern Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria and Hungary, which were more culturally homogenous in the 18^th century.]

Rococo has its origins in France, the great arbiter of taste in 18^th century Europe, but it was most enthusiastically embraced in Germany. Germany was a mosaic of princedoms and her aristocratic families married into the nobility of Poland and Russia. An ambitious princeling would want to be seen as à la mode and in this way the cultural influence of Rococo spread east, hugely beautifying many places far way from the French and German courts.

A case in point is the 1730s Rundale Palace in Latvia (then the Duchy of Courland) where the Duke resided, reflecting the baroque and light-hearted Rococo style of the time. Its architect was Bartolomeo Rastrelli, much involved later in St Petersburg’s Tsarkoe Selo.

Rundale Palace, Latvia

Rundale Palace interior

   

 

Further south in devout Lithuania we encounter another influence, the Catholic Church. The Dominican order particularly loved the rapt and ecstatic Rococo ecclesiastical style and built many fine churches like the 1754 St Theresa in Vilnius, so reminiscent of Bavaria.

St Theresa, Vilnius, Lithuania

As we go further east to Belarus with its many ethnic German settlers and landowners we encounter other influences. The Orthodox Church had its own admired architectural tradition and liturgical usages; Catholic Rococo had to adapt and thus we see the Byzantine domed Shkaplernaya Church at the resort of Myadel, Belarus

Shkaplernaya Mother of God Church

Nesvizh Castle, Belarus

Among secular buildings in Belarus, the famed Lithuanian Radziwill family erected the renaissance castle at Nesvizh, much altered from 1760 in the 18^th century style by Antoni Zaleski exuding Enlightenment values (presently being restored).

Russia itself is dominated by the Russian Orthodox tradition but in its 18^th century heyday the German architectural influence was potent. Empress Catherine the Great ruled vigorously from 1762 to 1796 and transformed her adopted nation (she was born a Prussian princess). Like Frederick II of Prussia and Joseph II of the Hapsburg Empire, Catherine strove rapidly to develop her country as an “enlightened despot”. Reforms abounded and western influences like Rococo and Neo-Classicism were welcomed as seen in the famous Summer Palace at Tsarkoe Selo just outside St Petersburg. Its architects were the Italo-Russian Bartolomeo Rastrelli and the talented Scotsman Charles Cameron.

Tsarkoe Selo Facade, St Petersburg

Tsarkoe Selo Pavilion

A greatly admired Russian architect was Dimitri Ukhtomsty whose Martyr Nikita Church in Moscow of 1760 boasts a flamboyantly monumental iconostasis.

Ukhtomsky Church, Moscow

Although Russia was predominantly Orthodox, the Catholics were strongly entrenched in the Ukraine with large Greek Catholic (autonomous “uniate” churches deferring to Rome but celebrating the Mass with the Byzantine rite) congregations.

St Andrew, Kiev, Ukraine

St George's, Lviv, Ukraine

In the famous city of Kiev stands the spectacular Cathedral of St Andrew, very clearly Rococo-influenced and in Ukraine’s cultural capital of Lviv we enjoy the elaboration and asymmetry of St George’s.

The 18^th century was a catastrophic one for Poland which endured three partitions between Russia, Prussia and Austria, finally to disappear from the map entirely in 1795; she had to wait until 1918 to be restored. Her distinctive culture, Catholic and Slav, held on notably in the lovely royal City of Krakow, with its many churches and in now sadly war-damaged Warsaw. Let St Anne’s Krakow and Rococo Czapski Palace fly this proud nation’s flag.

Pulpit, St Anne's, Krakow

Czapski Palace, Warsaw

I hope this brief article has illustrated how far and how profoundly the cultural reach of Rococo extended. Eastern Europe is haunted by many ghosts; the appalling fate of its Jews: the persecution, repression and murder of Stalin’s cohorts: the unspeakable cruelty and devastation of the Nazis.

But the 20^th century is now a closed book. If Eastern Europe looks around for those things which unite it, architectural delight is one such unifier. All the people of Eastern Europe can now enjoy Beauty and Civilisation together, a legacy from the once exclusive 18^th century, a right and privilege for all in the 21^st.

SMD

28.12.12

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2012

SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL AND SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE: The Essence of England (26)

[This is the twenty-sixth and final of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch of a person, activity or institution connected to the area]

Southwark Cathedral, on the South Bank of the Thames across London Bridge is rather a poor sister among the magnificent collection of medieval Anglican cathedrals in England. Only the East End is medieval since the decrepit Nave had to be replaced in Victorian times. The site is hemmed in by railway lines and other commercial buildings; it was only elevated to cathedral status in 1905.

Southwark Cathedral

 Although there were earlier churches nearby, Southwark really started out as an Augustinian priory in 1106. It was ravaged by a fire in 1212 and was rebuilt in the Gothic manner from 1220 to 1420. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540, the priory became a collegiate parish church known as St Saviour’s. In common with all churches in South London, Southwark was part of the Diocese of Winchester (not London), whose Bishops had their Palace nearby. The Diocese of Southwark was created in 1905.

Retro-Choir at Southwark

Choir and Altar Screen

     

   Architecturally the spacious Early English Retro-Choir is admired and the Altar Screen dates from the 16^th century: its figures are Victorian replacements

 

Southwark is used by City firms for events and I have attended excellent carol services there, often followed by canapés and mulled wine, very welcome on a December night. There is a profusion of memorials, notably a polychrome painted one to the 14^th century poet John Gower, a friend of Chaucer. A rather Disneyesque stained glass window was erected in the 1920s to depict characters from William Shakespeare’s plays but it at least honours the great man. John Harvard of University fame was baptised at Southwark in 1607 and is well commemorated in a pleasant chapel erected by London-based alumni.   

Although Southwark is only in the second rank of ancient Anglican cathedrals, it is an interesting place and it should be cherished.

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In William Shakespeare’s time (1564-1616), Southwark was quite a wild part of London. It was under the lax control of the Bishops of Winchester, unlike the City whose Bishop was based at St Pauls. The writ of the City Livery Companies did not run there so trading rules and standards were not enforced. Southwark became almost a red-light area, a place of taverns, brothels and playhouses with an underworld of dubious traders, actors and vagabonds - prisons soon sprung up to house them, including the famous Clink. Among the playhouses was Shakespeare’s Globe, built by the Lord Chamberlain’s Company, of which William Shakespeare was a member, in 1597.

William Shakespeare

The Reconstructed Globe Theatre

    

The reconstructed Globe, not actually on the original site but near enough, was the brain-child of the American actor Sam Wanamaker (1919-93). It became his lifework and he raised over $10m for the project: some came from his own earnings but much was generously donated by the US theatrical philanthropist Samuel H. Scripps.

Sam Wanamaker

Samuel H. Scripps

Sadly, Sam Wanamaker died before the Globe was opened by the Queen in 1997. There is no doubt that this Elizabethan-style theatre is a major enhancement to the London theatrical scene. Every effort has been made to re-create the authentic experience, with a thrust stage projecting into the large pit where spectators stand in the Tudor and Jacobean manner. Only the stage itself is covered from the elements together with the raked seating areas around the circular auditorium; optimistically the Globe season hopes for reasonable London weather from early May to early October!

Not only Shakespeare plays are performed although they constitute the majority. In 2012 three new plays received their world premieres. But imagine the thrill for an actor as he declaims on the Globe stage from Macbeth:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

So the historic Globe civilises modern Southwark. The Cathedral injects sanctity: the magnificent new Shard towers over all: Borough Market attracts foodies looking for that unusual ingredient. Back at the Globe, the denizens of the Pit laugh and exchange banter with the actors playing Petruccio, Bottom or Caliban. Yet even they are humbled into respectful silence as Prospero with peerless eloquence takes his leave at the end of The Tempest:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, 

As I foretold you, were all spirits and 

Are melted into air, into thin air: 

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, 

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 

The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve 

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, 

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff 

As dreams are made on, and our little life 

Is rounded with a sleep. 

SMD

16.12.12

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2012

EXETER CATHEDRAL AND THE COMPUTER REVOLUTION: The Essence of England (25)

[This is the twenty-fifth of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch of a person, activity or institution connected to the area]

Exeter Cathedral in Exeter, Devon is one of England’s finest cathedrals. Its long uninterrupted Nave with its lovely Decorated Gothic vault is made possible because, unusually in England, there is no central tower and the North and South towers are built over their respective transepts.

Exeter Cathedral

Most visitors will approach the cathedral at the West Front. Exeter’s is not very imposing and although the sadly weathered screen of carved stone figures featuring cross-legged kings is agreeably informal, by cutting off the bottom of the West window it spoils the proportions despite some fine medieval tracery; meanwhile the higher window in the gable peers out at the world uncomfortably.

The West Front at Exeter

Nevertheless, after this rather unpromising exterior, stepping into the interior of the Cathedral is to be transported to the unforgettable vista of the great Decorated vault, some say the finest of its style in the world.

The Nave and Vault

The best parts of Exeter are in the Decorated style with the boldly projecting Nave ribs, like an avenue of stately trees, alternating transverse, tierceron, diagonal to great effect with lovely sculpted bosses masking the joins on the central axis. The original cathedral was Norman (Romanesque) starting around 1112, but in 1260 a new bishop decided the building was outmoded and, apart from keeping the Norman towers, he had the entire edifice rebuilt in the Decorated manner. The building work stretched into the 14^th century but it enjoys an artistic unity only rivalled by Salisbury.

In the Nave there is a unique and pretty Minstrel’s Gallery with 12 carved angels playing various medieval instruments. A treasured astronomical clock dates from1484, though it has been much restored and the Cathedral library has many historic books, the finest of which is a 13^th century manuscript Psalter.

A visit to Exeter Cathedral greatly enhances any trip to the West Country.

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Some 14 miles from Exeter is the pleasant resort of Teignmouth and the celebrated pioneer of computation, Charles Babbage (1791 – 1871) spent his childhood there. Babbage was a key figure in the early days of The Computer Revolution and I want to celebrate the British contribution to that Revolution, which was a major one.

Charles Babbage

Part of Babbage's Analytical Engine

                    

Babbage was a brilliant mathematician and was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge from 1828 to 1839. He was an enthusiast for logarithmic and actuarial tables but was dissatisfied at their accuracy. He turned over in his mind a method of calculating these tables mechanically and designed what he called a “difference engine”- by using the mathematical principle of “finite differences”, he was able to avoid multiplication and division. The two models of the difference engine were never completed (although the London Science Museum successfully reconstructed one in 1991).

A much more ambitious design, which Babbage constantly elaborated until he died, was the Analytical Engine, upon which Babbage’s reputation as The Father of the Computer rests. The designs for the Analytical Engine include almost all the essential logical features of a modern electronic digital computer. The engine was programmable using punched cards. It had a ‘store’ where numbers and intermediate results could be held and a separate ‘mill’ where the arithmetic processing was performed. The separation of the ‘store’ (memory) and ‘mill’ (central processor) is a fundamental feature of the internal organisation of modern computers. Punched cards had been developed by the French and in particular by Jacquard, to programme weaving looms in 1801.

The Analytical Engine was only produced in part and this is ascribed partly to the difficult character of Babbage and partly to the limitations of Victorian engineering tolerances. Sadly much of Babbage’s insight died with him and there was nobody to carry forward the Babbage flame. One close collaborator was Byron’s daughter Ada Lovelace who is credited with developing an algorithm for the Analytical Engine to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers. Although there is disagreement over how many of these ideas were Lovelace's own, she is often described as The First Computer Programmer.

Babbage may have had the misfortune to be ahead of his time. I suppose it is some kind of tribute that one half of Babbage’s brain is on display at the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons and the other half at the Science Museum, London.

Britain was not able to build on Babbage’s achievements and the mantle of leadership in the development of computers moved to the US, where Herman Hollerith developed mechanical tabulators using sophisticated punched cards (used for the 1890 US census), later adopted by many financial institutions. He set up his own business and it merged with two others in 1911 to become known as the famed IBM in 1924. From 1914 to 1955 IBM was led by Thomas J. Watson and grew to be the pre-eminent global brand in mainframe and personal computers: Over the 20^th century it invented the ATM, the floppy disk, the hard disk drive, the UPC and the magnetic stripe card, among many other innovations.

Herman Hollerith

Thomas J Watson Sr

                             

                           

This is to anticipate many years ahead. Britain made an immense contribution to the creation of the first computers. In Germany, Konrad Zuse had produced the first fully operational electro-mechanical computer, working in intellectual isolation in the early 1940s. In Britain, under the stress of war, the finest brains were assembled at Bletchley to break the Nazi military codes. Among the cryptographers was Alan Turing (1912-54), a brilliant mathematician (Cambridge and Princeton) and computer scientist who had published a seminal paper in 1935 on the theory of computability and on algorithms.

Alan Turing

Manchester prototype computer

He was the acknowledged computing leader at Bletchley, whose successful code-breaking was critical to the war effort, and he later headed the department at Manchester University responsible with Tom Kilburn for producing the First Stored-Programme Computer. Turing conceptualised what a computer should be capable of doing and the term Turing-Complete is used as a standard in the industry. Sadly, Turing’s full potential was not realised as he was prosecuted for a then illegal homosexual act in 1952, lost his security clearance and committed suicide in 1954. He has been greatly honoured posthumously and shares the laurels as the greatest computer scientist ever with the Hungarian-American polymath John von Neumann.

The actual building of computers was more problematical. At Bletchley The First Electronic Computer known as Colossus was built by Post Office research engineer Tommy Flowers, under Max Newman (rather than Turing) an amazing and under-praised achievement for 1944. It was years ahead of its rivals but its very existence was an Official Secret and was not divulged until the 1970s.

Tommy Flowers

The Colossus computer in 1944

     

               

 Britain made various attempts to produce computers in the post-war years. The Manchester University computers were the basis of Ferranti’s Mark 1, The World's First commercially available General-purpose Computer in 1949. The UK company ICL was formed to compete with the US, but it did not succeed. In due course even IBM stopped manufacturing mainframe and personal computers as cost pressures handed over this outsourced industry to Japan, then Taiwan and South Korea and now mainland China.

The Computer Revolution has no doubt much further to run as we live in the new era of robotics, sat-nav and smart phones. Britain has historically made a large contribution, not least that of Oxford-educated Tim Berners-Lee who invented the World-Wide-Web in 1990 while working at CERN with his French collaborator Robert Cailliau.

Tim Berners-Lee

                                             

We are all on-line now; information is accessible and communication is easy. Thanks to the Web, I write this in Greece for my British friends and Blog it throughout the world.

SMD

15.12.12

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2012

ELY CATHEDRAL AND CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY: The Essence of England (24)

[This is the twenty-fourth of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch of a person, activity or institution connected to the area]

Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire, with its high West Tower and unique and distinctive Lantern, is one of the great sights of England, as it rises high over the flat fenland surrounding it. Founded by the Saxon Saint Etheldreda in the 7^th century, the building we now see was built mainly in the Norman manner including important Early English and Decorated Gothic elements from 1082 to 1375.

Ely Cathedral

The Nave at Ely

                                

 The austere and majestic Norman Nave with its wooden painted ceiling gives way to exuberant Early English at the crossing, where the light comes from the octagonal Lantern. It was built to replace a central tower which collapsed in 1322 and it is one of the masterpieces of medieval construction. The choir and presbytery are richly adorned with fan vaulting, fine stalls and misericords. The almost separate Lady Chapel in Decorated Gothic must have been sumptuous before Puritan iconoclasts smashed the carved figures depicting the life of Mary; it is still a lovely place with the arcades below the windows carved in delicate “nodding ogee” form. The West front boasts a beautiful central tower but is incomplete as the North West tower collapsed in the 15^th century and was never rebuilt.

The Octagon at Ely

The Lady Chapel

                              

 Ely is a delight in East Anglia; a journey of discovery there is immensely rewarding.

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14 miles South of Ely lies the City famous the world over as the home of Cambridge University. The University was formed around 1209 by scholars from Oxford University who had quarrelled with townspeople there. Oxford and Cambridge universities are similar in organisation and together are often referred to as “Oxbridge”. The universities have a subtly different atmosphere and there is much friendly rivalry. Although I am an Oxford man myself, I have to say that Cambridge is in some ways more beautiful and it has in recent years marginally surpassed Oxford academically as the best university in England; it currently ranks third in the world after Harvard and MIT. Cambridge graduates have won 65 Nobel Prizes, more than any other university in the world. It is a hugely influential and admired institution.

Like Oxford, Cambridge is a federation of 31 independent and self-governing Colleges with the university providing central teaching and research facilities. The undergraduates’ first loyalty is to their College, some of which are of surpassing beauty like Trinity and King’s. The oldest College is Peterhouse founded in 1284: Computer pioneer Charles Babbage and Lord Kelvin of thermodynamic fame were graduates there: Emmanuel (John Harvard’s), Christ’s (John Milton and Charles Darwin were there) and Sidney Sussex (Oliver Cromwell an alumnus) once had a Puritan reputation. All the colleges, Clare, Magdalene, Gonville and Caius, St John’s, Girton etc etc can boast of distinguished graduates.

Great Court, Trinity College

King's College and Chapel

                                 

Cambridge has a particularly high reputation in mathematics and the advancement of science. The pre-eminent polymath Isaac Newton (1643-1727) studied at Trinity, the precursor of a glittering parade of scientific talent –J J Thomson (the electron), Cavendish (hydrogen), Crick and Watson (DNA), Cockcroft (nuclear physics), Darwin (natural selection), Turing (computers) and Dirac (quantum mechanics). Along with East Anglia generally, Cambridge was also attracted to Reformation doctrines and Puritan standards and developed a logical, austere mind-set rather at odds with the easy-going conservatism of Anglican Oxford. But all that is now history.

As an unashamedly intellectually elitist institution (although Cambridge offers generous bursaries to poor scholars) the University has spawned a number of cliques, like that surrounding the literary critic FR Leavis. The most famous is The Apostles, a secretive debating society founded in 1820 of which philosopher Bertrand Russell was a member and later Lytton Strachey, Maynard Keynes and Leonard Woolf. There was often an element of homosexuality about the Apostles and it was not surprising that gay Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt became members. Both were later exposed as members of a KGB spy ring operating in the 1930s and 40s, “The Cambridge Spies,” which also included diplomat Donald Maclean and MI6 operative Kim Philby. Certainly Philby did much damage to UK and NATO interests. These close-knit groups with their fierce loyalties accentuated a sharp dilemma: better to betray your friend or your country? I thought that otherwise admirable writers like Arthur Marshall and Alan Bennett were rather too quick to rush to the defence of Guy Burgess, who was no doubt an amusing fellow, but a traitor nevertheless.

Cambridge University is not just about laboratories and espionage. The great bulk of the undergraduate body have their wits tested for three unforgettable and civilised years in a wide variety of faculties. They also have fun and laughter; they punt lazily on the idyllic Backs, canoodling with their latest beloved.

Long may they do so.

Punting on the Backs at Cambridge

SMD

12.12.12

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2012

HEREFORD CATHEDRAL AND THE SAS; The Essence of England (23)

[This is the twenty-third of a series of articles giving a brief description of each of the 26 ancient Anglican cathedrals coupled with a sketch of a person, activity or institution connected to the area]

Hereford Cathedral occupies a site with several ecclesiastical predecessors in Anglo-Saxon and Viking times; the last cathedral was destroyed in 1056 by Irish and Welsh raiders under the Welsh prince Gruffydd ap Llewellyn. The Cathedral we now see was built in the Norman manner from 1110 to 1250, though the fabric was not completed until 1535, 400 years later.

Hereford Cathedral

The Cathedral is one of England’s smaller ones and its handsome ball-flower Decorated Gothic tower dominates the modest rural city of Hereford, on the attractive River Wye, famous for its cider. It has a characteristic Norman nave with its round piers and an Early English Lady Chapel, with lancet windows.

The Norman Nave

The North transept is the most admired feature internally, housing the restored shrine of St Thomas Cantilupe whose supposedly healing relics attracted a large cult in the 14^th century. The cathedral suffered significant damage during the Civil War and funds for repair were lacking. Worse, the 14^th century West Tower collapsed in 1786, effectively destroying the West Front. A punitive restoration by Wyatt followed, although his West Front (“Wyatt’s Folly”) was replaced in 1902: later efforts by LN Cottingham and Sir George Gilbert Scott made Hereford structurally stable but left a legacy of much criticised fittings and some “execrable” Victorian glass.  The Cathedral has a valuable library and among its treasures is the fascinating 1300 Mappa Mundi, the largest medieval world map still in existence.

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The Special Air Service (The SAS) is a regiment in the British Army based in Credenhill, Hereford since 1960. The Special Air Service presently comprises 22 Special Air Service Regiment of the Regular Army, 21 Special Air Service Regiment and 23 Special Air Service Regiment from the Territorial Army. It is tasked primarily with counter-terrorism in peacetime and special operations in wartime. The SAS is part of UK Special Forces which also includes the Special Boat Group and the Special Aviation Wing.

The SAS usually operates covertly and the Army does not discuss its activities. Its history is rather convoluted but its founder in 1941 is agreed to be Col. David Stirling who ran raids behind German lines in the Western Desert, working with the Long Range Desert Group. Its first operation by parachute was a disaster, but later the SAS showed its worth disrupting enemy lines of communication and supply, and later undertaking extensive operations helping partisans in Italy.

The SAS badge

SAS in Western Desert 1941-43

     

There were several wartime units fighting covertly, commandos, paratroops and marines but they were not co-ordinated in any way. Indeed the SAS itself was disbanded after the war only to be gradually re-assembled as covert operations became necessary in the likes of Greece and Palestine. The SAS tended to attract tough maverick types like Roy Farran, an experienced and brave officer, accused but not convicted of the murder of a Jewish activist in Palestine, but by 1950 the SAS became formally re-established under Michael Calvert, who had led Chindit units in Burma behind Japanese lines with much distinction. Calvert left the Army under a cloud in 1953 but the SAS was very effectively deployed in the jungle war against the communist insurgents in Malaya during the Emergency there until 1959.

Doubts about the SAS’s continued usefulness lingered in some Army circles but the Regiment greatly enhanced its credibility, initially under the command of gallant Tony Deane-Drummond (who actually only died a week ago, aged 95), with a long if under-reported deployment in Oman assisting the Sultan’s forces against Nasserite and leftist insurgents in Dhofar province, including a decisive engagement known as the Battle of Mirbat in 1972. Guerrilla war in inhospitable terrain was well suited to the skills of the SAS. The war was won, but a new Sultan had first modernised his country and liberalised the regime so it was not simply a military success.

The SAS was also engaged in the murky and deadly war against the Provisional IRA in the Northern Ireland Troubles for the long years between 1969 and 1998. This story has yet to be fully told and there was some controversy over the shooting dead by the SAS of 3 IRA members in Gibraltar, planning a car bomb attack on a military band in 1988.

The SAS really entered UK public consciousness with its spectacular ending of the siege of the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980. 6 heavily armed terrorists, campaigning for autonomy for the Iranian province of Khuzestan, broke into the embassy and held 26 people hostage. After negotiation 5 hostages were released but 2 days later the terrorists murdered a hostage in furtherance of their demands. The government of Mrs Thatcher authorised an SAS assault to be led by Lt-Col. Michael Rose under the command of Brigadier Peter de la Billiere.

General Sir Peter de la Billiere

General Sir Michael Rose

The assault was seen by millions on TV as the SAS abseiled down the building, leapt over balconies, threw stun grenades, burst into the embassy and freed 19 hostages although one had been killed. 5 of the 6 terrorists were shot dead; the one captured was jailed for 27 years. The nation was thrilled and the prestige of the Army and especially that of the SAS soared.

The SAS enter the Iranian Embassy in 1980

The 1982 Falklands conflict with Argentina saw the SAS heavily involved in monitoring enemy air bases and infiltrating enemy formations. Major (later Lieut-General) Cedric Delves distinguished himself by leading an SAS squadron which recaptured South Georgia without any loss of life and destroyed 11 Argentine aircraft on Pebble Island. There were many other SAS feats in this hard-fought campaign.

The 1991 Gulf War also involved the SAS and the story of a failed 8-man patrol whose call-sign was Bravo Two Zero was the subject of a best-seller written by the sergeant leading the patrol “Andy McNab” (a pseudonym). The SAS has been deployed in Iraq and against the Taliban in Afghanistan and no doubt secretly in other places.

The SAS Regiment has won great distinction and many prominent soldiers have served in it including Field Marshal Sir Charles Guthrie. I am far from being a military type (Sir Michael Rose was an exact contemporary at my Oxford college but I never knew him) but I greatly appreciate and admire the qualities of toughness in body and mind possessed by these soldiers. It hugely comforts me and no doubt many of my fellow-citizens that such valiant people exist and I imagine their proud exhilaration at completing a gruelling training course over the Brecon Beacons, not far from peaceful Hereford.

SMD

10.12.12

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2012