The British European Association

Transcription

BRITISH
EUROPEAN
Bulletin
Campaigning for the Rights of Britons in Europe
ISSN 1604-5025
Issue No. 83 – June 2016
The British European Association
“BE together” – Forthcoming events:
Our annual summer picnic will take place on
Sunday, July 24.th.
Some of us will meet at Skodsborg Station
(Kystbanen) on the land side at 11 a.m. If you
come by Kystbanen be sure to take the Nivå train
as the Helsingør train does not stop at Skodsborg.
We will walk through the woods to Rådvad. It will
take about 45 minutes.
Those preferring not to walk and coming by car or
bicycle will meet us in Rådvad at 12 noon. We take
our own picnic lunches and drinks with us. We
meet at the red gates near Rådvad Kro. The picnic
tables are behind the buildings on the 'main' street.
If the weather is terrible you are welcome at
Flintemarken 15, 1. tv, 2950 Vedbæk with your
sandwiches and drinks at 12 noon.
St. Alban’s Church summer fete takes place on
Saturday 27. August from about 10 a.m. till 5 p.m.
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The President's Report. June 2016.
At the moment the most important news is the 'Yes' vote for Brexit. No one
knows how this will affect the UK and the EU, but it is a very serious situation.
Several petitions are circulating at the moment as so many Britons, especially in
the EU, are disenfranchised and therefore have had no say in a matter which may
affect them greatly.
We had our annual dinner at the Hong Fu restaurant on Østerbrogade in the New
Year. We did not have a room to ourselves this year which brings up the
question: "Shall we try a new restaurant ?" Suggestions are welcome.
This year it is 400 years since William Shakespeare died. There are many events
taking place in Denmark in connection with this - especially in Elsinore. Some
of our members have been successful in getting tickets for a performance of
'Hamlet' in Kronborg in August. The English Speaking Union have sent several
emails on Shakespeare's plays. They are included in the bulletin.
Bent and I attended the AGM organised by KUKS at the end of May. It was held
in the magnificent Masonic building on Blegdamsvej. We met members from
many different countries and organisations, had lunch and were shown around
the premises.
Once again I would like to thank you all for your support, and even though we
are now able to obtain dual citizenship there are still a lot of unresolved questions
concerning Britain, the EU and our position in Denmark.
Valerie Kristiansen. President.
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DEN KORTE FAKTALISTE OM DOBBELT STATSBORGERSKAB:
- Dobbelt statsborgerskab giver borgerrettigheder og stemmeret i bopælslandet.
- (Retten til at stemme i DK falder i følge nuværende lovgivning bort
- efter højest to år med adresse i et andet land.)
- - Pension er afhængig af antal år, man i sit arbejdsliv har boet i DK.
- - Ret til sociale ydelser kræver bopæl i DK.
- - Mandlige "dobbelte statsborgere" aftjener værnepligt i bopælslandet.
- - Med Danmark tillader 24 af 28 EU-lande dobbelt statsborgerskab.
- FLERE FAKTA OM DOBBELT STATSBORGERSKAB:
- http://statsborger.dk/gode_argumenter.htm
Draft AGENDA
Meeting of the ETTW GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Wednesday June 29, 2016, 10.30 – 14.30
At the Fondation Universitaire, 11 rue d’Egmont, B-1000 Bruxelles
1. Approval of the draft agenda
2. Approval of the draft minutes from the GA Meeting on March 10, 2015.
3. Communications
4. New Members
5. Election of the President of ETTW
6. Any other business, next meeting
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NB: After the Board meeting and the General Assembly, at 15.00 the ETTW is coorganizing a Public Hearing in the European Parliament on i-voting for which all
members are invited. Please Register for this event directly to
[email protected]
Raymond Xerri / Steen Illeborg
ETTW Board meeting June 29, 2016.
Agenda Point 5: Reports from the Working Groups.
1. Working Group 1. A New European Emigrants’ Policy – Follow-up to the Riga
Recommendations
ETTW was represented at the Euromed IV Diaspora conference in Dublin 4-6 May. The
event looked at ways and means of using positive diaspora experience from home countries
such as Ireland and Lithuania and good examples of outreach measures to diaspora
communities abroad. Euromed partners both North and South of the Mediterranean showed
interest in the work of ETTW member organizations and the ongoing priority projects of the
association. The organizers of the conference: the International Centre for Migration Policy
Development (ICMPD) are interested in working with the ETTW on Diaspora projects.
(Agenda point 7).
Publication of the European Citizenship Report 2016, on which ETTW has rendered an
opinion, will not be published until after the UK referendum.
Preparation of the EUROSTAT Social Statistics Conference in November in Luxembourg, to
which ETTW has contributed, is progressing well in the EUROSTAT science committee.
Speakers will be contacted before the summer break and a draft programme should be ready
for the Board meeting.
As requested by the Board, WG 1 has looked into new ways of funding ETTW activities. A
proposal for the Board is tabled under agenda point 10.
The WG has followed up on its meeting with the President of the European Court of Justice
on the possibility for monitoring of ECJ case law rulings with consequences for the free
movement of citizens. After a fruitful meeting with a representative of the Belgian Conseil
d’Etat (supreme court) the next step will include Belgian universities and the Maastricht
Institute.
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2. Working Group II, Voting Rights and Working Group III, Electronic Voting
The Working Groups have given special attention to the prioritized project of electronic
voting in European elections. The groups have had fruitful contacts with SMARTMATIC
and SCYTL, the two leading European companies for electronic voting. It considers that the
most efficient and secure form of electronic voting is ‘internet voting’.
WG III has been preparing a Conference on internet voting (i-voting) targeting the EU 2019
elections. In cooperation with the two companies several intermediate meetings were held in
the European Parliament to draw up the agenda of the conference. Originally scheduled for
May 24 it will be held on June 29 from 15:00 – 18:30 in the European Parliament. The event
is being organized jointly with Romanian MEP Monica Macovei and her staff. ETTW has
contacted other MEPs especially from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania on this hearing to which
members, partner organizations and relevant EC services have also been invited . In
preparing the seminar the WG has focused specifically on expats’ voting rights. You’ll find
the conference poster below. All ETTW members are kindly asked to spread information
about the conference in order to obtain participants from as many of the EU 28 countries as
possible.
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4. Working Group IV, Expats and Education
Following contacts with the European Commission based on the report presented at the
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ETTW Board meeting in November 2015, Sophie Beernaerts, head of unit in DG EAC in
charge of support of schools, has agreed to:
- Participate in a meeting of networks of national schools abroad, European and International
schools. Such a meeting is in preparation (meeting in Paris with the initiators of this
initiative, contact with the European Schools and other networks, as well as with the city of
Amsterdam) and could be organized with the European Committee of the Regions. The
inventory of those networks could be done by the European agency in charge of the
Eurydice.
- Envisage the participation of some national members of the ETTW in a European exercise
of exchange of good practices on the problem of transition between educational systems
(issues about the language of instruction, the language of origin, multicultural classes etc.)
The European agenda for skills has just been published by the European Commission In this
context:
- An analysis of the way the contribution of ETTW has been taken into account is ongoing as
well as the identification of new initiatives relevant for the ETTW
- A meeting took place in Copenhagen to prepare a resolution for a better recognition of the
baccalaureate grade throughout the educational systems and other grades when relevant.
Agenda Point 7: Identifying Diaspora National/Regional Policy in Europe
Following the ETTW exercise of identifying the focal points in most Council of Europe
capitals, now a step further is required, that of collating the existing Diaspora
National/Regional Policy documents. This exercise will bring together the ideas already on
paper and identify new situations and new solutions in order to share good practices with all
ETTW members.
The conference organized by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development
(ICMPD) in Dublin in May on Connecting, Communicating and Networking with Diasporas
offered an opportunity for ETTW to cooperate more closely with Diaspora agencies and
organizations all over Europe on implementing its expat policies. Themes to be developed
range from political participation of expats and promoting innovation via diasporas to
contributing to changing the migration narrative via correct information on facts and figures
and positive stories from the diasporas - not least those outside Europe.
Contacts have been made with ICMPD agencies in Malta and Vienna. Concretely they are
interested in developing further with ETTW the proposal of organizing a European
convention for expats/diasporas in 2018 or 2019. ETTW has been in contact with the Maltese
Prime Minister on this project earlier. The Irish agency Diaspora Matters, (managed by Mr.
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Kingsley Aikins) has also shown interest in the project along with several Baltic diaspora
organizations and agencies.
It is proposed to the Board that ETTW explores this possibility further with the interested
partners.
Agenda Point 8: Funding of ETTW Activities
A Strategy for Funding
Working Group 1 has examined alternative possibilities for funding ETTW activities.
This paper is based on a comprehensive analysis made by Tony Venables. It also includes
estimations made by the Crowd Funding specialist company, KOALECT, concerning the
ETTW potential for successful crowd funding projects.
1. A SWOT analysis of ETTW might suggest that fundraising is the number one priority
Strengths: A pan-European association whose legitimacy is based on its national and
regional expat organizations. A dynamic high level leadership with excellent access to the
EU Institutions, the Council of Europe and other international organisations. Conference
activities, output and bilateral meetings with officials and politicians has put the association
“on the map”. The geographical remit is wide, covering mobility both within the EU and the
rest of the world. Potential circles of interest and projects can be built round free movement
of persons in the EU and international mobility and a range of activities from education,
diaspora outreach measures to political rights for European citizens. ETTW has been in
existence for a long time.
Weaknesses: Lack of minimum infrastructure (i.e. in terms of both an equipped office and at
least one person to make it work) so that the undoubted strengths can be capitalised upon.
There are therefore several initiatives, but follow-up is often difficult and continuity cannot
be guaranteed by what remain after all voluntary efforts. This weakness applies to
fundraising itself: opportunities are there, but they need to be turned into projects and
budgeted for.
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Opportunities: There appear to be a wide range of opportunities open to ETTW, particularly
at time when migration issues are top of the political agenda – almost too much choice. This
implies that the association does not need to put “all its eggs in one basket” or become overdependent on any particular source of funding.
Threats: ETTW has rightly adopted a very open approach towards co-operation with other
organisations. There are no external threats or even areas of competition with other
associations. The main threat would come from the internal weakness identified above.
2. The following general approach is suggested to fundraising “in the round”
- Obtain a minimum functional budget as a first priority. An immediate and overriding
priority must go to developing in-house capacity by equipping the office and finding
the necessary resources to at least pay a part time office manager/secretary or a
trainee/intern decently. Not all the funds have to come from the ETTW budget: some
organisations pay interns to go to Brussels; others have access to part-funding.
Experience has however demonstrated clearly that even where interns or volunteers
are subsidised, ETTW has to make a contribution to attract and keep good candidates.
- Adopt a co-operative and fully transparent approach. An analysis of access by ETTW
national members to funding has shown that revenue comes from a wide variety of
sources: central, but also regional and local government; major international
companies (i.e. airlines), but also their local suppliers. The sources of funding vary
from one country to the next. To avoid any possible competition for funds between
ETTW and its own members, a rule should be established that fundraising when
targeting a particular country or resource established here, should always be carried
out jointly by ETTW and the member concerned..
- Aim at funding from a variety of different sources. Particularly since the result of the
financial crisis, non-profit associations have learned not to depend on a single source
of funding such as corporate sponsorship or grants, but to develop strategies where for
the same project one source does not exclude others. This means that fundraising itself
is likely to become more demanding. The funding should not be done for its own sake;
it also has to fit a strategy, which is not always easy.
- Adopt a medium-term strategy. The days of luck and instant success with fundraising
have long gone: fundraising is only likely to succeed in step with the development of
the organisation (i.e. all funders will look at membership, the website, networking
capacity, track record). The short-term is therefore bound to be fundraising for small
amounts. If this succeeds to build up capacity and track record, the medium-term
outlook looks more promising. In 2018, for example there will be a new cycle of fouryear renewable operating grants for European associations. For this programme,
which could secure core-funding, ETTW “ticks all the boxes”.
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3. Sources of revenue
The advantage of an approach which considers “fundraising in the round” is that all potential
sources of revenue are considered.
Membership is vital because it is the first thing other potential funders and sponsors look to
(i.e. what is the proportion of the budget coming from members). ETTW members from the
Nordic countries have suggested in the context of the review of the statutes that membership
fees should be at a sufficiently high level to at least cover the cost of the office, a paid part
time office manager/ secretary or an intern and travel by the President. It is also important to
show other funders and EU Institutions a large number of members.
Crowd-funding. ETTW has already a functioning website and newsletter and has developed
a wealth of material, valuable information and contacts, which would justify fully both
membership fees at a reasonable level1 and a prospect of attracting donations through crowdfunding. This could well be a stimulus to individual donations, either for ETTW as such, or
for a specific campaign: i.e. i-voting in the next European elections.
ETTW has contacted a crowd funding specialist company, KOALECT, in order to get an
assessment of our potential for crowd-funding. The conclusion of their analysis is positive in
the sense that they propose a “no cure, no pay” approach with a solution that is customized to
the particular ETTW context, both strategically and technically. Small investments will have
to be made in a video and an e-mailing campaign and there are practical challenges to be met
such as providing expat mailing lists. The remuneration will take the form of a payment of
7% per transaction. (See the annex for the full, crowd-funding proposal to the Board).
Corporate sponsorship. The scope for sponsorship appears from the survey of funding
sources of members to be extensive and may come firstly from companies or departments
supplying services tailored to the expat community (i.e. banks, insurance companies).
Secondly there are multinational companies which are moving people around the EU or
internationally and involved with human resources, issues of relocation of personnel and
their families. They have an interest in platforms for talking to associations and other
companies, in order to share best practice and develop policy recommendations to public
authorities. A likely starting point would be to build on the goodwill shown by banks in
Belgium and Luxembourg to sponsor national meetings of expat associations. ETTW has
here to work with associations in the countries concerned and the corresponding full
member. Using sponsorship to obtain support on a more multi-lateral basis, for example to
support the activities of ETTW working parties is realistic but only in the medium-term2
because it would require a functioning office and executive support.
Foundations. Preliminary soundings made in 2014 suggested that it would be difficult to
obtain core-funding from foundations for ETTW as such because of its wide geographical
2
The way Brussels think tanks such as CEPS or EPC work with groups of company sponsors to produce policy research and
recommendation on specific issues.
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spread and multiple issue agenda. Even so, an agreement in principle has been reached with
the Fondation Roi Baudouin for ETTW to introduce a proposal for a grant to promote their
European cross-border giving scheme. Hopefully if accepted this could provide a small
contribution towards the website, events and other outreach activities.
European and international organisations. The most obvious source here is the European
Commission3, and in particular the Europe for citizens programme. This programme has
however been cut and competition is intense, especially with only one annual opportunity to
be a sub-contractor or partner in projects under this programme; other opportunities being
DG Justice grants, social affairs and free movement of labour. As shown by the Riga
conference, access to limited funding and assistance in kind (such as free meeting rooms) is
possible from EU offices in member states, but in particular in third countries. If ETTW
acquires experience with European projects and secures a minimum degree of viability and
financial capacity it should be in a position to apply for a four year operating grant in 2017.
ETTW is also an international organisation and other possibilities should be explored, such
as the World Bank, UNESCO and other UN agencies.
‘Incubator’. At the Board meeting in March Tony Venables presented the so-called
‘Incubator’ project of his organization, Maison des Associations Internationales (MAI).
‘Incubator’ addresses itself in particular to new European organizations, CSO’s etc. but will
also offer assistance to the particular needs and challenges of ‘international organizations
which are already established but have reached a certain limit blocking them from viable
activities requiring e.g. permanent staff’. The project includes ‘Long term support in
fundraising (local sources, EU and foundation funding, corporate funding) and advocacy
related to the access to EU institutions.’ The ‘Incubator’ project should receive public
funding, especially in the start-up phase, which will render the fees clients will have to pay
for services rendered bearable, even for low-budget associations such as the ETTW.
As the needs of organizations are very different - some want office space, others help with
fundraising – MAI has decided that it needs to equip the incubator with all tools available to
a self-sufficient European association and do what it takes to accelerate the start-up or
development process. In order to have a simple administration, a flat rate of 200 euros per
month is charged whatever the needs of the client. In the case of ETTW the incubator would
start by convert into proposals the various opportunities for funding identified. These should
be listed in a possible agreement between MAI and ETTW, whilst not excluding work on
other opportunities as they arise.
4. Conclusions
This paper is written on the assumption that there is no “deus ex machina” solution to
fundraising, which has to be seen as a permanent activity and directed towards a number of
potential sources: members, individual donors, corporate sponsors, foundations and
European organisations. For fundraising to happen, the first stage is to have a minimum
functioning office.
3
ECAS provides a guide to European funding which brings together all EU programmes and a chapter on foundations interested
in European projects.
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More concretely it is proposed to the Board that ETTW continues talks with KOALECT with
a view to presenting a concrete crowd funding project as outlined in the annex.
In parallel it is proposed that ETTW asks MAI to present a proposal for an Incubator period
tailored to its needs. (Expected fees 200 euros monthly) .
ANNEX
KOALECT: ETTW Crowdfunding Proposal (summary)
Purpose: To establish a donation/ crowd-funding campaign in which ETTW addresses the
expats directly or via the member organizations
Topic: Development of an i-voting system for the European elections in 2019.
Format: an explanatory video in which the president of ETTW directly addresses each
expat.
Donations: A donation campaign in which people are asked very clearly – ‘If you want to
be able to vote at home in 2019, then donate 10 Euros no more, no less’. All donors will at
the end of the campaign receive a report with the amount of money collected and what it will
be used for.
Channel: The video should be embedded in a n e-mailing campaign to as many expats as
possible. An extra page to be created on the ETTW web site with the video, some
explanation and a donation button.
Role of Koalect: To lead the campaign and guide the set-up of the content on the ETTW
website, the content of the e-mailing and possibly a social media strategy. Koalect will run
the campaign and provide technical solution for the payment of donations and invest its time
and effort to help ETTW reach its goal.
Costs for ETTW: The making of a video: 2-4000 Euros, mailing campaign: app. 500 Euros
Role of member organizations: to provide mailing addresses or other ways to reach their
members.
Remuneration for Koalect: No fixed remuneration,7% (excl VAT) per online transaction.
(Summary drawn up by SI)
The following 3 pieces on Shakespeare are from English Speaking Union emails:
Shakespeare, Henry the Fifth and the French Language
In 1599, William Shakespeare wrote The Life of Henry the Fifth, a play that rejoices in its
hero king, Henry, warrior and wooer. Henry V not only defeated the French; he went on to
win the hand of Katherine, the daughter of the King of France. Henry is powerful and kingly
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in battle. He is playful and winning in courtship. He invades Katharine as he invades France:
KING HENRY V: O fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with your French heart,
I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do you
like me, Kate?
KATHARINE: Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is ‘like me.’
KING HENRY V: An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.
KATHARINE: Que dit-il? que je suis semblable a les anges?
ALICE: Oui, vraiment, sauf votre grace, ainsi dit-il.
KING HENRY V: I said so, dear Katharine; and I must not blush to affirm it.
KATHARINE: O bon Dieu! les langues des hommes sont pleines de tromperies.
KING HENRY V: What says she, fair one? that the tongues of men are full of deceits?
ALICE: Oui, dat de tongues of de mans is be full of deceits: dat is de princess.
KING HENRY V: The princess is the better Englishwoman. I’ faith, Kate, my wooing is
fit for thy understanding: I am glad thou canst speak no better English; for, if
thou couldst, thou wouldst find me such a plain King that thou wouldst think I
had sold my farm to buy my crown.
(Henry V Act 5, Scene 2)
Word play is continuous, rapid, macaronic. The dialogue crosses English and French, the
courtly and the obscene, the male and the female. Henry shows that he has not forgotten the
vulgarities of tavern talk, and he shows that he has learned the dignities of royal speech.
Shakespeare shows that he knows the French language while he boasts the superiority of the
English language. Speakers need to judge their linguistic environment and pitch their
language accordingly. The Henry-Kate, English-French, vulgar-courtly play demands
constant register shift. Shakespeare exploits that royally.
The history of the language, the English language, tells us that it was just at the time that
Henry was courting Kate – 1415 - that the English language was triumphing in England; it
was finally overcoming French as the language of authority and power. Henry’s father had
deposed Richard II by an order read in English and the Henrys made English the language of
their court. In preparing for the invasion of France that ended with a French lesson, Henry V
gave his orders for mustering and provisioning in English. His military dispatches were
written in English.
How much history of his language Shakespeare knew is difficult to say, but he certainly
chose the right monarch to champion the victory of English over French. Henry’s courtiers
conversed in English. Henry was a very English king, and Shakespeare knew it.
Throughout the dialogue and throughout the play there is a deliberate fusing and confusing
of the words England and English. ‘England’ can mean the king himself, the land he rules, or
the English people; ‘English’ can mean the people or the language. Shakespeare was a
royalist and an irredentist. It would go too far to say that Shakespeare uses the word
‘English’ as American pool players use it. To put English on a ball is to make it swerve.
Shakespeare makes his English spin and his French, too:
KING HENRY V: Do you like me, Kate?
KATHARINE: Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is ‘like me.’
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KING HENRY V: An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.
KATHARINE: Que dit-il? que je suis semblable a les anges?
ALICE: Oui, vraiment, sauf votre grace, ainsi dit-il.
The Life of Henry the Fifth rejoices in five hundred years of rivalry between the English and
the French. It celebrates the masculinity of the Englishman and the effeminacy of the
Frenchman. It lauds the English language over the French language. It praises rough-tongued
English against the facile-tongued French. In the pla, the word ‘language’ is used once; the
word ‘tongue’ is used ten times. Henry and Katharine engage their tongues in royal foreplay.
There is more French spoken in Henry the Fifth than in any other Shakespeare play, in fact,
than in any other English play. Henry claims not to know much French: ‘It is as easy for me,
Kate, to conquer the kingdom as to speak so much more French’, he says. If that were true,
he would be the first king of England since 1066 who did not. In the early fifteen century,
French was beginning to lose its grip in England, but that is something that was probably not
apparent at the time.
Shakespeare’s Henry is proud of being an Englishman, but it is only the spelling of his name
that makes it seem English. The most popular English names for boys were those of the
French kings of England: William, Henry, Richard, and John, in French Guillaume, Henri,
Richard and Jean. At some points in the Middle Ages, one in four boys was given one of
those names so that they all developed variants: Will, Bill, Willie, Billie, Harry, Hen, Hal,
Rich, Richie, Rick, Dick, Dicky, Jack, Johnnie and so on and on. Multiple Johns needed addons. The French for nickname is ‘surnom’; in English, that came to mean family name.
There is so much explicit French in Henry the Fifth that it is easy to overlook the fact that
there is even more implicit French. By 1415 when Henry V was invading France, the English
language had been invaded by so much French grammar that it is arguable that English had
become a fusion language. Within three hundred years from 1066, Norman French had
become blended with Old English, and the effects were startling. Grammatical gender was
replaced by logical gender; noun endings were lost; word order was altered. English had
become the least Germanic of the Germanic languages.
Grammatical borrowings are rare. Lexical borrowings are not. English took an astonishing
number of words from French. The Anglo-Saxon Dictionary includes all the different words
found in Old English manuscripts. The total is some 10,000. Between 1066 and 1500,
English imported 10,000 words from French, and English continued to import French words
until the mid-twentieth century. Then the flow petered out. By then, 20,000 words had been
borrowed from French. Since the Second World War, it has been pay-back time, and English
is giving words to French at an increasing rate.
From 1066 onwards, England had been ruled in French and educated in Latin. English had
been a despised tongue though it never ceased to be a written language. Any monk or clerk
who could write Latin and French could also write English if he had a mind to. And in fact
from about 1350 onwards English began to resurface. The law courts and parliament began
to make it the main language of their business. The Court poets Geoffrey Chaucer and John
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Gower used it. John Wycliffe and his followers translated the whole Bible into it. But this
English was a very different English from that spoken and written in 1066.
The Court English of Henry V was very different from the Court English of Alfred. The new
English had emerged from the Mercian of the new capital of London rather than the West
Saxon of the old capital at Winchester. Henry’s English is called Middle English, and the
Middle English that Henry spoke, that of London, already contained an astonishing amount
of French. There was hardly a human activity in London beyond the simple biological that
could be discussed without the use of French words.
One of the less obvious effects of the mass of French words in English has been on the
spelling of English. Not only has English tended to keep the French spelling patterns but in
some instances English words have been converted to French forms. Norman scribes had
quite a problem with the English ‘cw’ sound. Their solution was to render this by the letters
‘q’ and ‘u’ so that today we have the spelling ‘q-u-e-e-n’ for ‘Queen’ where we used to have
the neater ‘c-w-e-n’.
Another effect of there being so many French words in English is that we very often have
two or more words for the same thing or action. By the fourteenth century, the English had
taken the same word from both Norman and Parisian French to produce doublets like: gaol
and jail; reward and regard; wile and guile. Very often, the Norman and French borrowings
joined rather than replaced native words so that by the sixteenth century, doublets were in
profusion: climb and ascend; desire and wish; fast and firm; house and mansion; entrails and
guts; distress and sorrow; royal and kingly; maternal and motherly.
Shakespeare loved the richness of the verbal patterns that these doublets could provide. He
gave us: ‘upreared and abutting fronts’, ‘scambling and unquiet time’, ‘envelop and contain’,
‘sweet and honey’d sentences;’, ‘the art and practic part of life’, ‘Any retirement, any
sequestration’, ‘wholesome berries thrive and ripen’, ‘the crown and seat of France’, ‘corrupt
and naught’, ‘hold in right and title’, ‘ample and brim fullness’, ‘shook and trembled’, ‘the
ooze and bottom of the sea’, ‘tear and havoc’, ‘large and ample’, ‘kind and natural’.
Henry V is not only a play about the defeat of the French army; it is also a play about the
defeat of the French language. The English king is triumphant. So is Shakespeare. But two
historical ironies attend the celebrations. Henry V, written at the very end of the sixteenth
century, appeared at that moment when France was entering upon its most ascendant century.
Seventeenth-century France was to achieve a domination over Europe that has never
otherwise been matched.
The French language, French arts, French architecture, French culture, French cuisine,
French manners, French fashion became the model of the Western World. That force is still
not spent. And it was in the sixteenth century, Shakespeare’s century, that England was
finally driven out of France. Calais had been lost to the French in 1558. It was a shame from
which Queen Mary never recovered.
Until 1802, the Kings of England would continue to take the title ‘King of Great Britain,
15
France and Ireland’, but in 1599, Shakespeare had to reach back almost two hundred years to
find a time when the English could truly pride themselves on a superiority to the French.
That is one historical irony.
A second historical irony is that Shakespeare’s celebration of the survival of the English
language after three hundred years’ subjection to the French language came at a time when
the English language was itself being set on a path towards linguistic imperialism. Today,
Global English is destroying languages at a fearsome rate. In the 1960s, linguists spoke of
the World’s 9000+ language; now, they speak of 6000+ languages. The killer languages are
Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian, but above all English.
The very first languages that English attacked were those with which it shared the British
Isles: Welsh, Cornish, Manx, Irish, Gaelic - the Celtic languages that contributed so little to
Old English and not a great deal more to Modern English. And in Henry V, Shakespeare
makes a point of mocking Welsh, Gaelic, and Irish in the figures of Captains Fluellen, Jamy
and Macmorris:
FLUELLEN: Captain Macmorris, I beseech you now, will you voutsafe me,
look you, a few disputations with you, as partly touching or concerning
the disciplines of the war, the Roman wars, in the way of argument, look
you, and friendly communication; partly to satisfy my opinion, and partly
for the satisfaction, look you, of my mind, as touching the direction of the
military discipline; that is the point.
JAMY: It sall be vary gud, gud feith, gud captains bath: and I sall quit you with
gud leve, as I may pick occasion; that sall I, marry.
MACMORRIS: It is no time to discourse, so Chrish save me: the day is hot,
and the weather, and the wars, and the king, and the dukes: it is no time to
discourse. The town is beseeched, and the trumpet call us to the breach;
and we talk, and, be Chrish, do nothing: 'tis shame for us all: so God sa'
me, 'tis shame to stand still; it is shame, by my hand: and there is throats
to be cut, and works to be done; and there ish nothing done, so Chrish sa'
me, la!
(Henry V Act 3, Scene 3)
English was beginning to stamp its feet, strut about and feel superior. Shakespeare’s mock
Welsh, Scots and Irish were insulting to the Welsh, Scots and Irish, but no more so than
Shakespeare’s Mummerset was to people from the West Country. The joking was an
indication of something new in English speech. The dialectal democracy of Middle English
was giving way to the linguistic elitism of Modern English. London speech was being
privileged, and it was the Court speech of the West End not the Cockney speech of the East
End that came to the top. It would take another two hundred and fifty years for the Court’s
English to emerge as the Public School Accent, today called Received Standard English.
Henry the Fifth is a very French play about the French. During those three hundred years
when English was overawed by French, changes took place that we can see clearly enough
when we compare English manuscripts of 1050 and 1350, but we do not have a full record of
the process of change. It was in those three hundred years that English not only absorbed
16
French grammar and vocabulary, it also refined the impact of Danish grammar and
vocabulary.
It can be difficult to untangle the exact share of the influence of Danish and French upon
English. The same can be said of the influence of a third language that was reshaping English
after 1350. Norman French, Old French and Middle French all derive from Latin; all are
Italic languages as Latin is an Italic language. Latin began to influence English even before
English had reached England, but the full impact of Latin on English was a Renaissance
phenomenon. Shakespeare revelled in it. We cannot always say whether that influence was
directly from Latin or indirectly from Latin by way of French, but the influence was great,
very great.
--------------------------------------The bibliography can be found on the English Project website: www.englishproject.
In April, the English Project will look at Julius Caesar and the influence of the Latin
Language on the English Language.
------------------------------------April: Shakespeare, Julius Caesar and the Latin Language In 1599, William Shakespeare wrote and staged Julius Caesar, the second of his Roman
plays. Titus Andronicus had preceded Julius Caesar; Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra
were to follow. All were tragedies. All focused on heroic figures who displayed ambition,
honour, sobriety, strength in defeat, courage in death, patriotism, austerity - warrior virtues,
Roman virtues. Those virtues could be destructive.
Titus showed the Roman hero overwhelmed by primitivism in a welter of blood. Coriolanus
showed the Roman hero brought to his death by arrogance and thirst for vengeance. Antony
showed the Roman hero seduced and destroyed by Egypt. Caesar showed the Roman hero as
the man of ambiguous destiny.
Either to praise Caesar or to damn him was dangerous, both in Ancient Rome and in
Renaissance Europe. Shakespeare revels in the double-talk forced upon Romans trying to
discover what other Romans were ready to do. Cassius and Casca, both enemies of Caesar,
needed to take care in sounding one another out:
CASCA
‘Tis Caesar that you mean, is it not, Cassius?
CASSIUS
Let it be who it is; for Romans now
Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors.
But, woe the while! Our fathers’ minds are dead,
And we are govern’d with our mothers’ spirits.
Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.
17
CASCA
Indeed, they say the senators tomorrow
Mean to establish Caesar as a king;
And he shall wear his crown by sea and land,
In every place, save here in Italy.
CASSIUS
I know where I will wear this dagger then:
Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius.
(Julius Caesar Act 1, Scene 3)
Shakespeare took the plot of Julius Caesar from Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's
Lives. Though Shakespeare worked with a translation, it is very probable that he could read
Plutarch in the Latin. Ben Jonson said that Shakespeare had little Latin and less Greek, but
most people had little Latin by comparison with Jonson. Shakespeare came from a
prosperous home. He had had a solid grammar school education when grammar meant Latin
grammar. Boys were not taught English at school. Latin was all.
At the time that Shakespeare was at school, Latin was having its third and greatest impact on
the English language. Early Modern English was reshaping itself as a language fit for
Renaissance learning for Latin was finally faltering after two thousand years of strength. The
printing press was the great technology of the period and money was to be made by printing
in vernaculars: in France in French, in Spain in Spanish, in Germany in German, in England
in English. Religious wars and reformation maddened men and women to read the Scriptures
and never-ending theological texts. It took education to learn to read Latin; it took no more
than book thirst to learn to read one’s native language.
The first borrowings of English from Latin came before ever English had reached England.
Angles, Saxons and Jutes arrived with some few words of Latin origin: anchor, butter, chalk,
cheese, kettle, kitchen, church, dish, mile, pepper, pound, sack, sickle, street, wall, and wine.
These had been taken from the soldiers of the Roman frontier with whom Germanics had
dealings long before they crossed the North Sea.
Latin again loaned words to English when those Angles, Saxons and Jutes became Christian
in the seventh century: apostle, chest, circle, comet, master, martyr, paper, tile. (Several of
those words originally come from Greek but English did not borrow directly from Greek
until the Renaissance.) More significant than the introduction into Old English of five
hundred or so Latin words was the adoption of the Latin alphabet. That occurred as early as
600 when King Ethelbert asked Bishop Augustine of Canterbury to have his monks write
down the laws of the kingdom of Kent. The monks provided the very script used to this day
though they did take five Germanic runes (now abandoned) to represent English sounds not
heard in Rome.
Beyond the alphabet, the impact of Latin on Old English was not great. Latin’s impact upon
Middle English is hard to judge. Middle English adopted 10,000 French words. The very
great majority of those words were of Latin origin, and it may be that some words came
direct from Latin into English without going by way of French. John Wycliffe’s translation
of Jerome’s Bible, completed by 1400, included many words taken directly from Jerome’s
18
Latin, but it was usually the case that Latin words reached Middle English by way of French.
Since French is an Italic language derived from Latin, it can at least be said that the Italic
impact on Middle English was formidable. The Italic impact upon English was redoubled in
the Renaissance for it was then that English began to take words directly from Latin on a
great scale. The vocabulary of a university-educated English speaker will today include some
40,000 words derived from French and Latin in about equal proportions.
Shakespeare was himself a great adopter, and he is credited at a generous guestimate as
having introduced 600 ‘Latinate neologisms’. Impressive, but Shakespeare was unaffected
by the final stage of Latin’s impact upon English. That can be dated from the middle of the
seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth century. Then it was that Latin was called upon to
reform English grammar.
As vernaculars all over Western Europe were being upgraded to serve as learned languages,
the first job to be done was to expand vocabularies to cover subjects from astrology to
zoology. The second job was to look at the grammars of those vernaculars. The first English
grammar books appeared at the end of the sixteenth century. They were modelled on Latin
grammar books. These made English appear to fall short in a number of ways. It is not
possible to end a sentence with a preposition in Latin; double negatives are not used in Latin;
double comparatives are impossible in Latin; infinitives cannot be split in Latin. A sense that
English was inferior became inbuilt. Even as English superseded Latin, it continued to be
thought second best. Latin scholars then told English men and women that they must not use
double negatives, double comparatives, split infinitives or end sentences with prepositions.
Learned English began to run against the grain of traditional English, but it was an unhappy
fact that not a single one of the best writers could be relied upon to demonstrate perfectly the
new standards. Indeed, to be called a best writer and to be made a model writer invariably led
to being censured as imperfect. Robert Lowth, an eighteenth-century bishop and Oxford
professor of grammar, regretted that ‘our most approved authors’ including Chaucer,
Shakespeare and Milton - offended ‘against every part of grammar’. All great writers failed
the new examination. Shakespeare failed comprehensively.
By dying in 1616, Shakespeare died at a high point of Latin’s impact on the English
language. By that date, the English language had achieved a richness and sinuosity that made
it a vehicle for the most complex thought and feeling, it had found an effortless means of
expanding its vocabulary, and it had not yet been made the victim of Italic grammar. At the
same time, English was coming into its own.
For a thousand years from 800 to 1800, English had been reacting to other languages, first
Danish, then French and finally Latin. But, by 1800, a new phase of the language was
becoming apparent. It was being spoken in Africa, Asia and America. English was becoming
a great language, and a great language must have its great writer. It must have its Virgil, and
Shakespeare was clearly the Virgil of the English language. He was emerging as a
formidable figure in a new linguistic world.
19
Shakespeare and the African Languages
In 1597, William Shakespeare’s Richard II was registered with the Stationers’ Company by
an Andrew Wise, a bookseller. The play was probably written two years earlier. It completed
a sequence of history plays beginning with Richard II and ending with Richard III. In all, a
sequence of eight plays tells the story of five monarchs. Richard II and Richard III were
among Shakespeare’s most popular plays, at least to judge from their sales. They both went
through five quarto editions.
The details of his book sales are among the many things we know about William
Shakespeare. Among playwrights of the time, only Ben Jonson can match Shakespeare for
biographical record. It was a New England woman of the mid-nineteenth century who got the
idea that William Shakespeare might have been Sir Francis Bacon. Her conviction arose
from the fact that her name was Delia Bacon. Had she been born Delia Shakespeare, the
Baconian theory would never have arisen. Nathaniel Hawthorne, also a New Englander and
who knew Delia Bacon, spells out her delusion in Our Old Home, his book about Old
England.
An unusual fact about Richard II is that it is entirely in verse without a line of prose. It
shares that distinction with Henry VI Parts One and Three, but there any likeness ends. The
Henry VI plays were written at the very beginning of Shakespeare’s career, and they show a
ready ruggedness, strong beyond apprentice work but not the work of a master playwright.
Richard II was written in the same year as Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, plays that show the language of Shakespeare at its lyrical best. This was the period
of Shakespeare’s narrative poems, in particular of Venus and Adonis. Based on Ovid’s
record of Venus’s falling desperately in love with the ravishingly beautiful but mortal young
man Adonis, it was a piece of high Renaissance camp. Richard II, no love story, effortlessly
matched the poetry of Venus and Adonis and Romeo and Juliet.
In Richard II, pragmatic and prosaic characters rose to verbal heights. An uncle told a
nephew that exile was not a grim prospect so long as the exile could think of a happy return.
In response, the nephew used the power of imaginative verse to show the limits of
imaginative power:
O, who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus,
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast,
Or wallow naked in December snow
By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?
O no, the apprehension of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more
Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.
(Richard II Act 1, Scene 3)
20
The eloquent nephew was Henry Bolingbroke who would return from exile to depose King
Richard and become a usurping king. That theme made Richard II a dangerously topical play
in 1595. Shakespeare’s queen, Queen Elizabeth, did not like her people to be reminded that
crowned monarchs could be uncrowned. Moreover her grandfather, Henry Tudor, had been a
usurper. He had uncrowned Richard III and become king in his place. To suggest that the
Tudor line was illegitimate was a quick route to a traitor’s death.
Richard II touched on unsafe ground, but that did not prevent its being a play that men and
women wanted to see. And there is in Shakespeare legend a curious tale that relates to the
popularity of Richard II and relates Richard II to Africa. In 1607, a London merchant ship,
The Red Dragon, on its way to Java, became delayed off the West African coast. It is said
that for the amusement of themselves and attendant Africans, the Dragon’s crew staged an
on-deck performance of Richard II.
This first staging abroad of a Shakespeare play is recorded in the standard Shakespeare
reference works, though its first notice to scholarship did not come until the nineteenthcentury discovery of a document that purported to tell the tale. In Worlds Elsewhere:
Journeys around Shakespeare's Globe, Andrew Dickson makes much of it without fully
endorsing the Dragon’s production. Whatever, it makes a wonderful picture, and it draws
attention to some extraordinary and parallel developments in English commerce and
language.
In 1562, two years before William Shakespeare was born, Sir John Hawkins was using guns
to capture Africans. Shortly thereafter, the English learned to use guns not to capture
Africans but to buy Africans. Lisbon and Seville dominated slaving, but London forced its
way into the world’s most foul trade. Elizabethan slavers visited the Gold Coast so regularly
that Africans began to find it useful to learn the language of Shakespeare.
For the first time, the English language began to move out of the British Isles. Until then,
English had been spoken by the English only. For a thousand years, it had been an invaded
language, first by Danish and next by French. In 1600, English was experiencing a third
invasion, that of Latin. But, by 1600, English was also on its way to becoming an invader
language rather than an invaded language. In Africa, it got its first purchase. It became an
African lingua franca as a stage to becoming the global lingua franca.
African Shakespeare is mainly staged in English, but Shakespeare has been translated into
Sotho, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa, Yoruba, Zulu. Many of these are Niger–Congo languages,
languages profoundly different from English. They are equally different from Danish, French
and Latin, the languages that shaped Shakespeare’s English. English, Danish, French and
Latin are members of the Indo-European language family, and, within that huge family,
English, Danish, French and Latin are closely related.
Two thousand years ago English and Danish were the same language, a language given the
name Proto-Germanic. The prefix ‘proto’ indicates that there is no written evidence for
Proto-Germanic, but that its vocabulary, grammar and phonology have been conjectured by
identifying the common elements of its descendant languages. Fifteen hundred years ago
French was evolving from Latin, as Latin had evolved from a language called Proto-Italic.
21
Six thousand years ago, Proto-Italic and Proto-Germanic were evolving from Proto-IndoEuropean, the original of languages from Lisbon to Moscow and from Stockholm to Delhi.
Is there a proto-language from which Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Niger-Congo have
descended? No satisfactory construction of such a language has been made. Proto-IndoEuropean and Proto-Niger-Congo languages are too dissimilar. Did human language arise
just the once so that all present-day languages have evolved over the past hundred thousand
years from a single language? Perhaps, but perhaps not.
When Elizabethan mariners carried English to the West Coast of Africa, they carried
English into a new linguistic world. If Jacobean mariners staged Richard II off the Gold
Coast in 1607, the play must have appeared strange to African eyes but not as strange as the
sound of an Indo-European tongue to Niger-Congo ears.
Had the mariners staged Richard II in Yoruba, Bolingbroke’s lines on the limits of the
imagination would have sounded like this:
Irẹ, ti o le mu a iná li ọwọ rẹ
Nipa lerongba lori awọn frosty Caucasus,
Tabi cloy awọn ti ebi npa eti ti yanilenu
Nipa igboro inu ti a àse,
Tabi máa yíràá ìhòòhò ni December egbon
Nipa lerongba on ikọja ooru ká ooru?
Eyin ko si, awọn apprehension ti awọn ti o dara
Yoo fun ṣugbọn awọn tobi inú si awọn buru.
Subu si ibinujẹ ká ehin li kò rankle diẹ
Ju nigbati o buniṣán, ṣugbọn lanceth ko ni ọgbẹ.
Thanks go to Google for the translation. Whether or not Google has done a good job, only a
Yoruba speaker can say. There are distances to be overcome: distances between English and
Yoruba; Europe and Africa: Indo-European and Niger-Congo.
The Red Dragon was not a slaver. It had paused off the West African Coast on its way to the
East. There it hoped to get a cargo more valuable than human beings. It was going for a
shipload of spices that if returned to London would make the captain and his backers rich
men. After Africa, Asia was the next continent to be invaded by the English. In 1616, at the
time of Shakespeare’s death, India was poised to become one of the great places of the
English language. Within four hundred years of his death, it would have an English-speaking
population that vastly outnumbered that of the British Isles.
------------------------------------------------------------------------The bibliography can be found on the English Project website: www.englishproject.org
22
The British European – page 23
Brussels 30th of May 2016
Dear colleagues, dear friends,
ETTW (European Throughout the World, www.euromonde.eu) and MEP
Monica Macovei would like to invite you on Wednesday, the 29th of June from
15:00 to 18:30, to the first conference about Internet voting (i-voting) which will
take in the European Parliament in Brussels.
The aim of this conference is to raise awareness of a new and modern
internet voting system, which would provide a flexible and “location-less” method
to vote for all European citizen, and especially for the +80 millions European
expats living abroad.
The event will include presentations of how safe, transparent and easy to use
I-voting is, as well as a Q&A session where experts will respond to questions and
address various concerns related to the implementation of this system.
Please confirm your attendance by the 20th of June,
at [email protected] and +32 228 47 225.
With friendship,
ETTW & Monica Macovei
PROGRAMME
Public Hearing
I-voting (internet voting) 2019
23
Wednesday 29 June 2016, 15.00 - 18.30
European Parliament, Brussels
Room: P1A002
Opening statements
15:00 - 15:10 Monica Luisa Macovei, MEP: The Romanian expat experience in
the 2014 presidential elections
15:10 - 15:20 Dorin Fleseriu, ETTW (Europeans Throughout The World): Why
do 60+ million EU expats need i-voting?
Session 1. What does I-voting stand for and how can it ensure an accessible,
secure and efficient voting experience for European citizens
15:20 - 15:30 Marie-Hélène Boulanger, Head of Unit, DG JUST, European
Commission Key findings from the EU's public consultation and
Eurobarometer reports on EU citizenship as regards i-voting
15:30 - 15:40 Jordi Barrat Esteve, Professor of Public Law, University Rovira i
Virgili, Spain European use of the internet voting system - an overview
15:40 - 15:50 Siim Sikkut (Digital Advisor to the Government of Estonia) The
Estonian experience on electronic and internet voting
15:50 - 16:20 Scytl presentation on how the system works and success stories
(French and Swiss examples)
16:20 - 16:50 Smartmatic presentation on how the system works and success
stories (Estonian example)
16:50 - 17:20 Q&A session
17:20 - 17: 35 Break
Session 2. Conclusions and next steps
17:35- 17:45 Romanian representative of the AEP (Central Electoral Authority)
The shortest way towards a modern and secure voting system in Romania
17:45 - 17:55 Danuta Hübner, MEP, rapporteur on Reform of the electoral law of
the European Union Milestones and challenges in the reform of the electoral
law - making I voting a reality for expats in the 2019 European elections
17:55 - 18:05 Monica Macovei, MEP Closure of the conference and call for
involvement and active citizenship
24
From Our Members:
Jens Ulstrup:
'I watched the
four-minute mile'
Roger Shakeshaft (Lincoln, 1953) shares unique memories of watching the
four-minute mile record being set at the Iffley Road Track in 1954.
Sir Roger Bannister collapsing after breaking the four-minute mile record
at the Iffley Road Sports Track
25
by Roger Shakeshaft
World records in track and field events have provoked varying levels of
interest with the general public over the past century or so. Some have
an arithmetic drive like running 100 yards, or later 100 metres in under
10 seconds, but nothing has equalled the challenge of running a mile in
under four minutes. The explanation is relatively simple. Until the 1960s
most tracks in the UK and the Empire/Commonwealth (and parts of the
US) were measured in Imperial units. The length was 440 yards and the
majority of races were conducted in fractions or multiples of this unit.
The Blue Riband was always the mile – four circuits – 1760 yards. In the
decade before the war the world record stood at a few seconds over 4
minutes. In fact a Swede, Gunter Haegg ran a mile in 4min 1.2 sec in 1945
(Sweden, of course, not burdened with the pressures of total war). It was
clear that a 4-minute mile was a feasible target, and what’s more, easily
understandable – four circuits at 60 seconds each!
It is a comment on the debilitating legacy of the war that it was not until
the early 1950s that the 4-minute mile was back on the agenda. The race
began in earnest after the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki. There were
three men with this trophy in their sights: Wes Santee from the US, John
Landy an Australian and Roger Bannister, a post-graduate Oxford medical
student. No one was better qualified for the task than Bannister. He was
a competent middle distance runner all his adult life; he ran longer
distances to build up his stamina, he also competed in half miles and the
occasional three-quarter mile to improve his speed. He came fourth in
the 1500 metres in the Helsinki Olympics. His medical background helped
him in understanding the mechanics of the human body in relation to
distance running and he had as his coach Franz Stampfl, whose reputation
at the time was second to none.
26
Bannister crossing the line at Iffley, having run at approximately 15
miles per hour to finish in under four minutes
In the 1953 season (and the following months of 1954 in the Southern
Hemisphere) the mile was run in 4min 3sec, or less, eight times. The
expectation amongst athletics fans was at fever pitch. The first fixture of
the 1954 season was the traditional meeting between Oxford University
Athletic Club (OUAC) and the Amateur Athletic Association (AAA) at the
Iffley Road Athletic Ground on the 6th of May.
It was common knowledge that a serious attempt would be made to break
the 4-minute barrier at that meeting. There were three prerequisites that
had to be met first, however. It had to be a bone fide race. There had to
be a detailed plan in the running schedule. The weather had to be
favourable. The last item is in the lap of the gods; the second item was
within the competence of the team of runners, but the first item gave
cause for jitters amongst the athletics establishment. We must look back
to the previous June for an explanation. The Surrey schools were holding
27
their annual athletics meeting at Motspur Park. Friends of Bannister
persuaded the organisers, at short notice, to include a special ‘Invitation
Mile Race’ in the programme. Bannister’s collaborators were Don
MacMillan, an Australian miler and Chris Brasher, an old friend. MacMillan
lead for two and a half laps, while Brasher jogged round until Bannister
was about to lap him! At this stage Brasher broke into a sprint and paced
Bannister for another lap before dropping out. Bannister was in top form
and recorded a time of 4 min 2sec – the world’s third fastest ever. This
would qualify for a British record. But the British Athletics Board, not
unexpectedly, would not ratify it. They quoted the secrecy, the
inappropriate inclusion of an ‘Invitation Race’ and the unorthodox
behaviour of Chris Brasher. In retrospect it was a great relief that the
four-minute barrier was not broken!
There could be no repeat of the funny business if Bannister was to stand a
chance. The AAA presented a strong team of four runners – Roger
Bannister, Chris Chataway, Chris Brasher and W. Hulatt. The reason for
the inclusion of Hulatt is not clear. Rumour had it that the team was too
heavily Oxbridge/Public School and an input of ‘Northern Grit’ would give
the event more authenticity – oh dear! Now look at the Oxford team.
28
Dole, Gordon and Miller were strong competitors for the University. Due
to an unfortunate lapse in communication, Nigel Miller (a contemporary
of mine at Shrewsbury) was not informed beforehand of his inclusion in
the team. He, like many others turns up at the gate, pays his sixpence for
a programme and is aghast at seeing his name down for the mile. A
frantic scrabble ensues for spare kit and spikes – to no avail and his name
is officially scratched from the list. This affects the ratio of competitors
for the mile; four for the AAA, two for OUAC. Considering the sensitivity,
after the Motspur Park debacle, in retrospect, Oxford should have
abstracted a runner entered for the two miles race, later in the evening,
to make up the number for this prestigious race.
The weather was going to be a problem. It was a cold May evening and an
examination of images from that gathering reveals raincoats, scarves and
peaked caps. But more than that, it was windy. This did not put off 1,000
or 2,000 spectators (whichever version is to be believed – I go for the
former) who flocked to the Iffley Road track late that afternoon. Nor so
the bulk of the London dailies’ press; they decided that conditions would
make a record attempt almost impossible and most of them hopped into
their cars before the start of the meeting, and retreated to the capital.
All that was left were Associated Press photographer Dennis Evans, local
photographers from The Oxford Mail and Cherwell and a young
apprentice photographer Norman Potter for the Central Press Agency.
This is why there is scant variety in the images preserved from that day.
We must, though, be grateful to the team from the BBC who set up the
rostrum camera in the centre of the track. It would have been too much
trouble to dismantle the equipment, whatever the weather. As a result, a
precious archive was created.
The plan for the race was simple. Brasher would pace Bannister for the
first two laps at an even 60 seconds each. Chataway would take over the
pacing for the third lap to about three minutes and then Bannister was on
his own. This only left the weather – particularly the wind. Crucial to a
decision was the flag of St George (symbolic for such an English occasion)
flying from the tower of the parish church across the road. While the flag
was horizontal the plan was off – when it drooped the plan was on! There
are varying versions as to when the actual decision was made; it is
sufficient to note that at the start the flag was completely limp.
I now enter subjective mode. Brian and I paid our sixpence (2.5p) at the
gate in return for the precious programme. I must repeat that the
attempt at the mile record was widely advertised and everyone present
29
that evening was hyped up with eager anticipation. We elected to sit on a
raised knoll above the last bend. From here we were able to view the
drama beneath us as it unfolded.
On the dot of six the starter gun went off – a false start – back again –
don’t panic – time to re-set the stopwatches. The tension all over the
ground was palpable. Bang! And they’re off. To great relief, everything
went to plan. The lap times were broadcast and Brasher kept to the 60
seconds schedule. Chataway slips into the lead for the third lap and
maintains the even pace. When the time at three-quarters of a mile was
announced at a smidgen over three minutes, there was a collective
experience of euphoria from those present; in a split second the
arithmetic of ‘three plus one equals four’ kicks in and the crowd erupted
with frenzied cheering. Chataway exceeded himself by pushing another
150 yards before moving out to allow Bannister to take on the ultimate
challenge. Not cheering though was Franz Stampfl. He was crouched
below me, stopwatch in hand, at the 1500 metres mark (120 yards short
of the mile), to register the metric time (3 min 43.0 sec – a world best).
He had the European Games later in the year in his sights. Bannister’s
massive stride did not falter until he bust the tape. Chataway comes a
creditable second and Hulatt collects the third scoring point. The two
Oxford men follow. There is no mention on my programme of Brasher. It
is to be hoped, to this day, that he crossed the line somehow even if he
had to push his way through a crowd of judges, timekeepers and well-
30
wishers – there were no marshals in those days to ‘keep the fans off the
pitch’.
There was an agonising, but understandable, wait before the result was
announced. This task was assigned to Norris McWhirter. Where did he
come from? A glance at the programme reveals that he was running
anchor in the last event of the day – the 4 x 110 yards Relay. He and his
brother Ross had launched, earlier that year, what was to be the bestselling Guinness Book of Records. He was not going to pass up on this
opportunity to be involved in, potentially, the ‘Record of the Century’.
For those of us who remember that evening, the content of his
announcement is indelibly printed in our minds. “Event 9. One Mile. First;
R.G. Bannister (AAA) with a time which is a Ground Record, a British
Record, a British All-Comer’s Record, a European Record, a British Empire
Record and a World Record of three...” here another bit of basic
arithmetic kicks in of ‘four minus one is three’ and nothing more is heard
from the worthy Mr McWhirter as he is drowned out with cheering brought
on by more collective euphoria. I know it was only six-tenths of a second
under four minutes, but on so slender a margin hung so much rapture for
those fortunate to be at Iffley Road that day.
On such an illustrious day of athletics, it is only right to mention other
notable achievements. At about ten to six, a Ground, British National and
Empire Record was set by Mark Pharaoh of the AAA in the Discus of 163
feet, but his triumph was to be overshadowed by an event 15 minutes
down the line. In the Javelin, a Ground Record was set by Wilfred
Kretzschmar for the University of 214 feet. Although they fielded a strong
team, not all the events were won by the AAA. Ian Boyd took the half
mile in 1 m 54.7 s. Derek Johnson, a man of enormous stamina, ran the
220 yards to win in 22.4 sec and half an hour later returned a time of
48.0 sec for the quarter mile which was a Ground Record and only a tenth
of a second outside the British National Record. Johnson was to achieve
fame in the 1956 Olympic Games at Melbourne by being pipped at the
post for a Silver Medal in the 800 metres. The whole fixture covered just
over two hours. It is difficult to imagine a more action-packed session for
Athletics fans. And tremendous value for money! The only expenditure
was the sixpence (equivalent to about £1 in 2015 terms) in exchange for a
programme. There was no snack bar or equivalent at which to spend any
more cash!
31
Bannister celebrating his record sixty years later at Exeter College
Bannister’s World Record was soon to be challenged. His rival, John Landy
flew from Australia for Europe’s summer season. The venue was at Turku
in Finland in June. In the true spirit of amateur sportsmanship, Chris
Chataway agreed to run in the same race as a pacemaker. It was, one
assumes, run on a metric track necessitating a starting line 9.5 metres
behind the metric one. This, to my mind, takes some of the gloss from a
quarter mile circuit, but the runners must go to the track, not the other
way round. By all accounts the race was straightforward. Chataway did
what was expected from him, and Landy, who was in top form, crossed
the line at 3 min 58 sec, knocking 1.6 seconds off Bannister’s Oxford
time. In a way, no one was really surprised; Bannister sent his
congratulations, the flood gate had been opened and, at the time of
writing, over 2,000 sub 4-minute miles have been run.
This was to be Bannister’s last season as a competitive runner. Two
international events shaped the end of his career. In early August the
Empire Games (as they were still called) in Vancouver, Canada, followed
by the European Games in Berne, Switzerland.
32
The one-mile race in Vancouver set Bannister against Landy for the first,
and only, time. In reality, it was a two man race with each man seeking
to prove dominance. The race was simple to describe. Landy, a natural
front-runner in competition, led for the greater part; at the last bend of
the fourth lap, two questions are to be asked. For Landy; ’how far behind
is Bannister?’ For Bannister; ‘when do I strike past Landy?’ Landy turns his
head to the left hoping to find his opponent at a distance, but his answer
is ‘too close.’ For Bannister, sensing indecision in this gesture, his answer
is ‘now.’ Bannister surges past him and creates a two stride lead which
he maintains to the tape. His time is just short of Landy’s World Record.
But a record was established in that this was the first time two men had
run under four minutes!
The Berne race offered a totally different context and eleven runners,
each a potential winner. Bannister vividly describes every moment of the
1500 metres final in his book – jostling, elbows, pushing – it was more like
the Grand National! In fact one competitor fell and had to drop out. The
tactics were: don’t get boxed in, make sure you are well placed to move
on to a better place from which to strike for home at the precise
moment. Bannister’s planning and tactics were perfect. He won by a
couple of metres, but in a time slower than Stampfl clocked at Oxford.
If the Berne race was the Grand National, then the Oxford race was like
a team of Tour de France cyclists, cosseting and pacing their leader, to
release him for the line near the end.
Bannister had completed his Annus Mirabilis and moved on into an
illustrious career in Medicine and Academia.
33
Sir Roger Bannister in his annus mirabilis, 1954, meeting Sir Winston
Churchill
In retrospect the Oxford mile record symbolised the passing of an age in
all types of amateur sports – raincoats, trilbies, cloth caps, scarves and
the chief timekeeper with a pipe in his mouth! It was a halcyon period,
particularly in amateur athletics, but also other sports, unfettered by
34
aggressive competition, doping scandals, celebrity for the sake of
celebrity or the obscene wealth that comes with professional sport.
Dedicated to the memory of Brian Southam (d. 2010) who was with me
that evening in May 1954.
Read more on Oxford Today:
A short literary history of the vampire
Sleep off the trauma? That could be a mistake
Comments
By Anon on 20 November 2015
A fine article! Typo: "4 min 58 sec" should read "3 min 58 sec".
By Margaret Hokins on 20 November 2015
Hmm! Hmm! Don't you mean Landy ran the mile in THREE mins. 58 secs. ?
By Timothy keates on 20 November 2015
Very interesting article — also interesting to note how the past tense of
<lead> has now replaced <led> with <lead> pronounced like the metal Pb.
Copy, perhaps, to the author?
By Bill Robbins on 20 November 2015
One slight but significant amendment to McWhirter's announcement of
the result: "........with a time which, subject to ratification, is
a.............."
By Dan Levy on 20 November 2015
There's a typo in there. Landy's record in Finland was of course 3 -58, not
4-58.
By Melville Guest on 20 November 2015
An excellent article! Good to see such a fine picture of Sir Roger at
Exeter on 6 May 2014 where he enjoyed a celebratory lunch. Worth
adding that he showed exemplary stamina that same evening by coming
to Vincent's Club where he and others, including Chataway, had repaired
to celebrate the evening of his great feat. Last year he was there to
witness the presentation by the Vice-Chancellor of the first Vincent's
scholarships and bursaries to a small number of outstanding scholar
athletes.
35
By Irene Bainbridg... on 21 November 2015
Thank you for this excellent article. It brought back a memory of my first
term, cycling at great pace back to college, down the Iffley Road , with
resounding cheering in my ears. It was not long before I learned the
reason for it !
By Christopher Armitage on 22 November 2015
I can vouch for the accuracy in Roger Shakeshaft's essay "I Watched the
Four-minute Mile" because I too was there, taking time out from
cramming for Schools. My account is on page 139 in HALL: Memoirs of St
Edmund Hall Graduates, published by Farrand Press in 1989. I end by
describing McWhirter's dramatically drawn-out announcement of the time
" ' in three minutes' --the remaining numbers were lost in the tremendous
cheer from the few hundred present when the four-minute barrier had
finally been broken, and by an Oxford man on an Oxford track."
By Vivian Grisogono on 23 November 2015
A very welcome article, thank you.
You mention Derek Johnson, also a Lincoln man. As you rightly say, he
had a very successful athletic career - sadly curtailed by TB while he was
on medical practice. When the new sports stand was built in Iffley Road,
many years ago, the one picture of Derek in action was removed. He was
very hurt to think there was no commemoration of him at his alma mater.
I wonder if the omission has been made good in the intervening years?
Vivian Grisogono (St.Hugh's, 1968-72)
By John Browning on 24 November 2015
I always enjoy seeing photos of the event because many show the Iffley
Road annexe of Queen's (now known as the Cardno Building), my first
Oxford residence in 1968. There was little else to recommend this place.
By John Boyce on 26 November 2015
In 1954, when I was on active service in Suez, my parents paid probably
their only visit to the Iffley Road track. Their purpose was of course to
watch the attempt on the 4-minute mile. I later heard from them that
they had been there and they sent me a press photo (Oxford Mail)
showing them both near the finishing line.
36
Gunnar Nielsen and Roger Bannister, Bern 1954
It is sometimes said that you don’t win silver at great sport tournaments, but loose
gold. In the October issue of Oxford Today, Roger Shakeshaft (Lincoln 1953)
describes vividly his presence at Iffley Road, Oxford, 6th May 1954. For a six-pace
entrance fee (2.5 P) he watched Roger Bannister’s renowned break of the 4 min.
dream-mile barrier. Roger Shakeshaft’s catching recollection prompts some of us
old enough to revive some related 1950-memories.
At the time of Roger Bannister’s historical athlete performance, Denmark had a
world class middle distance runner, Gunnar Nielsen. As Roger Bannister’s, his
results peaked between two Olympic games, Helsinki 1952 and Melbourne 1956.
In Helsinki he took the fourth place in 800 m at 1.49.7, centimeters from the
bronze. He set the world record in 880 yards with 1.48.6 in Copenhagen 1954 and
equalized the 1500 m world record with 3.40.8 in Oslo 1955.
As vividly narrated by Roger Shakeshaft, twelve runners ran for the 1500 m final
at the 1954 European championships in Bern, all with a winning chance. Bannister
took the gold in 3.43.8, but how many remember now the others? Gunnar Nielsen
was in fact runner up in 3.44.4, new Danish record but “ages” slower than his
world record the following year.
In the 1954 Euro final Gunnar was hit by one of Bannister’s spike shoes during the
race. Blood seeped out, but Gunnar still made as runner up with a 0.6 second
margin. Bannister is said to have expressed regret after the race and the wish much
rather to have run in full and fair completion. Gunnar graciously responded that the
incident was surely a nuisance to him but that he felt that beating Bannister even
without this handicap would have been impossible. Two great sportsmen…
Roger Bannister retired from elite athletics just after the championships in favour
of a career in neurology. Gunnar Nielsen continued for another two years, often
plagued by illness and injuries, but still made it to equal the 1500 m world record
in 1955. He ran the dream mile in 3.59.2 in 1956, but now two years after Roger
Bannister’s first sub-four min race it was already old hat. He reached the 1956
olympic 1500 m final completing in 10th place out of 12 in a time almost five
seconds slower than his world record the year before. With 3.41.2 the winner, Ron
Delaney from Ireland was also slower than Gunnar Nielsen’s 1955 world record.
Gunnar Nielsen could fill the national athletic stadium, Østerbro stadium to the last
seat. Every single of the 6000 spectators would come for one reason, to see Gunnar
in action against other international world class runners. He was a pleasant and
37
well-liked person. By profession he was a typesetter with the leading Danish
national newspaper, Berlingske Tidende. Gunnar Nielsen took 13 Danish
championships and set 19 Danish records in 800-1500 middle distance races. Sadly
he caught leukemia and died in 1985 at the age of 57.
Jens Ulstrup (Univ. 1966)
From Elizabethann Burke Madsen (from last Bulletin but still valid):
Free Passport Renewal for Oldies
If you are a British citizen born before 2nd September 1929 you are entitled to a
free ten-year passport. This perk was introduced by Home Sec. David Blunket in
2004 as a reward for everyone who was over 15 at the end of the war.
You apply in the normal way, but just omit to send any payment with your
renewal application. If you have been charged for one since 19th May 2004 you
are entitled to a refund.
NEW ADDRESS FOR PASSPORT RENEWAL:
It seems just a moment ago I wrote to inform that the office for renewal of British
passports had moved to Düsseldorf, Germany.
Well, that has now changed – this time it is Liverpool, England! Renewal costs
£148, and you should allow four weeks for processing.
Go to the site:
https://www.gov.uk/overseas-passports/y/denmark/renewing_new/adult
Elizabethann Burke
38
Subject: What does it mean to be an Englishman ?
Very early joke for the next Bulletin? Regards from sunny Tenerife,
Elizabethann
One of the English national daily newspapers asked readers "What does it
mean to be English?"
Some of the emails were hilarious but this one from a chap in Switzerland
stood out:
"Being English is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian
beer, and then going home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on
the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American or Australian shows
on a Japanese or Korean TV, which will soon be powered by a Chinese
nuclear power station."
And the most English thing of all?
"Suspicion of anything foreign."
39
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BE Bulletins can be read on our home page: www.briteuro.dk
oOo
THE BRITISH EUROPEAN (ISSN 1604-5025)
www.briteuro.dk
The BE bulletin is produced by The British European Association. (Assoc. Reg. No. 4479)
President: Valerie Kristiansen, e-mail: [email protected]
Treasurer and editor: Bent Kristiansen
Meetings and socials: to be determined
Co-ordinator: Monty London
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Bulletin Editor: Bent Kristiansen [email protected]
Other Core Members: Joe McKernan
40

The British European Association

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