The War That Never Was!

Scilly Isles off the Cornish coast

30 years ago today, the 335 Years’ War between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly ended with a peace treaty being signed. This war had been long forgotten and many people regarded it as a myth until historical records were unearthed showing they were technically still at war.

The origins of the conflict can be found in the mid-17^th century with the Second English Civil War, fought between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians.

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell had managed to push the Royalists out to the edges of the kingdom, leaving Cornwall as the last patriotic stronghold, but in 1648 a further advance sent the Royalist Navy to retreat out to the Isles of Scilly (off the Cornish coast).

Meanwhile after being assisted by the English on numerous previous occasions throughout the Eighty years war, the Netherlands decided to maintain their alliance by entering the conflict on the side of Cromwell and the Parliamentarians, after identifying them as the most likely victors. This act infuriated the Royalists who considered themselves as their long term allies, causing them to avenge their former friends by raiding Dutch shipping lanes in the English Channel.

Admiral Tromp

In 1651 the Dutch, seeking an opportunity to recoup losses incurred from Royalist raids, sent a fleet of 12 warships to the Isles of Scilly to demand reparations. After receiving no satisfactory answer from the Royalists, the Dutch Admiral Maarten Tromp subsequently declared war on the Isles of Scilly on the 30th March 1651.

3 months later in June 1651, Cromwell’s army forced a Royalist surrender reverting the Islands back to Parliamentarian control and subsequently the Dutch fleet sailed home forgetting to ever declare peace with the Scilly Isles.

Netherlands Embassy

In 1985 a Scillonian historian Roy Duncan wrote to the Dutch embassy in London in an attempt to clear up a long talked about myth of a war. Imagine the shock on both sides when they came across a number of documents suggesting the two were still technically at war with each other.

Consequently Dutch ambassador Rein Huydecoper was invited to visit the Islands and peace was finally declared by the signing of a treaty on 17 April 1986, 335 years after the "hostilities" began.

Helen Rollason

Every year at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) ceremony, there is an award given "for outstanding achievement in the face of adversity". This award is named after the former BBC sports presenter and journalist Helen Rollason, who died in August 1999 after a 2 year battle with cancer of the colon, spreading to her liver.

After her diagnosis, she helped raise over £5m to set up a cancer wing at the North Middlesex Hospital where she received much of her treatment.

Recipients of the award include the likes of horse racing trainer Jenny Pitman, Paralympian sprinter Oscar Pistorius, boxer Michael Watson, snooker player Paul Hunter and Grand National winning jockey Bob Champion.

Helen would have been celebrating her 60^th birthday today (11^th March 2016)

RIP January 2016

Glenn Frey

January 2016 has rapidly come to a close and it is noticeable how many celebrities have left us during the month.

Amongst others, these have included:

Actors, Alan Rickman 69 (Harry Potter, Die Hard, Love Actually - pancreatic cancer), Dan Haggerty 74 (The Life and Times of Grizzy Adams - spinal cancer) and

Frank Finlay 89 (Bouquet of Barbed Wire - undisclosed causes).

Musicians, David Bowie 69 (liver cancer), Glenn Frey 67 (Eagles - complications following intestinal surgery and Paul Kantner 74 (Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship – multiple organ failure.

Earlier in the month British disc-jockey and radio broadcaster Ed Stewart died aged 74  after suffering a stroke, and today the sad news has broken of the passing of Irish-British radio and TV broadcasting legend, Sir Terry Wogan at the age of 77, after a short battle with cancer.

I always put Sir Terry in the same bracket as Cilla Black (who left us in the latter half of 2015). Both were UK TV/Radio institutions, with Cilla being the face of ITV and Sir Terry performing a similar duty with the BBC. Both of them were greatly loved, seemed perfectly at home with all sections of the population and were reportedly genuinely nice people.

 Cilla interviewed by Sir Terry

I grew up listening to Sir Terry on radio and watching him on TV. No-one is immortal, but you always had this notion that he would be around forever and even his colleagues on BBC Radio 2 were expecting his return to his Sunday morning programme next month.

The fact that he pulled out at the last minute of last November’s BBC Children in Need appeal on TV maybe should have brought about an idea that he was not in the best of health, but until today there would not have been too many people who wouldn’t have expected him to front the 2016 appeal.

January 2016 has been a sad month for many reasons and this has certainly not been improved by the loss of Sir Terry Wogan. RIP.

30 Years Since the Death of Phil Lynott

On 4^th January, it will be the 30^th anniversary of the death of Irish musician Phil Lynott, best remembered as lead singer and bass guitarist of the rock band “Thin Lizzy”.

Philip Parris Lynott, although being Irish, was actually born in the UK at Hallam Hospital (now Sandwell General), West Bromwich on the 20^th August 1949. After initially living in the West Midlands and then moving to Manchester, at the age of 4 he went to live with his maternal grandmother in Dublin where he had a happy childhood and was allegedly popular at school.

With early musical influences mysteriously including Tamla Motown and the Mamas and the Papas, he started out in 1965 as a lead singer for a Dublin based, covers band called the Black Eagles. After playing with other locally based bands for the next few years, late in 1969 he along with 3 friends formed the band Thin Lizzy (the name coming from a character in the Dandy comic called Tin Lizzie, which in turn was a nickname for a Ford Model T car).

Whiskey in the Jar 

After supporting Slade on tour in 1972, their first top ten hit came a year later with the release of a version of the traditional Irish folk song “Whiskey in the Jar”. After a quiet follow-on period without charting, the band returned with a changed line-up and enjoyed monumental success in 1976 with their biggest hit “The Boys are Back in Town”.

By the early 1980s, the band was struggling commercially, not helped by Lynott suffering from both asthma attacks and symptoms caused by heroin use. Thin Lizzy was disbanded in 1983, while Phil went on to work with artists such as Roy Wood, Chas Hodges, Huey Lewis and former Thin Lizzy bandmate Gary Moore.

Suffering from alcohol and heroin dependency in his later years, Lynott collapsed on Christmas Day 1985 at his home in West London. After being taken to a drug clinic in Warminster, Wiltshire, he was further admitted to Salisbury Infermary, where he died of pneumonia and heart failure due to septicaemia, on 4^th January 1986 at the age of 36.

He was interred at St Fintan’s Cemetery in Sutton, northeast Dublin and in 2005 a life sized bronze statue of the musician was unveiled in Harry street (off Grafton Street) in Dublin.

The Anglo-Irish Agreement - 30 Years On.

Margaret Thatcher

It was 30 years ago today (15th November 1985), the Anglo-Irish agreement was signed which gave Dublin a consultative role in the affairs of Northern Ireland for the first time in over 60 years. The British Prime Minister at the time Margaret Thatcher considered it a pathway to bringing an end to violence in the province.

Garrett FitzGerald

Signed by Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach Garrett FitzGerald at Hillsborough Castle, Co Down, it set up a framework for consultation between both governments to discuss matters pertaining to and within Northern Ireland. 

The agreement was bitterly opposed by the Unionists, whose MPs all resigned their seats at Westminster as a protest. It was also rejected by the Republican faction because of its confirmation of Northern Ireland’s continuing status as part of the UK.

In the short-term it failed to bring about a relief to the political violence in the province. However over a period of time it did bring about improvements in relations between the British and Irish governments, becoming a stepping-stone to the Good Friday Agreement 13 years later.

George Bernard Shaw

Shaw in 1936

Monday 2^nd November 2015 sees the 65^th anniversary of the death of Irish playwright and literary critic, George Bernard Shaw.

Best remembered for Pygmalion (the story of which became the musical My Fair Lady) and Major Barbara, he penned in excess of 60 plays, ranging from purely satirical works to historical allegory pieces. He became arguably, the most important English language playwright since the 17^th Century.

Born in Dublin in 1856, he won the 1925 Nobel Prize for Literature along with an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (Pygmalion) 13 years later. He refused all other offers of awards including that of a Knighthood.

He was also one of the founders of the London School of Economics in 1895 when he and fellow Fabian Society members Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb and Graham Wallas set up the institution for what they considered to be the “betterment of society” (the Fabian Society itself was set up by the Webbs, HG Wells and GBS, being a group promoting non-Marxist evolutionary socialism).

Frontage of Shaw's Corner

He died at the grand age of 94 of renal failure, brought about from injuries received after falling when attempting to prune a tree. 

His home, now called Shaw's Corner in the small village of Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire, close to Harpenden and Welwyn Garden City, is now a National Trust property and well worth a visit.

Goodbye Sir!

I was sad to read in today’s paper of the death of actor Richard Davies (pictured right, with co-star John Alderton).

For anyone like me who is something of a connoisseur (or should that be an anorak) of 60s, 70s and 80s TV shows and sitcoms, Davies is best remembered as Mr Price, the Welsh Science teacher in London Weekend TV’s Please Sir, which initially aired in the late 60s to early 70s.

Starring such infamous sitcom actors as John Alderton, Deryck Guyler and Joan Sanderson, Please Sir was based at a fictional school in London’s Fenn Street and it took in the antics of both teachers and pupils in the school. It ran on TV for 55 episodes, spinning off into a separate sitcom called the Fenn Street Gang. The original show also found its way on to the big screen in 1971.

Initially from Merthyr Tydfill, Richard Davies went down the pit at the age of 14 and when training to join the military police in the 2^nd World War, was moved into an entertainment unit.

He was a regular visitor to our TV screens over the years appearing in favourite shows such as Coronation Street, Fawlty Towers, 2 Point 4 Children and Oh No, it’s Selwyn Froggitt. He is also fondly remembered for his role of Private Jones in the silver screen blockbuster Zulu.

In recent years he had been suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and passed away aged 89, survived by his wife and 3 children.

Did you know?

1. Peter Cleall, who played student Eric Duffy in the original Please Sir sitcom is now 71 years old. That is just 3 years younger than John Alderton, who played Bernard Hedges, the teacher of class 5C, who is now 74.

2. David Barry, who played the self styled gum chewing tough guy Frankie Abbott, who was really something of a “mummy’s boy”, is now a successful author of numerous novels such as Each Man Kills, Flashback and Willie The Actor (click here for link to David's Amazon page).