Episode 1: Dunkirk or Devil-May-Care

The shadow of the lion.

Emerging from a memorable immovable palace. Britain today faces

the formidable task of defining the future.

And this is our story a story of truth for no longer

stands can tell a lie and a deceptive his shadow is but an

apparition. You did yesterday his profile.

Mrs..

Temple transmission. Heard in London's comedy street in

Coventry in Oxford and. Rhythm

of a new revolution in Britain.

Programme one Dunkirk or devil may care.

From an Indiana University Radio documented essay about contemporary

Britain. We present the shadow of the lion with William Kinzer

as your net writer.

Most Americans feel quite close to Britain. Many of our beginnings

begin there and the scars of those bitter rebellious

beginnings have since been healed by history leaving only a page or so to

chronicle the time and the lasting trust of common ties.

We speak the same language for instance.

I haven't noticed how genes get in next door. I love she said.

And I dads are always mouthing about spending as Braff down the

problem. But then I want to be done about it. Now I have brought up about young Jimmy

because I'm doing very well.

Oh OK well we thought we

spoke the same language although we are often reminded of Oscar Wilde who said

in these words we empathy Americans have much in common but there is

always the language barrier. Yet we do find ourselves

together on most things thinking the same thoughts harboring the same

concerns were their lives. But time has made us

individuals too and we're often surprised at how little we

know about each other.

The American tourist he jets in from Albuquerque Sioux City or Brooklyn

he steps from the plane in stereo type camera. Credit cards.

Yankee confidence. He shudders in the damp drizzle that is stereotyped

dumdum shuttering also at the prospect of seeing Europe him two

weeks. But he's game. He stays at the Regent Palace

perhaps wanders about Piccadilly Circus walks up Oxford Street sees

the conventional sights Big Ben St. Paul's Buckingham Palace

in three in lot of days he will have mastered a planked you know a real English

pub written with a double decker bus. Bought a few souvenirs

seemed the changing of the guard and fed the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.

He would depart with distinct opinions of what the English are like what the

future of Britain will be and he will carefully catalogue his

impressions with color slides for the weekly Rotary Club meeting back

home.

But mark you.

Britain is more than can be seen from London's tallest spire the new

GPO tower.

The past room beauty of Britain using proceed all the way

from the wild spree of the Cornish coast.

True the Highland Park of Brigadoon country.

The forever green fields cross hatched by here drillers defied the

simple statistic that more than 52 million people

inhabit some ninety three thousand square miles of land.

Now we're tired out and we've gotten a lot of green space left it sometimes looks as if the whole country

is a garden if you see it from the air. By comparison with the United States or

Australia but there is an awful lot of country left. You can

find villages within 30 miles of London that are still

very little changed from 200 years ago.

Norman Mackenzie is sociologist University of Sussex but now

look beyond the steepled horizon of the country village across the urban

skyline into the hearts and minds of the people.

See for yourself. See the evolution of change. Norman

McKenzie tells it all.

I think the old image of the stuffed shirt Englishman Bob

Hope's famous example of the reading vision or looking up at his rallies making

love to a girl and saying pucker my lips mother and see this picture of

you know the hour of period type and there was something in it of an upper class.

Picture. I think that what's been happening in England in the post-war

years I'm ready to think first of all there's been a big change in the

position of the working class in England. What I might loosely call working class

patterns of life have changed very considerably with increases in

prosperity in better housing better welfare provision more enjoying

employment things of this kind. And you've got a rise of

a whole new section of the population into types of activity which were never available to

them before including education. I think this is one big change I think the other one is the

change among young people. I'm a person who grew up in

the period between the two wars and I think that if I look at young

people today they are very different particularly if one looks at students who

have a great deal to do with their much lived there. I think that much righter in their

interests. I think a much less hidebound much less conservative. Indeed the

criticism of many people today would be not that the English are stuffed shirt

people but there are blue jeans and bearded people and that young people are increasingly setting

the tone.

It's true aristocratic English has been overwhelmed by the

eccentricity index. On top of the modern age it's the thing it's

everywhere. The opulence of them pop the minister Amir still beat the

way out influence on Carnaby Street.

It's everywhere.

But yet there is truth also in the contention that the British are

reserved. You can see that too. It's a treat deeply ingrained in

their existence. Living closely as they do the English are born to

respect the rights and the privacy of others. For instance you can

travel the length of England in a train say from Manchester to London and

sit among six strangers in a compartment and likely as not no effort will

be made to strike an acquaintance. The end tire trip of three to four hours

may be made in absolute silence and the English character I think

is that of not not wanting to present a picture of brashness.

Of loud mouth they have been so odd and I think that. The enjoyment certainly is

reserved and as the Germans probably say little whore I have little high

meaning that one holds one head how I think I was once proud of being a British or

as a secretary to the Bradford Council of Social Services. Urban Scot is

a good judge of character in the English comics I think it is a product

of his education of his early childhood he's always taught that he must

behave himself as an Englishman ought to have.

I'm the cricket field or in the classroom English character is being

molded and to what end.

They're very conceited people in this especially the English middle and

upper classes. The training that they get in what a core public school right is you

know private schools not your not in your sense about private schools.

The training that they get in these schools is calculated to make them feel that

they are a sort of elite that that the lords of creation

Malcolm Muggeridge who enjoys ripping the rug from beneath British

complacency and does it certainly in conceit. This was

extremely useful when we had an empire.

Because if you are ruling a country you were very few and that many

when when we ruled India the 400 million Indians and were never more than ten

thousand. In these people that they kept

it was necessary that they should have the temperament.

But now of course it becomes increasingly absurd.

The former editor of punch and present day author television

personality sits in his book lined study and expresses an opinion

about the constitution of his country when the English are very

proud. Malcolm Muggeridge will tell you. But their pride doesn't always stand

the test of changed circumstances. And in this

precarious age of commerce and economic survival many changes

must occur. What to them is the British attitude

toward change.

They have been in the past the deep conservative people have said they don't like changing in the

things they drive on the left hand side of the road. This is the most

ridiculous thing to do. It leads to even cost lives

because this now is more and more English people take their motor cars the

continent where everybody drives on the right hand side of the road.

It even this absurd mania for going on driving on the left actually costs

lives. Their refusal until now to adopt the metric system

I should say that the absurd tables and things that we have to learn as children

through our mandate and measures and things like that probably add without exaggeration some

six months. Through the process of being

educated they cling to these things. The kind of idiot tenacity

which you go with in a way part of their conceit the feeling that if we do it that way that must be the best

way to do it.

But as Britain struggles to regain her poise in the vortex of

economic emergency her leaders cry out for things to be done

better than ever. In a world of intense competition

efficiency is an essential key to survival. Yet it's

difficult to awaken the people to the realities of the day since they

exist in a peculiar paradox of dire circumstances on one hand

and on equal affluence on the other. What are the

realities you ask Paul Burrell. He's editor of the statist one

of Britain's leading business and economics periodicals.

My experience of course goes back to well before the wrong.

Guy who played the great comfort of a cat in the economic climate

and economic attitude in this country.

But there should be full employment. This is something which

emerged out of a crisis of the 1920s and 1930s.

It's history how the industrial dilemmas of Britain converged in the

general strike of 1926. The incident began

with the coal miners strike soon followed in sympathy by other unions.

The event in consequential in its immediate outcome left many

bitter memories and an indelible creed for the English working man.

Never again he vowed never again would the labor suffer

or sink so low when the good day issues of human dignity. And

so we emerged in England the hard core philosophy and formidable

strength of organized labor.

The British record to me. You've got trade union

jump onto the brain and he can't get away from it.

The power of the trade union treads easily invisibly through

the corridors of government through committees board or come to meetings

only occasionally now does it erupt into violence or vented dispute

but stoppages still reminded them nation of the elevated

status of the British worker. No the worker enjoys of

fools paradise of full employment and an equal compensation.

This every Briton knows the working man now in a year is giving an

engine out of Rocky Mountain each second of the eight being a big person to be

a definite action really to go out. Again a distinction between a working man and a upper

class but now. The working man found him

working conditions and living conditions no wages and far.

From it. Back in action no matter what I continue to go that they're getting a look into the upperclassman.

I don't think I missed that command ever being better off in this

life.

Ordinary lucky man but unfortunately todays worker is

living beyond his nation's means.

Economist Paul Barrow explains the more supply and demand can

be made overnight and the wages and

costs have gone up and that we have downfall that is one of the things we have

Balfour handed great very difficult battlement

international payments. We have tended to import too much. We have

unbalanced tended to export too little and we have been in the balance of payment

difficulties.

Ironically it's a Labor government caught in conflict between the boy and hopes of the

laboring class and the economic undertow of the country. Prime minister

Harold Wilson has never been free to advance the idiology of his party

treading a thin line of support and the perilous path of a month stable

pound Britain's leader has gamely tried to exhort countryman and ally

alike to rally to the cause. Inevitably the British worker became

a focal point of concern. After all wages had risen two and a half

times faster than productivity. Something had to be done to curb a

trend that had priced many British goods out of the world market and brought

inflation at home and it threatened the value of the pound sterling.

Almost everything would be tried a freeze on wages prices and dividends

or restricted military commitment an increase in taxes but to

no avail at 9:33 a cold foggy Saturday

evening of November 967. The word was to be released

the moment many feared came by way of a brief bulletin that interrupted the

Doris Day movies. BBC Britain had at last been forced

to devalue the palm.

Reaction was mixed. The people yes. The world was shocked

but somehow life seemed to go on with the same doubt. Decision

in differences before and while the press and the politicians presided over

Britain's fate the people remained hopeful and didn't shake him

against a veneer of gay irresponsible vitality. The British

scene is a mixed euro mild concern and confused inertia.

But this isn't the first time the British have been on the edge of

uncertainty that people can only be

executives when they when a

crisis arise.

Malcolm Muggeridge would remind you that only until the Nazis were at the Channel

ports did the English fully acknowledge the seriousness of their position

in World War Two.

Then to their credit they were able to deal with the situation without

panicking or losing heart.

Though the proud moments the gilded glowing

hours of endless courage the genesis of heroes and the commonplace

acts of inspiration that welded a nation into one

Dunkirk remembered defeat turned into victory by

dawn as Tweed suited or cloth capped amateurs drawing to the

professionals at the beach. It was everyone's war

and tiny Turnell spent in dark and damp shelters and the

mornings of rubble and smoke and death

and still the indomitable will hail and one for the

British the admiration and respect of all

including the enemy for try as he might he couldn't

conquer the invincible spirit.

When the bubbly personality of people around us

didn't know what to do for a few days they soon got a cross

coming on shore

and the case didn't.

Last week.

And the council started dancing in the pool.

My particular corner of the fire that it

became a beacon

on the pavement and.

I mean and

he and the young

man came my mom

and I.

You are releasing a very.

Very

rash. Do you know why and I just think

it was a chair and I

didn't shout standing in the dead wearing white

and writing class.

From the archives of the BBC voices

reliving the hallmark of human courage the spirit of

Britain and of there are many who can not stand

you or indeed hearken back to better days of dignity and purpose.

And they would wish for an encore the United struggle the all out

effort the Dunkirk spirit. But

somehow sadly it's missing.

I put that out there of your with

deep regret. I am despondent at

the position we find ourselves in in Great Britain the present time. And I

think a very large number of my countrymen share this feel. JM Slater

sales executive expresses an Englishman's feel I'm one of the

many who fully appreciate that our role in the world is one of diminishing

influence. Inevitably the days of our empire have come to an

end and I think nine out of 10 Englishman accept that that

that man coin has one daughter or of course as you and I

well of as far as I can see now descended upon the United States.

What I deprecate about the country is that at the end of the

war when we had such a golden moment when our name stood so

high throughout the world had we worked harder and

industrial and justice for a few years after that

we would have been today in an unassailable position. Unhappily

we tended for many reasons. To sit

back and we gradually seem to take on a philosopher

that the world owed as a living. And unfortunately as far as I can see

in this country that Outlook still prevails today although I think

that with this present crisis that people emerging from this

war sleep and now well Malcolm Muggeridge well

join.

We need irresponsibility.

But look. The shadow of the lion is the silhouette of change.

And whether subtle or obvious. It's everywhere. In

education. The church in the hole. In the

architecture and the arts in miles and motorway and teeming

traffic. In planning and production. In the people.

Yes. Britain can never again be the Britain of a cherished

bygone era. Class lines are clumped. The youths are emerging.

From aristocratic and the management have risen to the fore. Triumph by

technology is the creed of the coming age.

Even Buckingham Palace has called in efficiency experts. Britain

is on the brink of transition and it isn't easy

for change comes hard in a land so deeply endowed with tradition.

On the one hand Britons are alarmed at the insidious encroachments of

modern evils. On the other they are eager to embrace that

comfort and convenience of a bright new world of consumer products.

And so they exist in a skewed toward environment desiring the

best of both worlds. Change though is

inevitable. It's essential if we want things to stay

as they are. Someone once wrote things will have to

change. Recasting old ways can be a tedious and

ticklish task nevertheless. No one knows better than Lord Beeching.

He's the revolutionary who reshaped the British railways into an almost paying

proposition by ruthlessly stripping them of their redundancy.

Now that with ICICI the Imperial chemical industries one of

Britain's largest corporations as Deputy Chairman of the board Lord

Beeching pauses to ponder Britain's rising standard of living.

We have achieved this growth in so doing to a large extent

by continuing to behave as we've always behaved and to

achieve a much higher rate of growth instead of living which we want. I think

we've got to start to behave quite differently.

It's difficult to behave differently weaned on the benefits of a

welfare state nourished in the affluence of material

prosperity. Britain see little need to change except

through as they see the world around them changing. But suddenly the

austere complacency of the establishment has been shaken by the shock

troops of pop culture by the paragons of advertising

of commercialism by the pressures from Europe and America and by the

influx of immigrants and the influence of changing values.

Britain today is taking inventory and

this is our story a story of agonizing self-analysis

and a constant search for a new resolve.

Let the country go back a few years to over Wall

get that kind of grit and get our teeth into this thing and work our

passage.

From Indiana University Radio we have presented dumb Turk or devil may

care program one in a special series of documented essays

about contemporary Britain entitled The shadow of the lion

as written and produced by Lou Roy Gutman. The narrator was William

Kinzer production assistant was John Hopkins the engineer Phil

Murphy program consultant Jeremy ward one time

excerpts were used by special permission from the British Broadcasting Corporation

John Dimmock speaking.

Shadow of the lion has been a series made possible by an Indiana University

faculty research grant.

And there's a presentation of Indiana University Radio.

This is the national educational radio network.