A few weeks ago I was on a ferry travelling from Cadiz in southern Spain to the Canary Islands. The date was October 26, the weather was warm and calm and a brief look at our intended course showed that we would be passing through waters that have had a significant effect on our country's history. For it was here that, 216 years and 5 days from the moment I was looking out at the blue Atlantic, a British fleet under the command of Admiral Lord Nelson soundly defeated a combined (and larger) French and Spanish fleet under Admiral Villeneuve.
Just another battle and another date for schoolchildren to remember? It was so much more than that. Up to that point the French tyrant, Napoleon Bonaparte had had ambitions to invade England and had he succeeded in this our subsequent history could have been so different.
However, he needed command of the sea to ensure safe crossing of the English Channel for his troops, and to get that he needed to neutralise the Royal Navy. Nelson's victory and the complete destruction of the enemy fleet ensured that he would never get the control he required and invasion plans were abandoned. 10 years later Bonaparte was defeated and in exile and the period of nearly 100 years of 'Pax Britannia' began.
As a strategic port on the south coast, Rye was in the front line, and with limited defence troops on home soil an invasion by the French would almost certainly have resulted in a sacking similar or worse than that of 1377, so we have Nelson to thank for the preservation of so much that we love about our town.
This, therefore, was a vitally important victory. When I was young, October 21 was always celebrated as 'Trafalgar Day' and its significance remembered. And yet, looking in my diary I see that while dates such as International Women's Day and United Nations Day (whatever they may mean) are noted by the publishers, Trafalgar Day is ignored.
To add further ingratitude, we now see that one of our greatest heroes is in danger of being 'cancelled' by the woke lefty mob because he did not openly support the campaign to abolish slavery. Hardly surprising as he was a naval officer whose ships were manned in part by impressed men - ordinary citizens swept of the streets by the press gang and only one stage removed from slavery. In addition slavery had been around for thousands of years (for example, who built the pyramids? Unionised Egyptian labour - hardly) and, rightly or wrongly, was part of life at that time when there were very different views to those of today on race and the value of life.
We should not forget that not all slaves fitted the black stereotype. White slavery, too, had been around for almost as long, and indeed the Barbary pirates from north Africa even invaded the West Country carrying off whole villages into slavery in their country and to be sold eastwards. This only stopped when in the early 19th century a British fleet was sent to destroy them.
Wokery in all its guises, and led by individuals, largely from the left, who will brook no argument regarding their views and who seem to think that those of us who are descended from the indigenous inhabitants of this land (i.e. the vast majority of us) should apologise for being who we are, are not only wrong and, frankly stupid (and I don't care how many eminent university professors come into this category - they are the worst, for they should know better and therefore have no excuse), but are doing this country an enormous disservice.
Our heroes and role models are important, our children should be taught about them, they should be held in high esteem for their achievements which, in turn, should be regarded in the light of the times in which they lived, and not by the misguided actions of today's thought police.
