Forget all the rhetoric – political and otherwise – about citizenship and being an active citizen, the harsh reality of being British has again come to the fore.
To celebrate the 50th birthday of the BBC children’s programme ‘Blue Peter‘ – the first edition broadcast on 16th October 1958 – the Queen arranged to host a party for many of the show’s former presenters.
One of those invited was the legendary John Noakes, now aged 74. However Noakes turned down the invitation, citing his long-running feud with former producer Biddy Baxter as the reason why. With this, Noakes was issued with a royal summons insisting that he attend.
So worried about this were the BBC that they were on the verge of sending an emissary to Majorca where Noakes and his wife currently live to ensure that he participated. Consequently, Noakes duly obliged and on attending the Buckingham Palace bash, was reunited with former co-presenters Valerie Singleton and Peter Purves.
The moral of this story…???
It serves to remind us that despite the fact that we tend to go along with the fact that we are ‘British citizens’, we remain ‘subjects’ of the Queen instead.
The perfect example of an equal and equitable society…!!!
This work by Chris Allen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Based on a work at www.chris-allen.co.uk.
Discussion
No comments yet.