SPRINGBOK CYBER NEWSLETTER
September 2018 edition
There has been something grotesquely sickening about the Labour Party uinder the leadership of the unspeakable Jeremy Corbyn. This has not so much been because of the vile anti-Semitism which has emerged in its ranks from the swamp, but more because of the total hypocrisy of those vomiting out such poison.
It is a truism that to the liberal-left for much of the 20th century all criticism or antagonism towards any non-White ethnic group has always been met with a Pavlovian reaction of condemnation and parrot-cries of “racism”, “xenophobia” and “hatred” etc., etc., but conversely they themselves now seem to have no inhibitions about voicing these same criticism and antagonism towards one particular basically White ethnic group – the Jewish people. Their hypocrisy is breath-taking.
Those who were aware of the full facts concerning South Africa’s battle for survival during the 1980s knew that the State of Israel was South Africa’s best and most reliable overseas friend, and that the two civilised Western nations both battling against the evils of international terrorism enjoyed close military, trading, technological and security co-operation. To be sure, there was a small clique on of self-hating Jews such as Joe Slovo and Helen Joseph who sided with the ANC terrorists (as indeed there were probably larger cliques of self-hating Afrikaners and self-hating British-South Africans who did similarly), but the vast majority of Jewish South Africans realised which side they should be on and sided with those who battled for the preservation of civilised rule in South Africa accordingly, as the high number of Jewish people who supported the Conservative Party well illustrates. Is it any wonder therefore that the anti-South Africans of Corbyn’s Labour Party should harbour such hatred for another ethnic group which is proud of its own identity?
One particularly bizarre outcome of Corbyn’s rabid anti-Semitism (or anti-Zionism as he euphemistically calls it – common code for those too cowardly to admit openly their paranoid hatred for the Jewish people as a whole) has been the support which he has been receiving on this issue from David Duke, the leader of one faction of the Ku Klux Klan. Under normal circumstances any person or organisation receiving support from the Ku Klux Klan would immediately be subject to fierce and prolonged condemnation by the united forces of the liberal-left, but in Corbyn’s case there has been hardly a whisper. This of course contrasts starkly with the attacks which our movement received when a false rumour was spread by The Guardian newspaper and other media outlets that one of our early stalwart members, the late and great Bill Binding, had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan (Bill Binding actually never set foot in the United States during his entire life!). Again the hypocrisy is breath-taking.
The desire of the Jewish people in Israel to develop separately from their Palestinian Arab neighbours, and thereby to protect their ancient and distinct culture and religion, is of course quite natural and to be applauded. We realise of course why, given its near universal pariah status, the word “apartheid” is always avoided and objected to, but what is the “two state solution” – which seems to be fully supported by practically all international powers – other than a system of apartheid on a grand scale?
On a similar theme, in his otherwise excellent speech condemning the reprehensible rise of anti-Semitism within Corbyn’s Labour Party, it was most unfortunate that former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks chose also to condemn Enoch Powell’s prophetic “Rivers of Blood” speech of 1968. Rabbi Sacks should surely ponder that not only did Enoch Powell enlist in the ranks voluntarily to fight against the scourge of anti-Semitic Naziism at the very start of WWII (something which he later described as the single most important act of his life), but also that if his warnings had been heeded then there would not have been the subsequent Islamic invasion into the UK and so the spectre of anti-Semitism would never have been able to rise its ugly head – and in all probability there would therefore never have been any possibility of Jeremy Corbyn becoming Labour leader.
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SPRINGBOK CLUB NEWS
The Springbok Club staged a trip to the British Library last month in order to view a special exhibition being held there about Capt. James Cook entitled “James Cook: The Voyages”. This proved a highly enjoyable and informative trip, and as a result much was learnt about this great British explorer. There were alas a few concessions to “political correctness” in this exhibition, but encouragingly somewhat fewer than have been observed in other similar exhibitions staged in London during recent years. Following the visit to this exhibition the Springbok Club party adjourned to a near-by hostelry for convivial discussions about what they had just seen, and also to plan future Springbok Club activities.
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Unfortunately, as all supporters probably by now know, this year’s planned staging of the annual “Raising of the Flag” ceremony at its traditional venue in Southrepps, Norfolk, has had to be cancelled. This has been because the necessary repair and refurbishment work at Southrepps Hall has proved to be far more extensive than was originally anticipated. Two important decisions have however been made and agreed upon which will ensure the continuity of this important and inspiring event:-
1) As the repair work at Southrepps Hall will definitely be completed by September 2019, the ceremony will therefore be "back to normal" at its traditional venue from that year onwards. The 2019 event will therefore take place at Southrepps Hall on Sunday 15th September 2019, and this will be the ceremony to be staged in special memory and honour of Peter Sladden. We ask everyone therefore to please diarise this date NOW!.
2) As we believe that it is important for continuity reasons that some form of "Raising of the Flag" ceremony still takes place this year, we are now therefore busily attempting to procure an alternative venue When finalised this event will undoubtedly be somewhat lower-key than normal, and as further planning will of course be required it will therefore we taking place a bit later than the original planned date of 16th September, perhaps in conjunction with the Springbok Club’s annual UDI Day celebration. If anyone can provide or suggest an alternative venue for this year’s event then please let us know. Needless to say, details about the replacement event for 2018 will be included in future editions of the SCN once finalised.
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In October the Springbok Club will be joining forces with the Patriotic Forum in order to stage a belated celebration of Gibraltar Day, which will feature a special tribute to the memory of Les Hompstead (whose obituary appears below). Full details will of course be given in next month’s SCN.
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PATRIOTIC FORUM NEWS
The Patriotic Forum will be staging a most interesting meeting later this month, the details of which are as follows :-
Date : Tuesday 18th September 2018
Time : 18.30 hrs for 19.00 hrs
Venue : The Antelope (the upstairs "Snug Room"), 22 Eaton Terrace, Belgravia, London SW1W 8EZ (nearest tube station: Sloane Square).
Guest Speaker : Mr. BOB VINNICOMBE from Sydney, Australia.
Bob Vinnicombe is a long-standing supporter of the Swinton Circle/Patriotic Forum, and has often spoken for us in the past about the current situation in Australia during his regular trips to the UK. His talks have always proved most enthralling and popular, and as many of our supporters have expressed great interest in the recent fascinating Australian Prime Ministerial tussle we have therefore asked him to speak specifically about his first-hand knowledge of what has being going on within Australian governmental circles, and his personal impressions of Scott Morrison.
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As mentioned above, the Patriotic Forum will be joining forces with the Springbok Club in order to hold a belated celebration of Gibraltar Day in October, and in November will be holding a meeting where the guest speaker will be a leading Brexit campaigner with strong US political connections who lectured extensively in the US about the global significance of Britain’s leaving of the EU. The Patriotic Forum also plans to stage a special event to celebrate Falklands Islands Battle Day in December. Further details about all these activities will of course be given in future editions of the SCN.
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MESSAGE FROM THE NETWORK FOR ANIMALS
We have recently received the following most uplifting message from the Network for Animals organisation. Although the story itself is very encouraging, the terrible background it portrays still illustrates the disastrous descent into chaos which has taken place in the “new” South Africa. The message reads as follows :-
“A little while ago, we told you the story of Mr. Kindly, Shaygam Newman, who lovingly cares for street dogs in Hangberg, South Africa, a dreadfully poor community of 28,000 people near Cape Town, where dogs’ lives can be horrible, harsh and short.
“Last year, Network for Animals started guiding Shaygam on how to help dogs more effectively. He now feeds and rescues many of the community’s animals.
“It is deadly dangerous work. Grinding poverty and lawlessness mean that riots are commonplace in Hangberg; the area is a base for cruel gangsters who do terrible things to dogs.
“Many of the dogs Shaygam saves faced ending up torn to pieces in dog fighting pits.
“The gangsters see dogs as expendable commodities to be exploited for profit. These horrible people torture dogs, starve them, lock them up in a small cage for months at a time, before throwing them into a pit to be torn to death by dogs trained to do just that.
“Shaygam can’t fight the gangsters alone, so he teaches people kindness to animals and uses every penny he can scrape together to patrol and protect the area’s animals, providing food, love and care. He rescues dogs whenever he can.
“Shaygam is the heart and soul of animal welfare. While accompanying Shaygam on his missions of mercy we came across Bruno, a sick, starving dog. The dog lay in the sand so weak it could barely move. Bruno’s owner tried to chase him away but Shaygam faced her down.
“’If a dog is sick I will help it’ Shaygam explained. ‘It is dangerous, but I don’t think about my safety, I only think about the dogs who need help.’
“Orphaned as a child, Shaygam was so abused by a drunken uncle that he slept on the streets, finding love with the street dogs who kept him warm at night. He swore to repay the dogs, the only creatures who gave him love.
“’I will always be in debt to the dogs who helped me when no one else would,’ Shaygam said.
“Shaygam has a healing gift. He can heal dogs that vets would deem lost causes, almost miraculously turning them into well-adjusted happy dogs.
“Shaygam tries to set a good example and recruits what he calls ‘Shaygam’s crew’, youngsters from the area, who normally would be tempted by gangs to lead a life of crime. He teaches them instead to love and care for animals.
“Mr. Kindly is a good name for Shaygam, and he needs our help. There’s no animal shelter in Hangberg, no vets, no police presence, just squalor, crime and pain for the dogs.
“I am helping Shaygam to make lives better for Hangberg’s dogs, please Alan, if you possibly can, make a generous donation to Network for Animals today so that together we can give the dogs of Hangberg a better life.
“For the animals,
“Brian Davies, Founder”
The Network for Animals organisation can be contacted at: https://networkforanimals.org/
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THE 2018 EUROPEAN ATHLETIC CHAMPIONSHIPS
There was a time when the European Athletics Championships lived up to its name and was a tournament for Europeans only – a welcome change from the multi-racial hotchpotch which the Athletics section of the Olympic Games, and latterly the World Athletics Championships, have become. Gradually over more recent years the great Colonial powers, particularly France, Great Britain, Portugal and Belgium, began to introduce non-White sporting-mercenaries from their former colonies into their teams however, but even more recently – and this year in particular – this retrograde practice has become even more pronounced, and has spread to practically all Western European teams, even to Switzerland, a country which of course never possessed an overseas Empire! Added to the “plastic Brits” and “plastic Frenchmen” etc. we therefore now have “plastic Swedes”, “plastic Norwegians” – and even “plastic Germans”! In these final days of the “political correctness” era it is probably too early to expect European qualifications to be based upon DNA rather than on residence, but let’s hope that it won’t be too long before we see “like competing against like” in all sporting competition, with the European Athletics Championships once again being what it says it is!
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CZECHOSLOVAKIA
At this year’s Edinburgh Military Tattoo one of the visiting overseas musical acts came from the Czech Republic, and it was announced that their participation was to mark the 100th anniversary of the foundation of their country. But that country was not of course the Czech Republic; it was Czechoslovakia. Although all parts of Czechoslovakia - Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia - had all been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for many centuries, they were ethnically and culturally identical, and indeed their languages of Czech and Slovak are in reality simply dialects of each other. The foundation of the Czechoslovakian nation, uniting all north-western Slavs, at the end of WW1 was therefore completely logical. Immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dismantling of the Iron Curtain certain sinister forces in Europe set about splitting several of the nation states of eastern Europe, not only Czechoslovakia but also Yugoslavia (Greater Serbia) and the Russian Federation. It is furthermore even more sinister to note that the only time when Slovakia was ever a separate country prior to the splitting of Czechoslovakia in January 1993 was when it was a Nazi puppet state during WWII! Most worryingly, however, although Germany was re-united following the collapse of Soviet Communism, plans to continue the splitting of other great European nation-states – this time in Western Europe – were continued by the same mysterious forces. Belgium, our own beloved United Kingdom and more recently Spain have all been subjected to this same insidious threat. Our hope therefore is that in this 100th Anniversary of the foundation of the Czechoslovakian nation that the Czechoslovakian people can initiate plans to re-unite their country – for by so doing they will not only benefit themselves, but will also surely stymie attempts to divide so many other great nations in the Western part of Europe.
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CIRCULAR FROM THE DEMOCRATS AND VETERANS PARTY
We have recently been forwarded this most interesting and thought-provoking circular issued by the Democrats and Veterans Party. It reads as follows :-
“When polled, fewer than 1% of South Africans think that there’s an issue that needs to be addressed with land ownership in South Africa. Pretty much the only people who actually think there’s an issue with the fact of White Afrikaners owning productive farms throughout the country are a) racists and b) corrupt government officials who still covet the enormous wealth that accrued to government officials in Zimbabwe just across the border, when Mugabe successfully confiscated all the best land and farms in the country and handed them out to well-connected government officials.
“Confiscating Land from Law-Abiding Citizens
“So, earlier this week Theresa May visits South Africa, on her very first trip to Africa, and tells the South African president that “Britain” supports the creation of brand new legislation that is about to change the face of South Africa. This legislation states that the government should be permitted to confiscate land from farmers who have broken no laws and who typically employ dozens of workers and, on average, each feed 3,000 of the country’s population; and hand this land over to people who have no experience of running large or medium scale commercial farms, all without any money being paid to the current owner of the farm, or in certain exceptional cases, with just 10% of the estimated value of the farm being paid to the current farm owner.
“Theresa May to Facilitate Theft from South Africans
“Fair-minded Brits would indentify a number of issues with the fact of Theresa May showing public support – allegedly on behalf of the Britain she claims to represent – for state-confiscation of land, especially when considering that within the same conversation she pledged £4 billion of British tax-payer funds to this regime, and predicted a further £4 billion in private foreign investor funds to follow.
“So, what kind of foreign investor watches while a government confiscates attractive commercial assets from business-owners that they have toiled for many years to accumulate and make profitable, and then blithely agrees to themselves invest their own funds into the same country? It is obvious: the only kind of foreign investor that is willing to invest in a country whose state has just confiscated privately owned assets in the very same tradition of Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin and Mugabe, is an investor who knows that he is going to be peculiarly well ‘looked after’ by the incumbent regime. An investor who knows that the machinery of state is now constitutionally facilitated in expropriating assets from the people of the country and transferring these assets into the ownership of a cosy cabal of closely-connected corporations and corrupt bureaucrats.
“What’s About to Happen…
“To anyone who understands anything about Africa, who understands the very obvious sense in which Theresa May is a pliable puppet of Big Business and Big Bureaucracy, it is blatantly obvious what is about to happen:
South Africa’s international reputation is about to be forever destroyed with honest investors.
The ordinary people of South Africa are about to become substantially poorer.
Well-connected bureaucrats and their families are about to become incredibly rich.
Well-connected foreign corporations are about to siphon-off a great deal of the natural wealth that properly belongs to the people of the most mineral-rich nation in Africa, into their offshore bank accounts.
… and all of this is about to be facilitated by you, the decent, hard-working British people, who are about to sponsor this mission with £4 billion of your hard-earned taxes, thanks to a little thing called ‘Representative’ Democracy – which allows the Theresa Mays of this world to make decisions like this on your behalf, completely legally.
“Only Direct Democracy in Britain Can Stop This
“There is only way to stop all of this: join the only viable Direct Democracy party in Britain – a party that wants to destroy corruption, destroy the hypocritical charade of party politics, and take away the right of so called ‘representatives’ in Westminster to defraud the people of Britain while aiding and abetting the naked thievery of developing countries by making decisions that you and I don’t want.
“You have a moral right to decide how you want your taxes spent. Representative democracy is dead. It doesn’t work for the people. It works only for Big Business, the Big Banks and Big Bureaucracy. It’s time everyone in the country started acknowledging this to be so.
“It is the people are sovereign: Parliament is only an approximated proxy for us and one that is no longer fit for purpose in its present configuration. It is the people who should be the final arbiter on important decisions made by our government in our name.
“Please join us today, and begin the fight with us for what is right by sharing this article and encouraging any fair-minded, decent people you know to join us also. There is still hope for Britain and, quite literally, you are it.”
The Democrats and Veterans Party can be contacted at: https://dvparty.uk/
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SEARCH SERVICES FOR THOSE SEEKING LOST RELATIVES
Find any South African, even those who have emigrated. We also search Botswana, Namibia and ex-Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.
Please use the search request form at :-
http://www.bellemodel.biz/emails/emails.php?id=emails_from_SCN
Also check the list of South African expatriates/emigrants web-sites, which can be found at :-
http://www.bellemodel.biz/emails/expatriates/toplist_expatriates.php?id=toplist_expatriates_from_springbk
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BILTONG AND BOEREWORS
Springers Biltong offers a marvellous range of biltong, boerewors and drywors – all of the very highest quality, reasonably priced, and fully registered and licensed with their local authority Their web-site can be accessed at :-
http://www.springersbiltong.com/index.html
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BOOK OFFERS
“FOLLY AND MALICE: THE HABSBURG EMPIRE, THE BALKANS AND THE START OF WORLD WAR ONE”
Copies of this highly-acclaimed book detailing the true causes and origins of WW1 can be ordered at :-
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Folly-Malice-Habsburg-Empire-Balkans/dp/0856835137
or
https://www.shepheard-walwyn.co.uk/product/folly-and-malice-habsburg-first-world-war-one/
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“LIEUTENANT COLONEL ALFRED JAMES TOMLINSON: MEMOIRS OF AN AFRICAN PIONEER AND BSAP OFFICER" is now available at Amazon.com, and can be shipped to anywhere in the world. This book contains excerpts from Lieut. Tomlinson's writings detailing his experiences as a member of the BSAP in Southern Rhodesia, where he rose from the rank of an ordinary trooper to retire as the commanding officer. It also includes the personal story of Majaqaba Ncube, a man who was enslaved by Lobengula when his entire village was massacred by the chief's soldiers. After he escaped, Lieut. Tomlinson saved him from certain death and gave him a job. They lost contact and were reunited after 45 years, when Majaqaba presented Lieut. Tomlinson with an earthenware jar.
Trish also writes romantic suspense and romantic comedy fiction. www.trishjaxon.com
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“ZIMBABWE’S STOLEN PROPERTY”
Zimbabwe’s Stolen Property is a poignant novel by Cliff McIlwaine. This is a dark, painfully sombre book which will bring back dreadful memories to any one associated with Zimbabwe – Black or White – and its bitter past.
Further details are available on the Diadem Books web site which can be accessed at: www.diadembooks.com
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CREST PUBLISHING BOOKS
The latest book published by Crest Publishing is entitled: “BOWLS - QUIRKS, CHIRPS AND ANECDOTES". This is not an instruction manual but rather a cheerful, humourous and sometimes controversial chronicle about the game and its history worldwide. Written to celebrate 40 years in the sport by the author, Glenn MacAskill, it should be of interest to all bowlers and other sports enthusiasts.
For more information about all books published, or to make an order, please contact Crest Publishing at: P.O.Box, 4178, Honeydew, Johannesburg, 2040, South Africa, e-mail: glennallanmacaskill@gmail.com, or visit the Crest Publishing web-site at: www.crestpublishing.co.za. Special discounts are available to ex-servicemen, Rhodies and Springboks!
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"THE SAINTS" – a unique documentary in support of the book on the brief history of the RLI.
DVD available along with other premium titles of historical interest from Msasa Enterprises. Visit www.rhodesianvideos.co.za or write to msasasa@mweb.co.za for more information. UK contact telephone: 07415 753 340.
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‘75 PROUD YEARS: PIONEERS AND PROGRESS OF RHODESIA’
With an introduction by Ian Smith, this book covers the history of Rhodesia from 1890 to 1965 in some detail and surveys the enormous progress made in agriculture, commerce, industry and social development of benefit to both White and Black Rhodesians.
With 124 pages, this A4-size soft-cover book is a facsimile copy of the original with contemporary advertisements and would be an invaluable addition to any collection of Rhodesiana .
The book costs £12.50 and p&p is £2.90 (with a 10% discount to former customers) .
To order a copy please contact John Ormowe at :flybuy416@googlemail.com .
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WHERE ARE THEY NOW ?
No.238 - Mr. DEREK WATTERSON of Durban
Derek Watterson served as a Durban City Councillor for many years, and was also for a while a Natal Provincial Councillor and the Deputy-Mayor of Durban. He was an old-time member of the United Party (UP), but joined the New Republic Party (NRP) when the UP re-branded itself during the 1970s. He was however firmly on the Right-wing of the NRP and fully supported the rights of his fellow White South Africans, opposing most of the Progressive Federal Party (PFP) attempts to integrate public facilities in Durban. He was a great friend and ally of the late, great John Lundie, who of course subsequently left the NRP and affiliated with the Conservative Party of South Africa (CP). It was therefore bizarre and dumbfounding that Derek Watterson’s building company was chosen as a target by a far-Right couple in their bombing campaign against integrated institutions and their backers during the late 1970s. Derek Watterson once spoke to the Durban Parliamentary Debating Society from the “government benches” during the mid-1980s when the Left-wing grouping was “in power”, but his speech proved so inspirational to the CP/HNP “opposition benches” that they gave him a standing ovation, whereas his own PFP/NRP “government bench” members sat in stony-faced silence! Because of his age it is doubtful whether Derek Watterson is still alive, but it would be very interesting to learn whether he ever joined the CP.
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RECOMMENDED WEB-SITE OF THE MONTH
In the last three editions of the SCN we have featured some most important and enlightening Media Releases from the Transvaal Agricultural Union (South Africa). The TAU (SA) maintain a highly informative bi-lingual web-site, which can be accessed at :-
http://www.tlu.co.za/index.php/af/
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
ARTHURIAN LEGEND
Sir,
I have known Alan Harvey for a very long time, and the suggestion by this Arthur Kemp character that he is a liberal is risible [see July SCN – Ed.]. Alan Harvey’s track record speaks for itself, not only editing the SCN but also being editor of South African Patriot in Exile [now The Imperial Patriot of course – Ed.] – hardly publications espousing liberal values! I know very little about this Kemp character, but he seems to be some kind of nutter.
Yours etc.,
H.K.H., Gillingham, Kent, U.K.
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ITALIAN JOB
Sir,
Italian debt to GDP stands at 132%. The Italian government owes 35 thousand Euros per person. That’s six thousand more than what’s owed by the Greek government. GDP in Italy is barely above the level when it joined the Euro in 1999. The ECB has given Italy 600 billion Euros to stop it going bust. Italian banks have already gone bust. The Deutsche Bank is in deep trouble. Clearly the signs are that Italy will soon have to leave the Euro and go back to the Lire as its currency. In order to prevent this the EU will undoubtedly demand that some other member states, including the UK, will have to finance the ECB, Italy, Spain and other EU countries by many billions of Euros.
It is therefore imperative that the UK pulls out of the EU immediately to avoid having to pay horrendous costs to prop up the Euro and the EU. Bob Lyddon in his report published by the Bruges Group points out that the UK's liabilities created by the EU under the heading budgetary “commitments” is 441.1 billion Eurosup until the end of the current MFF (Multiannual Financial Framework) which runs up to the end of 2020. With other financial liabilities Bob Lyddon confirms the grand total under the UK’s current contracts: Category Amount EU/Payments Appropriation 746.0 billion Euros, EU/Commitments Appropriation 441.1 billion Euros, EIB subscribed capital 39.2 billion Euros, ECB subscribed capital 1.5 billion Euros, UK Maximum Possible Loss 1,227.8 billion Euros. That equates to £982 billion. The UK’s national debt is currently £1.560 trillion or 82% of UK GDP’s of £1.902 trillion. A full call on the UK’s contracts by the EU would raise the national debt to £2.542 trillion or 134% of GDP. Over and above that could come the need to render “extraordinary support” to any of the EU organisations listed.
If the Conservative Party enables the EU to demand these payments through not progressing a full and free BREXIT I hope and pray that the Conservative Party will never ever form a UK government again.
Yours etc.,
J.W.H., Salisbury, Wiltshire, U.K.
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OBITUARY
LESLIE ROBERT HOMPSTEAD
It was with great sadness that we learnt last month of the death of Leslie Robert “Les” Hompstead at the age of 96. Les Hompstead may not have been a well known name to the British public at large, but he was even so a great servant and a genuine hero of the British nation and its remaining Empire during the latter half of the last century.
Born at Gillingham in 1921, he alas suffered an illness during his early years which caused lasting damage to his hearing. He was however technically brilliant, and attended Chatham Technical High School (where incidentally he was a member of the school’s South Africa House!) and excelled at electronics. After school he became an apprentice at Chatham Dockyard, but his prowess in electronics soon won him a scholarship to the Royal Naval Training College at Greenwich. Here he wore uniform for the only time during his career, for his hearing impairment meant that he wasn’t able to enlist into the Royal Navy following the outbreak of WWII. Instead he returned to Chatham Dockyard where he continued his service to the Royal Navy which was to last until the end of his working career.
To escape potential bombing disruption the Admiralty moved all their more specialist units from the various dockyards to Bath during WWII, and in spite of his youth Les was considered important enough to be part of this move. From then onwards Bath and its surrounding area became the main home for Les and his growing family. In 1956, however, he was transferred to Hong Kong Dockyard to become Deputy Head of their Electrical Engineering Department. Whilst there the Head of the department retired, so he was promoted to be Head of this department himself – the youngest person ever in its history. Following the reprehensible closure of Hong Kong Dockyard by the MacMillan Government Les was transferred back to Bath, but the growing realisation that his personal and administrative talents extended far beyond electrical engineering meant that in 1967 he was appointed Yard Services Manager at Chatham Dockyard – one of the five leading civilian positions in the yard which entailed overseeing all of its physical infrastructure. From here, in 1970, he was appointed to the top civilian position in Gibraltar Dockyard, a position which entailed, inter alia, negotiating with Gibraltarian trade union officials, who included at one time none other than that good friend of our movement Maurice Xiberras. By all accounts they were both tough negotiators, but they soon formed a close relationship based upon high mutual-respect. After his term of office at Gibraltar Dockyard Les was transferred back to Bath, were he served the final decade of his outstanding career as a leading civil servant in the by then Ministry of Defence (Navy).
But there was more to Les Hompstead than just his spectacular career with the Admiralty/MoD(N) – far, far more! He was s lifelong staunch Methodist, being a stalwart of the local Methodist Church wherever he went. He met his future wife Peggy Norman (a scion of the famous Norman family of the Medway Towns) at a Methodist youth club and they married at Gillingham in 1944. It proved to be an extremely happy and fruitful marriage, and they produced three fine children, Trevor, Joy and Sheila.
Les was also a very rounded man – indeed he could accurately be termed a renaissance man. Although not a trained architect he designed and supervised the building of his new family home in Bath whilst still stationed in Hong Kong, and after having to sell this house when he was appointed elsewhere designed another home in Bath for just Peggy and himself after his children had all married. He was also a keen and talented Lawn Tennis player, and whilst stationed in Gibraltar took up paddle-boating on the Mediterranean. He also became an avid cine-photographer, and built up a phenomenal collection of films including many of historical significance for the era from his times in Hong Kong and Gibraltar. Whilst stationed in Gibraltar he and Peggy played hosts to many of their family members and friends from the UK, and always gave everyone fantastically enjoyable times with detailed and knowledgeable conducted tours around the Rock, and sometimes even trips across the Mediterranean to Morocco. He was furthermore a gifted singer with a majestic tenor voice, and often sung in his church choir wherever he went, even becoming choirmaster for a while when he eventually retired to Trowbridge. Perhaps his most surprising and unique achievement, however, was that he wrote a pantomime which contained roles for all his grandchildren!
But above all Les Hompstead was a firm patriot – and furthermore was an unapologetic Empire and Commonwealth man. He loved his time in Hong Kong, and developed a strong interest in Chinese culture which lasted until the end of his life. He was certain however that it was in the best interests of the Hong Kong Chinese that benign British rule should continue, and was fearful for their future if handed over to the atheist communists. He was likewise supportive of Gibraltar remaining British, as his friendly relationship to that great British-Gibraltarian patriot Maurice Xiberras confirms. He actually maintained many friendships with Gibraltarians who he had got to know, making several trips back to the Rock after he retired, with one such long-distance friendship continuing until the day he died.
The one word which sums up Les best however is “happy”. He always has a smile on his face, and constantly lived life to the full. He was unquestionably a highly intelligent man, as his most successful career clearly demonstrates. His family life was constantly a source of great pride and pleasure to him, and he was always an eternal optimist for the future (in stark contrast to the “moan and groan brigade” who have alas caused so many problems for our movement!). He developed a wide and eclectic circle of friends which bears witness to the true worth of the man. Indeed it seems impossible that he ever made any enemies throughout his life.
Alas his beloved wife Peggy developed Alzheimer’s during the late 1990s, and he devoted the next dozen or so years to caring for her and looking after her well-being. Her end in 2012 was of course a devastating blow to him, but his strong Christian faith saw him through and he lived a further half-dozen years with equal gusto to his previous ninety years. Having moved to a retirement village in Trowbridge he became a well-known personality around the town. He possessed a mobility-scooter during his final years, which by all accounts he constantly drove at a speed far higher than it was actually designed for! Although his end when it came last month was not unexpected, it did come about very quickly – but his mind was as agile and as astute as it had always been.
Les Hompstead was not only a great Briton – he was also a great human-being, and his name and achievements deserve to be known and honoured by a wider audience. Our sincerest condolences are extended to his three children Trevor, Joy and Sheila, his seven grandchildren, his sixteen great-grandchildren – and, if they were only old enough to understand, his four great-great-grandchildren!
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