Signs In Shops In England

Samizdata.net ^ | 09/11/02 | Perry de Havilland

[Gumlegs]

Pubs, ladies fashion stores, restaurants, banks, cafes, mobile phone stores, boutiques, gift shops...

If you are looking for the real England, you will not find it in the pages of the Guardian, but rather on the high streets and in the shop windows.

I have just got back from lunch and what I saw on the King's Road in Chelsea, here in London, amazed me. There is no law requiring it, no government departments 'encouraging' it loudly, yet shop after shop are displaying signs saying words to the effects of "At 1:46 pm to day, we will be observing two minutes silence in remembrance of the atrocities on September 11^th of last year in the United States." Others are expressing memorial sentiments, still others just displaying small American flags. No doubt these signs will all be gone by this evening, but they are there now.

Some signs are hand written by shop managers, others were clearly printed by a head office... but the signs are there and they come not from above, passed down from the salons of the chattering classes, but from below, from the true heart of England.

There is indeed an Anglosphere and it is very, very real.

[pgkdan]

Thanks for posting this. I've been making a concerted effort to avoid maukisness and all the mauldlin aspects of this day but this is something that really touched me.

God Bless the Brits. (Never thought this American son of Irish Catholic ancestors would ever say that!!! It really is a different world post-911).

[Green Knight]

Ping! Despite how much I loathe rags like the Guardian, stuff like this brings a smile to my face and gives me hope that maybe Britain isn't a lost cause, after all.

[Gumlegs]

Cross-ping to this related thread.

[scripter]

News that's nice to hear as we remember this day in infamy.

[Happygal]

(Never thought this American son of Irish Catholic ancestors would ever say that!!! It really is a different world post-911).

Don't worry about it...the limey's are even rubbin' off on this born and bred Paddy-ette :-)

[skeeter]

Worth remembering before reacting the next time the self-hating anti-west marxist loonies in the press ascribe anti-American sentiments to a people of an entire country.

There are those who stand with us.

[blam]

Bravo!! Thanks for the post.

[Ax]

The "Special Relationship" is alive and well.

[dead]

Thanks for the post, and the link to it.

It is also important to remember that more British citizens died in the WTC that day than in any other terrorist incident in their country's history.

Their people are with us, even if their media and academics are not.

[Consort]

[Hegewisch Dupa]

Thank you so much for posting this. God bless our true friends.

[aruanan]

This is one reason why, of all the other nations, in spite of having lived in and loved Brasil and the Dominican Republic, England seems most like family to me.

[paulklenk]

Wonderful post -- thanks for sharing it.

[Slip18]

Gumlegs, this is wonderful. Thank you!

[cardinal4]

I lived in the UK for 6 years. This is no surprise. But it is a pleasant post. Now when will we see these signs in the shop windows of Paris, Brussels, and Riyadh?

[j_tull]

Bump. Nice post

[AndrewC]

Thanks!

bump

[alancarp]

Another jolly good Union Jack BUMP for our friends. And a remembrance for the 80 or so Brits lost a year ago as well.

[Gumlegs]

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,--
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England ... ping.

[Gumlegs]

Sorry to ping you after you'd replied. You did so while I was assembling the last ping list.