Seventy-five years ago today Japan’s years of aggression and brutality across Asia and the Pacific were brought to an abrupt end by their realisation that allied atomic bombs could destroy entire Japanese cities.
For my uncle the news signalled an end to his time in the British Army fighting in the jungles of Burma – and the prospect of getting back to his family in England unharmed.
To mark the anniversary there are various events today; the main ones being covered by the BBC. And normally the BBC do make a good job of covering such state occasions. Sadly this year the BBC seems to have failed by excluding the iconic Army marching song On The Road To Mandalay – apparently because part of one line might be considered offensive (to person or persons unknown?).
But I’m pretty sure that none of the families of those that served in this forgotten army objected to the words. In fact their only objections seem certain to be over the exclusion of this traditional song … despite it featuring in previous anniversary broadcasts.
To make up for weakness of the BBC’s cancel culture woke squad here is the first verse of Rudyard Kipling’s poem –
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ eastward to the sea,
There’s a Burma girl a-settin’, and I know she thinks o’ me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
“Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!”
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can’t you ‘ear their paddles chunkin’ from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin’-fishes play,
An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ‘crost the Bay!
Update 23-Aug-2020
Just to compound the BBC’s descent into absurdity comes the news that Land of Hope and Glory and Rule Britannia are likely to be dropped from the Last Night of the Proms on the whim of Dalia Stasevska this year’s conductor. Not sure why a single Ukrainian born, Finnish national should take priority over a much-loved tradition at this once per year celebration of British heritage. But then the BBC seems determined to kill-off anything – and anyone – that stands in the way of its complete wokewash.
Update 28-Aug-2020
Ms Stasevska’s management company has now issued a statement insisting that she had no part in the BBC’s decision to cut the patriotic anthems. This seems to imply that the conductor was used as an unknowing decoy for the BBC management to hide their revisionist agenda behind. The wokewash continues …