Between the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, more than a hundred thousand British children were sent overseas to countries like Canada, Australia, and other parts of the British Empire as part of what became known as the Home Children programme. This controversial migration scheme, which aimed to provide "better opportunities" for children in poverty, left a lasting imprint on the lives of those involved.

The Home Children programme began in the 1860s as a social experiment aimed at alleviating poverty in the crowded industrial cities of Britain. Many of these children, some as young as three, were either orphans or had been surrendered by impoverished families who could no longer care for them. The programme was supported by philanthropic organisations such as Dr. Thomas Barnardo's Homes and the Church of England Waifs and Strays Society, and was endorsed by the British government.

The Battle of Britain ended on 15^th September, 1940 but the Blitz continued long after that.  Following the evacuation of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain a wealthy American living in London persuaded the government to form an RAF squadron composed entirely of Americans.

This is their story. 

When war broke out on 3^rd September, 1939 there was no mad rush of support for the causes espoused by Britain or for Poland and other occupied European countries. Americans were very much of a mind to remain out of any European war. There was no universal feeling of kinship towards Britain and there was, in fact, quite a lot of sympathetic support for Hitler.

The second most common language spoken in the USA at the time was German and to cap it all the Neutrality Act prevented any engagement, let alone involvement, by Americans with any belligerent country. That included Britain and France as well as Germany.

Amongst all that however, there was a core of sympathetic support for Britain and an eagerness by those who had learned how to fly to enter the fray. Among the various means of getting around the rigours of the Neutrality Act was to cross the border into Canada and proceed from there.

Words.

We use them every day without giving them much thought.

We write them in letters. We tap them into emails. We send them across the world in seconds on a telephone. We use words to tell somebody we love them. We use them to say we are sorry. We use them to explain, persuade, comfort, warn, remember and sometimes simply to have a bloody good laugh.

Words matter. 

We wrote about that recently when we looked at the old-fashioned letter and what we lost when we exchanged carefully chosen sentences for hurried messages and little blue ticks.

But there is another side to words that is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Words can be turned into knives. Not because the words themselves are sharp. Because somebody decides to sharpen them.

Take the word primitive.....

As our countries struggle under the weight of wokeism, ideological conformity and the relentless erosion of the values upon which our societies were built, who else is looking for a leader willing to fight back? How often today do we need a bulldog and, instead, get a lapdog nipping at our heels? 

Throughout history, when free people have found themselves confronted by oppression, there has usually come a moment when someone has stood up and said what others were thinking but were afraid to say.

Not because that one person possessed some magical power to save a nation.

But because leadership gives courage a voice.

Eighty-six years ago, Britain found such a voice.

" Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own .... life, and the long continuity of our institutions..... The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. .... But if we fail, then the whole world will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties..... men will still say, "This was their finest hour." - from Winston Churchill ( excerpt) 

The Lost Art of Letter Writing

In an age of glowing screens and fleeting texts, something precious has quietly slipped away: the letter.

Once, entire lives were poured into envelopes - love confessions, battlefield farewells, business dreams, simple reassurances. Letters carried permanence, patience, and poetry.

Today we trade that depth for speed: a thumbs-up instead of a paragraph, a “u ok?” instead of pages of care.

At what cost?

Our reliance on mobile phones has grown, and with it our vulnerability.

I watched a video of a man whose phone had been confiscated by police. For those hours, he said, his entire life was stolen: banking, email, contacts, everything.

How does a person become so dependent on one device that, without it, he is financially, emotionally, and socially stranded?

We did not only trade poetry for convenience.

We traded a message for a tracking device that also happens to send messages.

Verification codes, cloud backups, and the quiet fact of being locatable have become the price of ordinary life.

That is what sent me back to the lost art of letter writing.