Promming for the Last Night

     Great music, cheering crowds, singing along, and good-natured patriotic feeling.

     Yes, it’s that time again – the day which features that annual staple of late summer in Britain: the Last Night of the Proms.

     As its name states, this event marks the end of what is known as “the Proms” – a series of daily concerts and other activities over an eight week period from mid-July to early September which showcase the best of orchestral and classical music from around the world.

     It was started in 1895 under the direction Sir Henry Wood and launched by impresario Robert Newman, who had an idea for creating a series of indoor concerts to attract an audience to concert hall music amongst people who did not usually partake in classical music. The concept was based on outdoor promenade concerts where the audience could walk around – or promenade – while the orchestra was playing. With low ticket prices and a more informal atmosphere which included activities such as drinking, smoking, and eating, Newman hoped to “train the public” with popular music at first, and then “gradually raising the standard” until he had “created a public for classical and modern music.”

     Henry Wood, aged only 26, was established as the conductor of the promenade series at the behest of Newman’s financial backer, the otolaryngologist Dr. George Cathcart, and though Newman was responsible for the organizing and planning, it has been Wood whose name is most associated with the Proms. For the next half century, he conducted the orchestra for all of the concert seasons, and in the process as the first conductor, he built up a repertoire (including the presentation of new works by contemporary composers – both British and international) which set the standard for the subsequent series and conductors following his death in 1944. Such was his influence on the Proms, that they are still known as the “Henry Wood Promenade Concerts” on the tickets, though since the BBC took over the running of the concerts in 1927, they have been officially termed as the BBC Proms.

The Royal Albert Hall - current home of the Proms. Image Credit: Drow Male via Wikimedia Commons cc

     Since World War II, the main venue for the Proms has been the Royal Albert Hall in London, and it is there that a bronze bust of Sir Henry Wood is placed on the hall’s organ throughout each season – the bust itself having been saved from ruins of the original home of the Proms, Queens Hall, and now owned by the Royal Academy of Music.

     In the course of its existence through over a century, the Proms have become one of the biggest and most popular musical festivals in the world. In addition to the main concerts, there are also associated educational and children’s events, as well as lunchtime chamber concerts and matinee’s featured at Cadogan Hall. No longer simply about music, it has since become a major British cultural event and national institution that has become renowned the world over, as well as a prestigious platform for the various conductors and musicians who have participated in it.

     It is also a much sought-after event by the people of the United Kingdom, as well as foreign tourists and others residing in the country. Such people are known as “Promenaders”, or more commonly, “Prommers” – especially those who use the standing areas of the Royal Albert Hall, for which ticket prices are lower than for reserved seats. But regardless of seating arraignments, the Proms make for an enjoyable and memorable experience with something for everybody to enjoy.

Arena of the Royal Albert Hall from above. Image Credit: yisris via Flickr cc

     However, the most memorable and well-known part of the Proms is undeniably the Last Night. Usually held on the second Saturday in September, it is unlike the previous concerts in that it is lighter, looser, and more informal, with the program broken into two parts consisting of popular classics followed by patriotic British songs toward the end of the second part. Traditionally, the evening also features a speech by the conductor in which he or she thanks the audience for their participation, as well as the musicians, soloists, support staff, and others who make the entire Proms possible – including those who gave the conductor the honored privilege of presiding over the festivities. Also acknowledged is the amount of money raised through ticket sales and donations which go to support musical charities. The conductors also tend to discuss the themes of the music that was performed throughout the concert season, and how they connect to people’s lives. At times, the speech can be quite humorous – with the conductor being self-depreciating, and taking good-natured digs at the audience.

     But the real event which gives the Last Night its true significance is the sequence of favorite patriotic selections, usually starting off with Edward Elgar’s elegant Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 (Land of Hope and Glory), which receives a traditional encore dating back to its premier at the 1901 concert. This is followed by Sir Henry Woods’s Fantasia on British Sea Songs, which leads into and culminates with Thomas Arne’s rousing Rule Britannia!, which is also performed in its own right with a soloist. Then there is the sweet and soft sound of Hubert Parry’s Jerusalem followed by the UK National Anthem, God Save the Queen – with Benjamin Britten’s stirring rendition being frequently chosen – to conclude the program. Following this, the Prommers traditionally break out spontaneously into Auld Lang Syne with hands linked together in a final spirit of Promming fellowship to end the spectacular evening.

     Indeed, it is the spectacular and participative nature of the Last Night which has made it a fixture of British culture. It is in many ways, a celebration of the United Kingdom and its people, and for this reason, there is always high demand for tickets – some from people who’ve never been to the Last Night, and others who make it their business to attend it every year. While the standing tickets stay the same price as during the rest of the series, the seated tickets are more expensive, but for some people it is worth the cost for what may be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

     Because demand for the Last Night has tended to be exceedingly high with scores of people not being able to make it into the Royal Albert Hall, Proms in the Park was introduced in 1996 in nearby Hyde Park to accommodate a larger outdoor crowd. Later on, to bring the Proms experience to those not in or near London, other locations have been added in throughout the United Kingdom. The Proms in the Park events in Belfast (Titanic Slipways), Glasgow (Glasgow Green), Swansea (Singleton Park), and Hyde Park each have their own concerts before linking up via large screens to the Royal Albert Hall to join in for the grand finale.

Proms in the Park at Hyde Park, London. Image Credit: Neil Rickards via Flickr cc

     At all of these locations, there is a fun and festive atmosphere, as well as a sense of camaraderie amongst the audience. Balloons and party poppers are common for the Last Night, as well as fancy dresses – from dinner jackets to t-shirts to funny hats. People also bring flags with them, usually the Union Flag, but also the flags of each of the Home Nations of the UK – the Saltire of St. Andrew (Scotland), the Cross of St. George (England), the Saltire of St. Patrick or Ulster Banner (Northern Ireland), and the Red Dragon or St. David’s Cross (Wales). Also seen are the flags of counties/local government authoroties within the UK, immigrants in the UK, and visitors and tourists, all of which make for a tremendous display of color and the vibrant fabric that is Britain, which is probably one reason why Jiří Bělohlávek (Proms conductor in 2007, 2010, and 2012) has described the Proms as “the world's largest and most democratic musical festival.”

     All of this is broadcast throughout the UK and also overseas via radio, which allow for millions more to partake in this celebration of Britishness, including yours truly. I certainly enjoy it, for the Last Night not only features great music, but also shows Britons who are proud of themselves and of their country, and who have their heads held high for the potential of making their country better tomorrow than it was yesterday.

     This event speaks to the need for the British people – wherever they live – to look at one another as one and to come together for the good of country as it faces several issue (including the economy, immigration, the role of government, and constitutional change). The music alone does not solve these complex issues in a complex country of course, and I realize the Last Night isn't for everyone. But beyond the flag waving and booming music are precious moments which are shared with fellow citizens and residents throughout the United Kingdom, whether they live in Aberystwyth or Aberdeen, or in Edinburgh or Exeter, or in Belfast or Brighton. I certainly hope that as the selections help to project a confident Britain around the world, that they also instill some confidence in the people and help to inspire them to build bridges with others to improve the country and make it better together.

     So if you are in the UK, get out your party poppers and please try to attend tonight’s concert at the Royal Albert Hall, in the parks, or just tune in to the BBC. It’s going to be a Great British time!

Titanic: My Original Interest in the UK

The iconic bow of the RMS Titanic in 2004.
Image Credit: NOAA (Public Domain)

     Thirty years ago today – after being hidden by 73 years of cold and darkness – the RMS Titanic was discovered in the wee hours of the morning.

     The search by a joint French-American expedition led by Dr. Robert Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel was the culmination of decades of unsuccessful attempts to find the British luxury liner, which had struck an iceberg and sank with a great loss of life on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on April 15, 1912.

     Of course, as many people may know, the Titanic was said to be unsinkable because of features such as electrically-driven watertight doors, which pushed the limits of shipbuilding technology at the time. 70 years later, Dr. Ballard and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) developed a deep sea camera sled (known as the Argo) which could transmit live video. Like Titanic, Argo pushed the limits of technology in order to achieve better results – in this case, to have a better chance at finding the great ship, and given its fate, this was somewhat of an eerie prospect. But even the latest side-scan sonar technology – relying on pings bouncing off of objects (whether natural or man-made) – developed by the French had failed to capture the ship after over five weeks of searching in the general area of the Titanic’s last known position.

The Titanic was the largest ship in the world at the time of her
maiden voyage - with a gross tonnage of 46,328 tons and length of 882 ½ feet - half again as big
and nearly a hundred longer than her Cunard rivals, Lusitania and Mauretania.

     It was hoped that Michel and the French Research Institute for Exploration of the Sea (IFREMER) would have at least found some promising targets and then Ballard and his team would use the Argo sled to confirm the sightings and hopefully video-tape the wreck. In fact, the American team had been using Argo to map the wreck site of the lost nuclear submarine USS Scorpion, as part of a now declassified Cold War mission for the US Navy, which had funded the development of Argo and other underwater imaging equipment for Ballard (who was an intelligence and research officer in the Naval Reserve) and WHOI.

     As it was, the American half of the Titanic expedition began at square one, and with less time to spend – only twelve days, but Ballard had learned from his then secret missions to the Scorpion and another lost sub, the USS Thresher that when ships sink, objects tend to spill out of them and underwater currents create a debris field across the ocean floor. If this was the case with the Titanic, it meant that the search should focus on a larger target – the debris field – rather than the ship itself, which was only 92 feet wide. Once the debris was found, Ballard could then use it as a trail to find the main wreck.

     Using this knowledge, the American team joined up with the French and deployed Argo from the research vessel Knorr, which towed the video sled back and forth across the ocean floor in a process known as “mowing the lawn”. As the expedition went on for days, the grainy black and video images being fed back to the expedition members aboard the Knorr revealed little more than the topography of the sea floor and some bits of trash and other objects with no obvious connection to a ship. It seemed as though the Titanic would once again prove allusive, and for Ballard in particular – for whom finding her was a lifelong dream – this would have been a personal blow.

     Then at 12:48 AM on September 1, 1985, wreckage started appearing on the monitors aboard the support ship, and the turning point came when the Argo passed over a coal-fired boiler which was identical to the ones installed on the Titanic in 1911, and period photographs of the boilers during assembly in Belfast confirmed this. Titanic was found. Ballard, Michel, and their combined teams rejoiced at having solved one of great mysteries of the 20th Century, but then realized that they were approaching the time at which White Star liner sank beneath the waves – 2:20 AM. A small service was held on fantail of the Knorr to commemorate the finding of the ship, remember the lost, and honor the survivors of the great tragedy.

Robert Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel, the co-discoverer's of Titanic, in 2012

     Eventually, the ship itself was found upright, albeit in two main sections – proving correct the accounts of those who had seen the ship break up as she went down. The hundreds of hours of film and tens of thousands of still photos were the first images of Titanic in 73 years, and despite being broken into pieces, was still in remarkably good condition 2 ½ miles (nearly 13,000 feet) under the surface. A follow-up expedition in 1986 saw Ballard diving to Titanic in the three-man submersible Alvin to see ship close-up and using the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Jason Jr. to explore the interior and other confined areas.

     The discovery of the wreck sparked renewed interest in the Titanic – spawning a string of books and television specials along the way, leading to more expeditions to the wreck and a more thorough understanding of ship, and how and why she sank, as well as shedding new light on the stories her passengers and crew. One of the people caught up in this was filmmaker James Cameron, a man with an interest in the sea and shipwrecks. While filming The Abyss in 1989, he met with Dr. Ballard, who talked about his expeditions to Titanic, and according to Cameron:

“Meeting Ballard, I discovered that there was a romance to the wreck which appealed to me. I started reading up on the history and that is very seductive. The event’s almost novelistic. The elite of society were aboard, all the class issues, the number of people that died in steerage. It's got all these tensions and symbols. It's a gold mine.”

     With this, Cameron set out to write, produce, and direct a film about Titanic, which saw Cameron diving to wreck itself as part of the filming, and he has said that the film was really about getting 20th Century Fox to pay for an expedition more than anything else. Be that as it may, Cameron went on to create of the highest-grossing films of all time, and one of the millions of people who watched it during its original run in theaters was yours truly.

James Cameron in 2012 with the ships wheel from his epic 1997 film, which he donated to Titanic Belfast.
Image Credit: Titanic Belfast via Flickr cc

     At the time, I was a seven years old lad when I viewed the film (save for certain scenes) in April 1998, and I liked it so much because of its extensiveness – the legendary and masterful musical score by the late James Horner, the overall screenplay, the revolutionary use of special effects and CGI, and the meticulously-built and faithfully-created live sets which were used to bring Titanic back to life in an extraordinary way that had not been done before, and which has not been done since. Indeed, it was these things I paid attention to, as well as the historical events surrounding the ship, and not the love story of Jack and Rose – which was something I did not really comprehend at the time and found quite boring. Looking around all that and focusing on the beauty of the ship itself and real story of it and its passengers and crew was what peaked my interest, and soon after I became fascinated – some would say obsessed – with all things Titanic.

     Through books, films, magazine articles, documentaries, and other media, I delved deeper and deeper into the Titanic and virtually anything related to it, including other ocean liners, and this resulted in a fascination with those great liners which were built in the 19th and 20th centuries – many of which happened to be British, such as the Olympic and Britannic (Titanic’s sister ships), Lusitania, Mauretania, Aquitania, Majestic, Berengaria, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2).

RMS Queen Mary, probably the greatest of all British ships, as she appears
on this 1940's baggage tag of the merged Cunard White Star Line.
Image Credit: Centpacrr via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)

     As I became more engaged my study of British ships, it led to learning about Britain and its heritage as a maritime nation and much more. I became increasingly attached to Britain over the last decade because of those ships, and due to British cultural exports such as 101 Dalmatians, Harry Potter, James Bond, and the Beatles, as well as the writings of Lewis, Burns, Scott, and Shakespeare. Along the way, I became interested in the monarchy, British politics, and the British people themselves.

     Becoming immersed into British society and culture – and from all parts of the United Kingdom – quite simply, I developed a serious liking for the country and its people, and in 2012, this reached new heights as I closely watched the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics with pride in a country which I had already adopted as my second home. This is why I have been passionate about the UK staying together and not breaking up, because I see as a strong country, rich in people and a diverse culture – from Shetland to Land’s End – and a place with so much robust and positive potential going forward.

     But I always remember that it was the Titanic that brought me to this point, and it remains my original interest in the United Kingdom, since she was owned by the Liverpool-based White Star Line, sailed from Southampton, and – perhaps more importantly – was built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast. In fact, all of the White Star liners were built at Harland and Wolff, and the shipyard workers took pride in the near-simultaneous construction of Titanic and her older sister-ship Olympic in just 3 ½ years – a phenomenal achievement of maritime engineering which has yet to be rivaled.

Titanic (at left) and Olympic under construction at Harland and Wolff's in Belfast.
Image Credit: George Grantham Bain Collection at the Library of Congress (Public Domain)

     When Titanic left Belfast on April 2, 1912 for Southampton to prepare for her maiden voyage, she carried the pride of a city with her, along with the dreams, ambitions, and lofty expectations of the men who built her. Among them were the eight men of the Guarantee Group, who were aboard the liner to observe its operations and spot the need for improvements. They were led by Thomas Andrews, the well-liked and respected managing director of Harland and Wolff and head of the drafting department – meaning that he had overseen Titanic’s design and construction. Known for being a diligent and hard worker, Andrews – along with his men – walked up and down decks to ensure that the maiden voyage went smoothly aboard the brand new vessel.

     On the night of the sinking, the entire Guarantee Group was lost, including Andrews – who informed Captain Smith that Titanic’s fate was a “mathematical certainty.” He tirelessly searched through staterooms and public areas to urge people to get to the lifeboats (of which he knew there were not enough to save everybody due to the lax regulations at the time), and assisted in the evacuation with the knowledge that his ship had only a very limited time above water. For his selflessness and concern for others above his own safety, he has been marked as a hero of that tragic night.

Thomas Andrews

     Back home in Belfast however, the sinking and the loss of life – including eight of its own – proved a huge blow for the city and the shipyard that was its major employer. Men who built the ship wept – sometimes inconsolably in the streets – as the news reached them, and the shipyard closed for one day as it went into mourning with the shock and disbelief that the unthinkable had happened.

     Eventually, life went on and Harland and Wolff went on to become one of the largest, most extensive, and technologically advanced shipyards in the world – producing an array of passenger liners, cruisers and aircraft carriers, tankers and cargo ships, offshore oil rings, and even aircraft. At its peak, it employed 35,000 people and accounted for around one-eighth of the world’s shipbuilding output. But despite being officially exonerated of wrongdoing or negligence with regard to Titanic, the disaster remained somewhat of a cloud over the yard and city. For many decades, Titanic simply was not brought up in polite conversations out of shame that something produced by Belfast with such pride and optimism – with all of the advanced technology and safety features of the day – had ended up on the bottom of the Atlantic within a fortnight of leaving the city, and through the 1970’s, Harland and Wolff barely acknowledged its link to the doomed liner.

     However, with the discovery of the wreck in 1985 and a renewed popular interest in the Titanic saga, the city and shipyard began to embrace their creation as more people visited Belfast just to see where the Titanic was built. The effort and skill that it took to build her became increasingly focused upon as an achievement by the people of Belfast, in recognition that Titanic’s sinking did not reflect poorly on the workmanship of the men who built her from the keel up – so much so that a cheeky phrase has come into being: “She was fine when she left here.”

The modern-day Harland and Wolff, whose enormous gantry
cranes (named Samson and Goliath) continue to dominate the Belfast skyline.
Image Credit: Maryade via Flickr cc

     In addition, there has also been a greater focus on the shipyard workers themselves and their stories – the lives they led in and outside the yard, and their descendants now take some pride having a connection with building the Ship of Dreams. The city of Belfast itself has also received better recognition, so that people now better understand the stock from which Titanic and so many other ships came.

     Harland and Wolff today – like so many UK shipbuilders – is now but a shell of its former self, but it is still in business, though its primary line of work is in repairing and refitting ships, offshore oil platform construction and repair, and the burgeoning renewable energy sector with regard to wind turbines and tidal power construction. These days, the company occupies a much smaller footprint than it did at the time of its peak, resulting in a large brownfield site. Some of this has been transformed into Titanic Quarter – a massive redevelopment project which includes educational institutions, residential facilities, and Titanic Studios (of Game of Thrones fame, which was visited by HM the Queen last year).

Titanic Belfast with the main exhibition building
and the redeveloped slipways where the great liner was built.
Image Credit: Titanic Belfast via Flickr cc

     At the heart of it is Titanic Belfast – the world’s largest Titanic-themed attraction, which contains several interpretive and interactive galleries telling the story of Titanic and the maritime heritage of the city and people which built her. The slipways on which the White Star sister ships were built have been transformed into a beautiful park promenade and plaza, and the last surviving White Star liner – the SS Nomadic, one of the passenger-ferrying tenders which served Titanic and other liners for over fifty years at Cherbourg, France – is located in the Hamilton dry dock, where she was originally fitted out over a hundred years ago, having been faithfully restored by her builders, Harland and Wolff.

SS Nomadic - the last of the line.
© Copyright Joseph Mischyshyn and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

     Titanic Belfast has been visited and endorsed by arguably the two most important people in the Titanic community within the last thirty years – Robert Ballard and James Cameron. It is a symbol of Northern Ireland’s emergence from its troubled history, and helps to showcase the vibrancy of modern Belfast as it attempts to move forward confidently and boldly into the future – thanks in part to the vessel which will forever be associated with it, and which remains my first interest in the UK.

A Word (Perhaps More) on the Union Flag

The Union Jack of the United Kingdom at the Six Pence Pub in my hometown of Savannah, GA, with the Home Nation flags of England, Scotland, and Wales and the flag of the United States. Image Credit: Wesley Hutchins

     Flags – they can mean many things to many people. They can represent pride and instill patriotism in some, while also causing an affront to others – and these emotions can be felt by people living within the same country.

     Recently, there was a controversy over the British flag – aka, the Union Flag (or Jack) – not being present on the vests that are to be worn by British athletes during the World Athletics Championships in Beijing. The redesigned vest features the national colors – red, white, and blue – as well as “GREAT BRITAIN” spelled out across it in red letters, but not the flag itself, which had been prominently displayed on the uniform used for the last world championships in 2013 in Moscow.

     Not since 1997 has a British athletics competition vest failed to include the flag. For Olympic long jumper Greg Rutherford, it was “wrong and ridiculous” to have the flag omitted, and he took his complaint to Twitter, where he tweeted a photo of the new athletics kit.

Well this isn't right... Where's the Union Jack!?!? @BritAthletics (this is the kit for worlds) pic.twitter.com/RAVoi6yRex

— Greg Rutherford (@GregJRutherford) August 13, 2015

     Rutherford, known to be popular and forthright amongst members of the athletics squad, further stated that he was “proud to be British”, and lambasted the new kit – calling it “terrible” and no longer British. He also claimed that there was not one athlete he had spoken to who had wanted the change, and that everyone wanted the Union Flag on the vest. Among his Twitter followers who agreed with this was British steeplechaser Eilish McColgan, who remarked that the vest looked “really odd” without the flag and – as with Rutherford – accused UK Athletics of representing itself, rather than Britain.

     UK Athletics is the governing body of the sport of athletics in the United Kingdom, and its CEO Nick de Vos stated that the objective of the new kit was not to eradicate the Union Flag (which is still displayed on the shorts and socks) but to promote the brand of Team GB and British Athletics leading up to the World Championships being hosted by London in 2017, and that by having “Great Britain” spelled out across the vest, they were actually taking a cue from the success of Team GB at the 2012 London Olympics. In this sense, it was more about the team than the flag.

     This view taken by the governing body is not entirely off the mark. While having the flag on uniforms is preferable in athletic competitions, it is not necessary – especially if the name of the country and its colors are present as part of the scheme. For my part as an American, I do not look for Old Glory on the uniform of athletes, and with regard to the last summer Olympics, I paid much more attention to the performance of the squads representing Team USA, whose uniforms typically displayed small US flags (probably not much larger than 2" x 3"). The substantial prominence of the flag came from the USA fans and its appearance during victory laps and medal ceremonies.

     So flags can become overrated in the overall scheme of certain things and in certain contexts, and if the statement by UK Athletics had been the last word of the controversy, this post would have stopped here.

     But Jonathan Jones decided to take it to another level when he wrote in The Guardian that he had “sympathy” for the kit designers, who he claimed had created an “elegant” vest with the national colors, while dispensing with “that jagged, explosive, aggressive flag.”

     Jones, an art columnist for the newspaper, insisted that his criticism was not about “imperial arrogance” or a “coercive union that keeps Scotland in its place”, but instead had to do with how the flag looked, and he opined that the flag was “cluttered” with sharp-angled lines which implied fragmentation as opposed to unity, as well as being “heavy and overbearing, forceful and strident.”

     Furthermore, Jones asserted that while the flag had meaning when Britannia ruled the waves – and in particular, when fighting in battles such as Waterloo and Trafalgar – it was “crap” today, and that its “sheer pompous ugliness unconsciously damages the image of the union” in a way that gives a “psychological boost” to the separatists who wish to break up Britain.

     For this reason, he suggested that a new flag should be designed to save the United Kingdom and make the British people proud to be British and love their country again.

     However, I find that the commentary by Jones – while a bit refreshing for coming from an artistic point of view – was off the mark and at odds with the Union Flag which I and millions of people around the world have come to know.

     The Union Flag is – quite simply – one of the most beautiful flags in the world, and that beauty is in part derived from the fact that it is, as Jones writes, “a compromise, a merging of different national symbols.” It brings together a vibrant blue field and a white diagonal cross – the Saltire of St. Andrew representing Scotland, with the red Saltire of St. Patrick for Northern Ireland, and the red Cross of St. George representing England, to forge one flag for one country – the United Kingdom.

     It is therefore a flag of unity, and James VI of Scotland knew exactly what he was doing in the early 1600’s when he moved to have the flags of Scotland and England merged when he ascended to the English throne as James I, and therefore became the first man to rule all Britain. The royal union eventually led to the political, economic, and cultural union which has thus far endured for over 300 years, and the flag has become a symbol of the nations of Britain joining together as a single country.

     This is in similar fashion to the United States, where the stripes represent the original thirteen British colonies which became independent states and came together as one, while the fifty stars represent the fifty states of our current Union – all in the spirit of E Pluribus Unum.

My hand-made Christmas ornament featuring Old Glory on one side and the Union Jack on the other. Image Credit: Wesley Hutchins

     Indeed, the idea of several diverse areas melding together is especially true of Britain, where various tribes eventually merged into larger and expanding kingdoms, and resulted in the country that we know today. Those three crosses come together as an expression of that unity, as well the possibilities that can arise from that unity of peoples from so many cultures and backgrounds.

     It must be made very clear that the Union Flag is not the flag of any one part of the UK, nor is it the flag of any one ethnic group, nor is it the flag of any one religious group, or of any one racial group, nor is it the flag of any one political party, group, or philosophy. It is most definitely not the flag of “Westminster”, and neither is it a factional or sectarian flag.

     It is the flag of the United Kingdom and thus the flag of all Britons, from Inverness to Southampton, Belfast to Dover, Berwick to Cardiff, Anglesey to Glasgow, Land’s End to Shetland, and everywhere else in between. This includes people who can trace their families to the Normans, Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, Romans, and the various Celtic tribes (all of which are quite interrelated, anyway), as well as the people who are Britons of the first generation in our time. As such, it is a flag of “relentless dynamism” – a term used by Jones – as the country has changed time and time again while also preserving elements of continuity.

     It is not “owned” by anybody, just as the Saltire in Scotland is not the flag of the Scottish nationalists, for it is the flag of all of Scotland, including those who believe that Scotland should continue to be part of the United Kingdom, and who look to the Union Flag as the one that they share with the people of the rest of the Britain.

     Some may disagree with me on this point, but quite simply, it is my belief that the Union Flag serves the purpose as the national flag of the United Kingdom, just as the Stars and Stripes does as the national flag of the United States – full stop, and it is doubtful that the nationalists will start looking more favorably at the Union with an entirely redesigned flag.

     The one modification I would perhaps make would be to find a way to include Wales, which had already been annexed into England at the time of the unions with Scotland and Ireland, so that it is effectively represented by St. George's Cross. It is not – at least from what I can see – a terribly important issue, but it would be nice to have St. David’s Cross or the Red Dragon incorporated into the design, so that Wales can be represented as an integral part of the Union, as it always has been. My own personal preference would be to have the Red Dragon in the middle to preserve the overall red, white, and blue color scheme of the flag (since St. David's cross is yellow).

A modified Union Flag with the Welsh Red Dragon included. Image Credit: Yes0song via Wikimedia Commons cc

     After all, the Union Flag has long been established and cemented as an easily and hugely recognized symbol of the United Kingdom across the globe. It is powerfully iconic in its representation of Brand Britain everywhere, whether it is featured on clothes, food packaging, automobiles, ships, airplanes, various forms of media, mobile device cases, pillows and bed sheets, wallpaper, Christmas ornaments, stuffed animals, desktop backgrounds, posters, logos and insignia's for various organizations, and several other things which people use or come into contact with everyday.

     The flag is flown in admiration for Britain and to denote places, people, and things that are British, such as the Scottish pub in my hometown of Savannah which flies it, along with the Saltire and the Red Lion Rampant (the Royal Standard of Scotland) on its premises, as well as another pub which flies the crosses of St. Andrew and St. George, the Red Dragon, the Union Jack, and the Stars and Stripes. When one sees the Union Flag around the world, he or she knows what it is, and no questions need be asked.

Molly MacPherson's Scottish Pub and Grill in Downtown Savannah with the Union Flag, Saltire, and Lion Rampant. Image Credit: Wesley Hutchins

     From this point of view, the true measure of the global influence of a Union Flag is not such much about how many other countries copy its design when in the process of designing their own, but about how many people admire it and choose to use it in admiration of and respect for the United Kingdom.

     When I see the Union Flag, I do see the Saltire of St. Andrew, St. Patrick’s Cross, and St. George’s Cross, and through them, I see the countries of the UK and their contributions to Britain’s history, its achievements, themes, values, issues, tensions, paradoxes, and contradictions, as well as the triumphs and tragedies, good and bad, joys and sorrows, and times of unity and division, as well as its future – all wrapped up into one flag to represent the United Kingdom as a whole in its beautifully complex tapestry.

     Indeed, the Union Flag should not be in competition with the Saltire or the other Home Nation flags and it would be preferable if it could fly alongside them where applicable (i.e., it and the Saltire side-by-side at public buildings in Scotland). Except for Wales, it is composed of flags representing the Home Nations, and as such, it complements them and denotes their rightful place in the overall context of the Union.

     This is why I see unity instead of division in a flag of “relentless dynamism” which befits the robust, outward-looking, and tolerant country that Britain is and should always aspire to be, as well the hope that Britain can sort out its issues – constitutional and otherwise – as one.