Would like to have met...

[Digit]

I would have to go along with that Jerry.
As regards 'history', as far as I'm concerned it started 60secs ago and extends back to the pre-Cambrian Era, if you're any where within that try this site...

http://archaeologica.boardbot.com/

we are a friendly group who discuss not only politics but just about every subject under the sun, and including the sun.

Roy.

 

[Maia28]

It's not that easy to come up with three, I keep changing my mind! Nonetheless, today I'll go for:

1. Frederick Banting
2. Frank Zappa
3. Enoch Powell

 

[Digit]

Banting, a much forgotten gentleman.

Roy.

 

[Grinding One]

I`d like to go back in time and tell myself all the things I have learned the hard way...
#2 I think I`d like to go back in time and talk to Jesus...just to scare the # out of me.
#3 Then I would like to talk to anybody that would listen without getting mad and try to solve problems so we do not have to go to war.

country to what you may think we Americans like the British ,help them out all of the time,Russians too,heck even the French...I think we helped build the countries we helped to blow up...OK I`m off my soapbox now lets have no more war.

 

[jerryc]

Maia,

Our choices of who we would talk to tell us much about us. As I said earlier, we are conditioned by our culture and experiences. I knew nothing about Frederick Banting.

I didn't include "Weary" Dunlop, but to any Australian with experience of the Second World War, he would be an obvious choice. A six foot four surgeon who worked tirelessly to save POW's suffering at the hands of the Japanese. His height, as well as his attitude, brought him constantly to their attention. He was often singled out for what the Americans now call "robust treatment". Then to face his captors down when they wanted to send a sick man back to work and threatened him with death if he didn't compy. Dunlop knew what they were capable of, but wouldn't yield an inch. Yet after the war to say that hate was corrosive and there was a need to forgive.

Each culture and time creates it's own heroes. General George Custer is remembered, not for being an absolute silly person, but for making a "Last stand". Does any one remember Major Wilson's "Last Stand?"

On reflection I would modify my own choices made earlier and include any one of the men who were on The "Birkenhead". What were their thoughts and fears in those last moments. They had given the women and children their chance for survival, they had put the horses over the side and could hear the horses screams' as the sharks attacked. They knew they were next to go into the water. If they survived all that there was the Skeleton Coast to look forward to Yet they "stood quite still to the Birkenhead Drill."





Old Enoch was an interesting choice and I'm intrigued. Why him?

 

[jerryc]

Thought I'd better quote the Kipling poem I referred to. It doesn't tell the full story.For example it was this incident that gave rise to the call "Women and Children first.

But to stand an' be still to the Birken'ead drill
is a damn tough bullet to chew,
An' they done it, the Jollies -- 'Er Majesty's Jollies --
soldier an' sailor too!
Their work was done when it 'adn't begun; they was younger nor me an' you;
Their choice it was plain between drownin' in 'eaps
an' bein' mopped by the screw,
So they stood an' was still to the Birken'ead drill, soldier an' sailor to.

As was only hinted in the poem, most were young lads, recently enlisted landsmen.

it's easy to understand people with a mission, those with maturity and those who seek glory, but understand these boys and what motivated them? That's why I would have liked to talk to them.

Jerry

 

[Digit]

Banting, the Birkenhead?
I'll stick my neck out here and suggest that amongst the members are a goodly number of ex-EAGLE readers!

Roy.

 

[Losos]

Still it was a privilege I'll always remember, shaking the hand of a real Hero.
Gerry

In his generation real live heros seemed to abound.

In the present age I find it hard to think of an equivalent, we live in different times of course, and there are still some examples in our Police and Military Forces.

There are a handful of civilian people who may qualify, I'll not name them now because it'll take the thread off topic.

And to answer the original question, top 3 for me Churchil, Bader, and Lawrence (of Arabia) the latter if only to find out the truth

 

[Losos]

I'll stick my neck out here and suggest that amongst the members are a goodly number of ex-EAGLE readers!
Roy.

The EAGLE oh yes, how many weeks pocket money got spent on that :lol: (Sure wish I'd saved a few copies, now worth a bit I'm told)

 

[Digit]

If you want to return to the golden years of your childhood Losos I'll PM you some downloads.
It's interesting to note that nobody has selected any anti-heroes, Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon, Pol Pot, Mugabe, Amin, Mladic, El Duce, or further back St Vlad, and Gengis Khan. What made them do what they did? What drove them?
And what happened to Schweitzer, Mandela and 'Mother' Teresa?
And none of us seem to have much time for Mungo Park, David Livingstone, or Richard Burton.

Roy.

 

[jerryc]

Roy,
Have to confess I was a reader of The Eagle in my long lost boyhood days, but never came across Banting or The Birkenhead in it's adventurous pages.
Now I do remember Dan Dare, though he would obviously be hard to talk to.
Remember the short poetic lines about him?

A cigarette that bears the lipstick's traces,
A pair of space boots and some Dan Dare braces.

But this was the innocent era of Biggles. I devoured all of the books but one. I have never found a copy of Biggles Flies Undone.

Jerry

 

[Digit]

I had it from issue one Jerry, if I could get it away from my elder brother that is, to be honest I can't really remember where I learnt a lot of these things from. The EAGLE was certainly an inspiration.
Do you remember the old habit of the loaded shotgun behind the door?
I do, and as a result of one I'm so short sighted I can barely see as far as my lenses and as I played cricket, football, rugby, tennis etc I spent a lot of time reading as I was always breaking my glasses!
Remember those terrible NHS ones?
I was always, 'Prof' or Giglamps!

Roy.

 

[Maia28]

Jerry,

we are indeed contioned by our culture and experiences. I had a whole list of people like Newton, Copernicus, Oppenhiemer etc. and they are invoked for different reasons.

Frederick Banting was thinking about a lecture he would give the following day when it occured to him that diabetes might be caused by a pancreatic dysfunction. He persevered in his studies against the advice of others and identified insulin. When awarded the Nobel prize in 1923 with Macleod, he gave half of his award money to Charles Best. He did not patent his discovery but gave it to mankind and died in 1941 aged 49. Because of him, my daughter is alive and well.

Enoch Powell is a fascinating character although mostly known for his rivers of blood speach. In 1974, he advised people to vote labour despite being a tory MP. He was the youngest professor in the commonwealth and the youngest brigadier, could speak and write many languages and was in the list of top 100 Brittons. Like Banting, he had the courage to stand alone for what he believed. Margaret Thatcher once said that she based her monetary policies on his ideas, he said it was a shame she didn't understand them. However, it isn't for his politics that I'd like to have spoken with him. Rather that he was a polymath who seemed to have tied up all of his understanding in a logical and consistent framework.

Hope that satisfies your curiosity about why I chose Enoch,
Andy

 

[Digit]

A story about Enoch. Apparently the barber in the House was known for his ability to talk the hind leg off of a Donkey. When Enoch went in one day he asked, 'how would you like it cut Mister Powell?'
'In silence!'
One of the brick bats thrown at Enoch during his speech was because he suggested that immigrants should be offered financial incentives to go home, an idea condemned at the time as racist, and now part of government policy.
Numerous cars at the time sported stickers in the rear window saying, 'give me the money Enoch and I'll go.'

Roy.

 

[Maia28]

Roy,
I'd never thought that Enoch would also make me laugh or I'd have put him first.
Andy

 

[Smudger]

That's all very amusing, but he was a bigot. A well-educated bigot, but a bigot none the less. Look where he ended up.

 

[Rich]

That's all very amusing, but he was a bigot. A well-educated bigot, but a bigot none the less. Look where he ended up.

Yes, And look where we've ended up.

rich.

 

[Maia28]

That's all very amusing, but he was a bigot. A well-educated bigot, but a bigot none the less. Look where he ended up.

We are all bigots in our own way, at least he had the courage of his convictions.

 

[Smudger]

But his convictions were unacceptable to civilised people.

 

[Digit]

So the 1000 dockers who went out on strike in support were uncivilised, and if we are so civilised why was the power of the law required to force the population to be 'civilised?

Roy.