Wayyyyyyyyyyy back in 1967 (even before he was a Lord) I read Melvyn Bragg's "Speak For England" - the first line has always stuck in my mind and always will - and is what I feel we need as a global society at present!
"IF WE WANT A NEW START WE MUST LOOK TO THE PAST. THE PRESENT IS TOO OCCUPIED, THE FUTURE TOO OBSCURE. I BELIEVE THIS TO BE TRUE, BOTH FOR COUNTRIES AND INDIVIDUALS"
Almost forty years later, I'm saddened because during these time, Melvyn's words have a profound and prophetic ring to them, truer now than when he wrote them............(sigh!) I have since 1967 read this book many times, even to my growing children, having always had a passion for passing on history but the belief that each of us are PART of history - not the to-and-from dates of wars or the numbers of wives of kings, but ordinary, everyday history by ordinary people that seems to be dwindling rapidly with each passing generation - such as capsulated by "Speak For England".

This was achieved for instance with "A Shropshire Lad" peom by Alred Edward Houseman set to six songs by George Butterworth (both in Stan's early timescale!)


Speaking of Lord Melyvn, I watched with great delight his "History of English" - especially when he described how the basic Saxon language (of quite narrow range) expanded by the Norman invasion, despite Norman French (and Latin) only being spoken by the elite. There was a simple Saxon peasant song - sung, as you do, when you toil your daily toil - this time agriculturally - which spake of "cuckoo's ccuckooing and bullocks farting" . I thought "Stan would laugh at that" - though at that time it was an ordinary and non-humorous song - just shows you how very "PC" we have all become about ordinary every day thins and people - the VERY people that Stan and Ollie portray. That's why, for the introduction music - despite being American - I would like to hear "Aaron Copeland's
"Fanfare For The Common Man" - suitable for a very UNCOMMON man, like Stan - but who represented throughout most of his films, the common man.