- by Owen Morton
I’d like to make it clear to start off with that I didn’t watch the BBC’s Great Britons series. Okay, I did watch bits of the list of the hundred greatest, and I watched the last quarter of an hour of the final result last night, but I didn’t actually manage to see a single one of the programmes wherein various celebrities attempted to boost their own status by championing the cause of British people who might have been the greatest British person of all.
I have to confess to being somewhat dubious about the whole thing, actually. It smacks of rampant nationalism to me. I didn’t like the concept: it seemed to be implying that everyone in Britain was greater than everyone else anyway, and that from among this group of elite people was one who was better than all the others. A much better poll would perhaps have been one which sought to find the greatest human – or indeed living organism, if we want to take this to its logical extreme – in the world, since that would not have been biased by the fact that it was being voted for by only one nation. I don’t know whether Henry V made it into the top 100, though I imagine he probably did due to his marvellous defeat of France back in 1415 – but I can’t really see him being held up as one of the greatest humans ever if you look at it and consider that all he did really was win a minor victory for what was then a backwater country at the edge of Europe, especially a victory that forty years later meant absolutely nothing.
The point I’m trying to make, not very coherently, is that while Henry V may seem great to British people, he’s most decidedly not to the French, and I would imagine pretty much everyone else is indifferent towards him. That being the case, I don’t think he deserves a place in the top 100 people of the world.
If Henry V didn’t make it into the top 100 Great Britons, though, the point remains. Most of the people in the series only seem great to British people. One could argue that – it being a British series made by a British company – it’s only right that it centres on British people. But this still encourages people to think of Britain with pride, when there is no real reason to do so. Just because we happen to be born in this country, we seem to be filled with an unshakeable belief that it is the greatest country in the world. We cling on to our imperial past, pointing to it as proof that we’re the best people in the world, when all that does is prove that we had an empire once which we maintained through simply being better at killing people than those we pulled into the empire. And for those who think that was good, we don’t even have that anymore – Britain ceased to be a power after World War II, and its problem is that it still thinks it has power, when we’re now only America’s lapdog.
I object to the Great Britons series on that principle, but if I accept the concept of the series, the next immediately obvious thing to object to is some of those included on the list. Admittedly, Shakespeare was on the list, and very deservedly so, and very intelligent people like Darwin and Brunel (if that’s how you spell it) made it as well. So far, so good. But I could quote you a long list of people who I can remember offhand who were on that list of 100 Great Britons who definitely shouldn’t have been: Julie Andrews, David Beckham, Robbie Williams, Tony bloody Blair (I mean, what the hell was he doing there?) and even J. K. Rowling, whose Harry Potter books may be wonderful, but it by no means makes her a great Briton.
I mean, come on. Julie Andrews. What did she contribute to the ‘greatness’ of Britain? Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. Well, I for one am so very, very grateful. Definitely bastions of great culture, those two films. David Beckham may be good at playing football, but in the long run (or even in the short run, whatever that might be), what bloody good is playing football to anyone? Okay, so he can kick an inflated bladder about, but why do some of the people of this country think that that qualifies him to be potentially voted as the Greatest Briton ever? Robbie Williams is quite good fun when you’re dancing to one of his tracks in a club, but that’s the only merit on which he could have possibly got in on (and it occurs that there are many British songs which are played in a club which are a lot better – ‘I Am The One And Only’, for example, and we didn’t see Chesney Hawkes in that list, did we?). Tony Blair: who voted for him? And were they on their way to or from the lobotomy theatre at the time?
And while I’m at it, let’s discuss the examples of royalty which made it into the list. We’ll ignore people like Elizabeth I: I’m talking about contemporary royalty. We’ll start with Princess Diana. As someone said on the final quarter of an hour of the programme last night, she “was a lovely person … but the Greatest Briton?” And the someone who said that was whoever was championing Diana’s cause. That’s as good as admitting that Diana shouldn’t be winning the poll, or even be in it. Yet she came in as the third Greatest Briton ever! There’s something wrong here. And the Queen Mother managed to get into the top 100. What did she ever do, other than live to be 101? If she hadn’t happened to marry into the royal family, no one would have ever heard of the woman, because she never did anything that was all that ‘great’ – yet, just because she married King George VI, suddenly she’s one of the hundred Greatest Britons ever? Am I the only one who finds this a little strange? (To judge from my housemates’ reactions when I voiced this opinion when we were watching it, then I am – but they’re all Tories anyway, and two of them are Tories who favour bringing back the death penalty, so we really don’t have to worry about what they say.)
I think there are many other people who should have been included but weren’t. I here detail who the most important of them are, or were:
James Sharpe: My tutor at York this term, and I’m rather hoping he might read this website and find that I’ve voted him one of my Greatest Britons, so he’ll then give me a good mark for my essay! Cunning, eh?
Patrick Stewart: The first of two actors with ‘Stewart’ in their names. Acted in Shakespearean plays, which were good, and in Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was not. But it does give me and Anton something to do on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (specifically, sit there and insult it), so I’ll include him.
Matthew Paris: Not the columnist from the Times (that’s Matthew Parris), but rather a 12th century monk who wrote a really good history of contemporary England, which enabled me, seven hundred years later, to do a course about it and make a really great friend (though not long after the course lose her again, but that was through my own stupidity, and you can’t really blame Matthew Paris for that).
Anthony Stewart Head: The other actor with ‘Stewart’ in his name, this multi-talented actor plays Giles in Buffy. Can you imagine Buffy without Giles? (If you can’t, then just watch Season 6 and you’ll see what it’s like – and okay, it’s not actually that bad. In fact, it’s probably the second best season so far.)
Winston Churchill: This marvellous politician was responsible for a large number of battle plans of the First World War which went magnificently wrong, thus causing huge numbers of Britons to get slaughtered! Surely someone with this splendid record should be put in the list! … Oh, hold on. Someone’s just told me that Churchill did get into the list, but on the merits of something else.
Geoffrey of Monmouth: He wrote a marvellously inaccurate history of Britain, and in this history displayed a great liking for the phrase “and he was dashed into a thousand fragments”, which was used as the commonplace fate for anyone who wrestled with giants or made themselves huge pairs of wings or something equally improbable. How can you not like the guy?
Me: Need I say more?
The guy who voiced He-Man: This man truly reached the pinnacle of – oh, sorry. He was American. He’d undoubtedly be winner of my Great People poll, though.
Right, I’m bored now, so I’m going to stop writing.