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Tourists going battle class

6th September 20236th September 2023 funtime65

Pitched fights were what passed for live sport back in the day (well, there was no football) with tourists going battle class.

And as is the way with big entertainment, America led the way.

Well, there was the coming ‘attraction’ of the American Civil War.

No seriously for the Great and Good of the capital the first skirmishes of what they never conceived would last four years were seen as a glorious day out.

Ready for battle: The American Civil War

And the grand ladies got their picnics out and their maids to take them down to within view of Manassas in Virginia, 32 miles from the capital.

Alas, this was not the derring-do of frontier adventures but bloody carnage and the tourists even had to hot-tail it back to Washington DC when the fighting got too close.

These days they make capital out of the battle with history tourists able to get up close and personal to the likes of Stonewall Jackson.

And interact with guides dressed up as soldiers.

War, this is what it’s good for

The excitement of close-up coverage of a real-life battle caught on and there were spectators too at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Though we can’t imagine that there had ‘come to dedicate a portion of that field’ to the tourists.

And here in Europe at the Franco-Prussian War, following in a rich tradition where tourists, celebrities including Robert Southey among them, visiting battlefields, post-killing.

Thomas Cook got in on the act too promoting travel out to the Boer War.

Old Boers: At a Boer graveyard in South Africa

All of which is still on the tourist map when you’re down there as I was in the Eastern Cape. And some towns don’t look to have changed since then.

Now thankfully, and again we probably have football to thank for this, real-life battles are no longer spectator sports.

In their place though are recreations, and there’s a classic every year in our favourite region of Greece, Attica.

Where the locals have been refighting the pivotal naval Battle of Spetses, or Armata, from the Greek War of Independence in 1822.

The Armata

Of course you know but just a reminder that Spetses was where Captain Andreas Miaoulis and the captains of Spetses, Hydra, and Psara islands fought against the Turkish naval forces.

While Kosmas Barbatsis from Spetses set fire to the enemy flagship, making the Turks retreat.

The climax of the island’s festivities which take place in the second week of September commemorating the battle on the 8th is the burning of a model of the Ottoman flagship.

But, of course, there are fireworks, concerts, plays and church services with the Virgin Mary to the fore with her birthday also on the 8th September.

Helpfully too and my schoolboy Greek is sketchy, and is only useful 2,500 years ago, they have translations from the Greek into English.

And for tourists going battle class, my Greek odyssey was courtesy of Lufthansa… and quite an odyssey it was too.

America, Countries, Europe, Ireland, UK

Dragging up the statue debate

9th April 20239th April 2023 funtime65

News that 70,000 fans have signed a petition to have an erection of Paul O’Grady (he’d appreciate that) put up in his hometown Birkenhead sees us dragging up the statue debate again.

Whether the proposed O’Grady statue over the Mersey from Liverpool would be of pets’ pal Paul with a beloved pooch.

Or his beloved alter ego, Lily Savage, a celebration of this towering figure would be most welcome.

We make no apologies for dredging up this contentious subject again because simply put statues are a fixture of every tourist’s city break trip.

And it is our mission to redress the balance.

By putting up more cultural figures on pedestals to match, replace or overtake the mystery military statues that look down on us.

Who’s a hero?

A horse, a horse: Stonewall Jackson at Manassas

Statues was all the talk in of all places Barbados a few years ago.

When the Ski Club of Virginia made their annual pilgrimage down to the Caribbean.

And our new friends from the Deep South were alerting us to the gathering storm.

Over the statues of the Confederate leaders proliferating there.

Which I saw for myself when I went out to Virginia.

And visited Manassas, site of the first fighting in the Civil War, and home to Stonewall Jackson.

And alas the fighting was to resume not long after on the streets again.

I was fortunate to illicit the opinions of those on both sides of the divide through further adventures in the Deep South.

And meet the likes of Dr Martin Luther King and his unfinished statue in Washington DC.

And Fannie Lou Hamer, the little big woman who got tired of being tired in Mississippi.

The extraordinary ordinary

In the name of dog: Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh

Of course for every celebrated soldier, conceited king or quaffed queen there are real heroes and heroines who have rightly been placed in marble and stone.

Such as Anne Frank in Amsterdam, Workers’ champion Jim Larkin in Dublin or devoted doggie Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh.

Ah yes, you’ll see the message we’re sending out here, more children, women, working-class heroes and animals.

Gay giants

And LGBTQ+ champions and more drag queens.

Our trawl of statues turns up unexpectedly and disappointingly precious few of either.

Again our beloved Ireland leads the way somewhat and in spite of its repressive Catholic past.

With the louche and lounging statue of Oscar Wilde in Merrion Square.

While he is lauded and lipsticked in his gravestone in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, his last resting place.

Where Wilde led, the likes of Harvey Milk, the ‘Mayor of Castro Street’ in San Francisco.

Whose bust smiles at us from its plinth in City Hall, followed.

And Greenwich Village in New York, spiritual home for the Gay Liberation Movement, made a statement with a bust to Marsha P Johnson.

All of which makes the case for more statues which truly represent the people who live among them and represent them.

Redressing the balance

Alas, here in the UK as in most places representation is in short supply.

With only Alan Turing, the decoder who helped defeat Hitler, represented long after he was vilified and criminalised for his homosexuality.

So let’s hear it for the real heroes and heroines of our society.

Those we can identify with and look up to.

And that’s who I want to be looking at it on my city breaks.

And why I’m dragging up the statue debate again.

America, Countries

Civil War home to roost

9th April 2022 funtime65

As the fighting started in Manassas, Virginia, farmer Wilmer McLean was in the wrong place with the Civil War home to roost.

Fortunately for Wilmer he was too old at 47 to sign up for the Confederate Army.

But the war came to him with his house in Virginia used as Brigadier General PGT Beauregard’s headquarters.

And a cannonball dropping into Wilmer’s kitchen fireplace.

The beginning and end

The house that Mac built: Wilmer’s house

With all that death and destruction on his land he can be forgiven for moving on after battle.

And heading 120 miles to the hamlet of Appomattox Court House.

Yes, that Appomattox Court House where 157 years ago today General Robert E Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S Grant.

And you can visit the museum there today and learn more about a war that changed America and the world.

And perhaps Wilmer McLean (Scottish surely).

Wilmer’s stuff and Custer

If you’re looking for Wilmer’s original furniture I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.

As the Army of the Potomac made off with them as souvenirs giving Wilmer a paltry financial recompense.

The table on which Lee signed the surrender documents came into General Custer’s possession.

And you can see it now in the American History Museum at the Smithsonian in Washington DC.

With an authentic recreation of McLean’s second home is now part of the Appommattox Court House National Historic Park.

Civil War sites

Now where Wilmer led I have still to follow.

Visiting, yes, Manassas, but still to make Appomattox.

Which I will, and as much of the pristine American Civil War sites that I studied way back in my University days.

And remember that all major airlines fly into Dulles Airport, the feeder airport for Washington DC.

Which Virginians never tire of reminding you is in their Commmwealth.

And not state as former governor, and Bill Clinton’s best buddy, Terry McAuliffe was at pains to tell us all.

Over a pint of stout in the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin.

But that’s another story.

And today is about marking the date with the Civil War home to roost for Wilmer McLean.

Countries, Culture, Europe, Pilgrimage

Holocaust Memorial Day

27th January 202130th January 2021 funtime65

It was a moral dilemma to test the wisdom of Solomon himself, if bombing Auschwitz would justify the loss of life.

A major consideration was that Hitler’s Third Reich would paint the Allies as anti-Semitic.

History tells us that bombs did rain down on Auschwitz but the damage and deaths to inmates and guards were collateral damage.

From a raid on a nearby industrial installation.

It was the Soviets who eventually liberated Auschwitz. 76 years ago today, January 27.

And in the the aftermath of the War the Poles decided to preserve Auschwitz.

Lest We Forget Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Dachau and the 20+ other Third concentration camps in tbs Third Reich.

Dachau may seem a strange inclusion in a Topdeck Oktoberfest bus booze tour.

But the first German concentration camp left a lasting mark on the Aussie and Kiwi (and one Scot) hard-drinkers.

War tourism is not for everyone and its critics decry it as mawkish, but it is for me.

And I would much rather visit the Flanders Fields and the Somme, the American Civil War Manassas battefield, Anne Frank’s House and Dresden than sit on a beach.

Although thankfully they’re not mutually exclusive for the curious visitor.

My passion for history has thankfully been taken up by my family (they had little choice).

And the Son and Heir sought out Auschwitz on his trip to Krakow for World Youth Day.

Of course, you can only truly appreciate the gravitas of these concentration camps by visiting them.

But since we all can’t go we must rely on the witness testimonies of those who survived its horrors.

And those of us who pay our respects.