#Spoiler alert – Most of this post will be history after Midnight 23 June 2016
I can’t be the only one that feels something significant is expected of the great British Public today, Thursday 23 June. There are banners in the Town, and posters in home windows – and wall to wall coverage in the Press on the TV and Radio. The debate around the Referendum on Britain’s choice to #remain as part of the EU or to #brexit hit full crescendo last week; only to be silenced in mid step by the appalling murder of a member of our Parliament, Jo Cox. The method by which her death came about is too gruesome for me to write without better evidence – let’s permit wikipedia to suffice:
“On 16 June 2016, Cox was shot and stabbed multiple times in Birstall, where she had been due to hold a constituency surgery. She died from her injuries about an hour later. A 52-year-old man who self-identified as a white nationalist[6]was arrested in connection with the attack”
Much has been written around the circumstances leading up to her murder, of appalling abuse she received via any media outlet you care to mention, threatening her life for months. Her bravery in the face of such hostility it seems is shared by many of our MPs; their standing ovation for Mrs Cox in Parliament on Monday this week testament to their understanding that they had shared their work space with one ‘incredible’ fellow member, whose humanity for all in the world so obviously shone through in everything that she said, did and wrote about. #Respect.
My personal decision for Thursday has always been to #Remain. It’s not that I can’t see the angle that the #Leave campaign take on the matter. I simply don’t see that any of our current problems we face can be sorted by leaving the very good company of our fellow citizens of the European Union. The mass migration across the world we currently witness won’t cease globally just because Britain exits from the EU. Currently, the British border is the other side of the channel, and if we were to leave Europe, then the border comes to our side of the Channel. Hurrah – at a stroke we close the Refugee camp in Calais. And reopen it in Dover, Folkestone and environs. Inevitably I know we will take a huge financial hit, and there’s no need for us to reduce our GDP by 20/30/40 billion, just to stop paying Europe £8 billion or so. Simon Schama CBE is an English historian specializing in art history, Dutch history, and French history. He is a University Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University, New York, a Brit, and his article I have linked to with the picture above is worth reading for the clarity of argument he gives for us remaining in Europe – as a beacon of tolerance.
Alongside the honest Brexiteers, there are some really very nasty bed-fellows to boot, some of them inside political parties of a persuasion I can’t trust, plus some fascist nationalists and criminal thugs whose other ‘policies/beliefs’ disturb me greatly. The #Remain campaign juxtaposed Farage and his party’s nasty advert showing a queue of 2015 migrants alongside similar memes from the Nazi regime of
the ’30s. They too had no time for immigrants, foreigners, those of faith, those of none, those whose sexuality differed from the norm, for the sick, the disabled, the old and the weak. And for the last 80 years Britain has been brave enough to think differently. Education, Health, Care, Tolerance and Inclusion have been the bywords for what stands for the British values we are asked to hold dear – indeed we have to teach them really fully in our schools, so that radicalisation of a different kind is not aided and abetted.
Whether you be ‘for’ or ‘against’, we will be the wiser for this campaign. Our individual vote, for once, will be counted as such. And we have surfaced all the grossest lies and untruths that our society holds as ‘truths’. I don’t like what we have seen, and neither do so many others, and I for one believe that a more tolerant society will emerge. After all, (and I believe them to be men of their word), neither Boris nor Nigel actually believe we are diminished by the diversity of the many nationalities that live in Britain in 2016.
Talking of Banners Advertising Good Things – here’s ours: \|/
And we need a breath of fresh air come Friday, once all the electioneering and all that stuff is done. From 11am on Friday, Chair of CCJB PTA, Emma Robertson and her team are assembling our PTA Summer Fete – ‘The Great Outdoors’ for Saturday 25 June from 12 noon. Everybody whose anybody in our school will be there, we hope, as will some amazing Gundogs and their keeper, so please if you are free and local to Maidenhead, feel free to come along and enjoy an amazing afternoon of British Country fete. Licensed bar, Pimms tent, BBQ and all things British are on show, stalls run by the boys and girls and all.
By all means ask us for a Souvenir wrist band, if you wish – just £2 on the door to gain entry.
And finally … Old Boys Cricket … Friday 24 June from 5.30pm
On Friday evening, 5030 pm onwards the older ‘old boys’ are playing the younger ‘ old boys’ at our Taplow playing fields, SL6 0NR, Phoenix & Claires Court Sports Club, Institute Road Taplow. Messrs Wilding Jnr and Hammerton are leading out the old and young alike, in a smash and grab limited overs game.
Oldest boys:
Tom Wilding
Will Ballantyne
Simon Ball
Donald Pike
Gareth Miller
Michael Walters
Piers Morgan
Patrick Randell
Patrick Bose
Martyn Goddard
Brad Pennington
Umpires:
Alan Sibley
Trevor Sharkey
A Principled view 
Another winnINg blog… TY