Page 10 - CSA Speaker Bulletin March 2019 | CSA Celebrity Speakers

CSA SPEAKER BULLETIN HOLLYWOOD
WHO ARE WE,
US ENGLISH?
A Personal View of the English Today
Sarah Miles is an
English actress and
songwriter whose career
flourished during the
Swinging Sixties and
the early Seventies.
Her best-known films
include The Servant,
Blowup, Ryan’s Daughter
and Hope and Glory.
During her acting career
Sarah was nominated
for several BAFTA and
Golden Globe Awards.
Sarah gives her thoughts
here about the way
forward for England and
the English today.
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08
by Sarah Miles
I’m neither Left wing nor Right wing, nor
leader nor follower, I’m merely asking us
to remember who we are. Why is it that
after every ‘fall of empire’, decadence is
sure to follow? Decadence emerges when
you lose sight of who you are, a loss of
identity mirroring the loss of empire.
Yet the Scots possess a fine sense of their
‘Scottishness’. The same with the Irish, they fairly recently. In both wars he was fighting
know precisely who they are and revel
in it. The Welsh too, have a very potent
sense of their unique identity, they are
innately Welsh … so why not us … who are
we?
I was born in 1941 when my father was
fifty-six. His study drawer was stuffed full
of medals, including the Military Cross. In
the First World War he joined the Royal
Artillery and rode to war on horseback.
Yet the only war story he shared was
when his beloved horse Kitty was shot
from under him during a charge. An officer
galloped by: “Climb aboard, sir, climb
aboard!” Daddy chose to stay, to lie there
in the mud, cradling Kitty’s head in his
arms, with bullets swooshing past his ears,
until she died. His next horse was shot
from under him too.
Apparently he was a pretty hot spy in the
2nd World War and we never knew until
for England’s freedom and democracy.
After the 1st War, he became a member
of the Bloomsbury Set, that group of
intellectuals in the 20’s/30’s and early
40’s. The conventional wisdom of the
day among members (if not downright
obligatory!) was to hold Communist and
Atheist views. My father held both.
We four children had a strict upbringing.
As soon as the gong struck we
immediately had to assemble for the
meal. My two brothers sat opposite me