OK, I’m showing off because I’ve just discovered the meaning of cryostasis, “the reversible cryopreservation of live biological objects”, but it is a useful word to convey the ideas I have in mind. The thought came to me as I was watching on television the ceremony of Trooping the Colour in London. The public were treated to the spectacle of 3,000 British soldiers, 400 bandsmen and about 250 mounted cavalry performing intricate parade ground manoeuvres before the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.
The television presenters made a point of reminding us that the soldiers on parade were on a rotation of duty from Afghanistan, where they would presumably return after this period of being posted back home. What struck me, however, was the fact that the uniforms of the infantry seemed to date from the Crimean War (although the guns they carried were those currently issued to British forces) whereas the uniforms of the cavalry and the bandsmen seem to be of an earlier period. Where exactly is the logic in this? How was it decided to freeze ceremonial uniform at a particular point in history? And if the uniform dates from a certain period, why are the men not carrying weapons of that period? (Incidentally, the gun they were carrying has received a considerable amount of criticism as a fighting weapon, leading to the subversive thought that the time and effort put into ceremonies such as this might be better employed improving the soldiers' working tools.)
The same question must be asked about the cavalry: although they were the main motive for me watching the ceremony as I ride in a very amateur fashion, we do have to ask what the purpose is of maintaining what must be an extremely expensive ceremonial outfit, even if the men do serve their time on the modern battlefield, although in armoured cars rather than on horseback. We have to ask this question because men have died on those battlefields because of the lack of adequate equipment, equipment that had not been provided because of cutbacks in military expenditure instigated by a Chancellor of the Exchequer who is possibly a candidate for a treason trial (just to clarify, I refer to Gordon Brown). I have to be very careful making this point for fear of being denounced as what I once heard a senior Paratroop officer laughingly refer to as a “BGR” (Bloody Guardian Reader); no, this essay is not in the least anti-military, indeed I am striving to find ways to see where the British armed services may be enabled to act more effectively in spite of the country’s continuing economic decline.
On the one hand it is quite clear that for soldiers taking part in these ceremonies and presumably for their colleagues watching, these events make an immense contribution to morale and esprit de corps. Another argument trotted out when the subject arises is the contribution such ceremonies make to the tourist trade. This is, or should be regarded as, irrelevant nonsense. On the other hand I have to make a private mental reference to the two most successful armies of recent times: those of Vietnam and Israel. To the best of my knowledge neither of these armies takes part in such elaborate ceremonies and they are certainly not famous for their military bands. Also, in the case of the Vietnamese army’s conflict with, and victory over, the most powerful armed forces on earth, there was no comfortable recycling of men (or women) from the front line back to a few months of ceremonial duties in Hanoi. Neither do we notice a significant presence of cavalry in the armed forces of either of these countries; and does morale of their soldiers suffer from the lack of globally televised marching exercises?
Just in passing, it is interesting to note that the fighting forces of both these countries contain women. The units on parade at Trooping the Colour included no women; the only females taking part in the ceremony were the Queen and Princess Anne and while one would not wish to enter into conflict, armed or otherwise, with Princess Anne, it’s interesting to speculate why female members of the British Armed Forces are not represented in Guards’ Regiments.
Now that Britain’s global status has declined to the point where we have to share an aircraft carrier with the French and when soldiers are being killed because their regiments cannot afford appropriate body armour or properly protected vehicles, we should perhaps be looking at the kind of expenditure that goes into these events. I would estimate that a cavalryman’s cuirass costs about the same as a flak jacket; how much does an infantryman’s dress uniform cost and is it necessary for him to have one at all? Sorry to labour the point, but Israeli servicemen do not wear dress uniform unless they are military attachés serving abroad.
I don’t intend to get started on the question of military bands but was told recently that bandsmen are trained in first aid and function as medics when their regiments are in action. Now, I’ve never been a soldier and would have been a very bad one if I had, but there’s something at the back of my mind that says if I were facing the AK-47s of persons ill-disposed towards me I would actually prefer to receive medical assistance from a full-time professional rather than someone who divides his energies between learning first aid and practising his scales. In the 21st-century the argument that military bands have been in existence since the 17th century and served to rally men in the confused scenarios of mass battles does not cut much ice.
Something that also concerns me is that this cryostasis invades other areas of life and is given a superficially attractive historical gloss. One example of this is the Beefeaters at the Tower of London; once again we ask: why is their uniform frozen in a certain point in the 16th century? A possible answer is that these individuals have been removed from the reality of modern life and placed into a living tableau that serves up the Tower of London is a cosy piece of national history with one or two gruesome elements thrown in to simulate reality whereas the authentic nature of the edifice is a symbol of the Norman brutality that subjugated a conquered people. Our law courts as well remove their officers from daily life by disguising them in gowns and wigs trapped at a certain point in the nation’s history (fixed at the time of mourning the death of Queen Anne in 1714). In this case the alienation from reality is presumably intended to bestow some kind of mystical virtue and the officers of the court as religious vestments do for the clergy.
The same thing happens with the inanimate world. Scattered all over the country are the ruins of cathedrals destroyed by Henry VIII and castles destroyed in the Civil War. I have a personal link to these monuments because my father and grandfather were stonemasons employed by the Ministry of Works in the 1930s and 40s making these ruins safe for tourists to visit. So ironically, we have the state first of all constructing these edifices then destroying them and later ordering their cryostatic preservation in a state of frozen decay. This is about as logical as maintaining a military band today and possibly has something to do with the Romantic movement of the 19th century, which had a soft spot for, and in some cases even built, ruined buildings.
Both my grandfather (who was the Clerk of Works) and my father (who was his apprentice) worked on the ruins of Tintern Abbey in the Wye Valley which, of course, inspired one of Wordsworth’s great Romantic poems. But should this be the function of what was originally a magnificent piece of architecture in one of the most beautiful parts of the country - providing inspiration for poets and a background for modern day-trippers to eat their ice creams? I hesitate to suggest that the Abbey should be rebuilt and turned into flats, and there is neither the public nor the demand in the area to justify it being rebuilt and turned into a concert hall but surely it is absurd to leave these ruins in their frozen state. Reconstructing the building would involve re-learning old skills and perpetuating skills that are in danger of dying out and then, who knows, given the way spiritual life is developing in Britain, it could probably become a mosque.
Back in the 1960s Harold Wilson entertained us all as possibly the last Prime Minister endowed with genuine wit and one of his funnier jokes was to claim that the country was about to pass through the “white hot revolution” of technology. Since then there has been much rhetoric about cutting the nation’s coat according to its economic cloth, but this has not really happened except when the cloth has been cut for us by outside forces. It really is time to take a good look at those elements of our society that we have chosen to freeze at a certain point in time and to debate whether they should continue to exist and if so, how they can be properly brought up to date.
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