God Save Our . . .

There's Barry . . 

Isn't it a bit unfair to expect an atheist to sing the British National Anthem; the piece starts off with God Save Our Gracious Queen.

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party and brother of another nut job, Piers, was accused recently of not singing the words to the anthem at a do, or even mouthing to them; well let me tell you I have been in so many gatherings, including football matches, where nobody has sung the words – or even mouthed them.

But what a national anthem aye? Where does it come from, I wondered so I looked? 

For a start off it's not the English National Anthem at all; in the Commonwealth Games, Ireland play Danny Boy, Wales have Land of my Fathers and Scotland used to have Scotland the Brave – I say used to have as they changed the Scots to Flower of Scotland in the 1990s.

So where does that leave England? They can't have God Save the Queen as that is the anthem for The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – the UK.

The automatic one became Land of Hope and Glory which is Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March no. 1, but that was changed to Jerusalem which is a tune written by William Parry to William Blake's poem  – I suppose the former, Land of Hope and Glory, was a bit jingoistic and on a par with the French anthem which I wrote about a couple of posts ago.

One of the greatest nights, for me, was when Barry McGuigan, the former World Featherweight Boxing Champion, defended his European Title in Belfast and something went wrong with the sound system so Barry's dad, a professional singer, got up and sang Danny Boy – not a dry eye in the house including ours.

When his dad died, Barry didn't want to box again as he said he had to no reason to return to the ring as he only ever boxed for his father. He did, eventually, make a comeback winning a few more fights before retiring right after a technical knockout in Round Two of a fight when his eye was gashed open making it impossible for the fight to continue.

There's another little thing about God Save Our Whatever – as it depends on whether there's a king or queen – during the bridge before the line 'send her victorious' a line, NO SURRENDER, is inserted at English football matches especially in the so called Northern Ireland where it is a Loyalist chant; it's also associated with the white supremacist movement Combat 18 of which that is all I will say apart from where the '18' came from: the first letter of the alphabet is A and the eighth is H making the initials AH – and you know who that was.

By the way, the Bridge is usually used in music to let you know when something is coming like a return to the verse; the bridge in this piece is da da da da da da Send her etc and I fail to see how they can sing 4 syllables when 6 are needed - but there we are.