Cricket Witness No 6 - His Captain's Hand on His Shoulder Smote

119 the BBC organised a special service attended by 90,000 people. Massive open air meetings were held in most towns, addressed by celebrants of the imperial cause. With my father’s birthday also being 24 May, my grandmother had no problem persuading me that the flags were flying on his behalf, I have a clear memory of the scale of the jubilation, including the large union flag attached to our wireless reception pole. Children were a particular target for the propaganda. The Earl of Meath, the chief protagonist and leader of the British Empire League or Movement, proclaimed that Empire Day would ‘remind children that they formed part of the British Empire’ and that ‘the strength of Empire depended upon them and they must never forget it.’ In 1911 he spoke of ‘the overwhelming responsibilities’ of Empire for ‘the humblest child.’ Every school had its parade or similar event, with costumes and bunting galore. I recall, aged nine, playing the role of Cecil Rhodes in one of these theatrical offerings, a white handkerchief stuck in the back of my hat to protect my neck from the merciless Mancunian sun. Lord Meath was a close friend of Lord Baden-Powell – and it should be recorded that the Boys Scouts came close to being named with the rather less user-friendly handle of ‘Young Knights of the Empire’. This cult inspired a realm of imperial literature parallel with, sometimes wedded to, the school-based stories for youngsters. Passing reference was made in the first part of the book to the inclusion of ripping yarns about the Empire. From BOP via Magnet to Adventure , there were such stories in all forms of boys’ papers, while Boys of the Empire , a periodical that ran between 1890 and 1918, is but one of several publications with a central imperial focus. The spate of Empire-based novels directed at children, teenagers and adults was not much less than the flood of school-based texts. AEW Mason’s The Four Feathers (1902), set against the canvas of the Mahdist War in the Middle East and the subject of a handful of films, is the quintessential example. Edgar Wallace’s Sanders of the River (1909), with a The Interlock; Reading, Playing And Watching