An unambiguous symbol
Symbols are tremendously important, but they mean different things to different people. As I drove through one village locally there was a St George’s Cross on almost every lamp post. They appeared to be flying at half-mast. I suppose that the ladders were not long enough. It is unlikely that the energetic spreaders of this patriotic symbol meant it as a half-mast lament for Sudan or Ukraine or Burma or Palestine. It is even more unlikely that they were celebrating that St George was from Asia Minor; Turkey or Palestine or both.
The national flag spread all over a white village is a sign probably meant to exclude not include. It takes me back to the 1970s and 1980s. The only people flying the cross of St George then were the BNP and the churches. Churches intended it for one thing, the BNP for something else.
I flew the cross of St George outside our house for St George’s Day and the week following. A neighbour told me that a friend of theirs was worried they had a political extremist two doors away. “Probably not,” came the reply. “He is a Liberal Democrat Councillor.”
Most of our Cathedrals and many of our larger parish churches have the battle honours of our various regiments. These likewise are ambiguous. They represent stories of suffering and death as well as of courage and victory.
Church bells with their glorious sound are an unambiguous and public symbol of an open invitation to worship the God who is the Father of Jesus Christ. By extension this is the God who is the parent of all humanity. Yes, there are peals of bells at Morpeth, and Berwick and Manchester Town Hall; bells in civic towers. But in England they are the handful of exceptions that prove over 5,750 rules.Dale Barton