Older NEWS 6 (Sort of!)

   An interesting piece written by Gary Allinghan for 'Macleans', 'Canada's National Magazine' as it styles  itself. The article first appeared on 1st May issue of 1942, almost 80 years ago.

   It combines insights about one of our villages, one of our most famous residents, political knockabout, another great man (whatever fools might say), and the War... 

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   I used to spend week ends with the Cripps family at Filkins, the little Cotswold village where he was popularly known as 'the red squire'. He had bought up an old farmhouse and converted it into what he named 'Goodfellows', a large country mansion of thirty rooms with a trout stream hidden behind a fringe of weeping willows, a tennis court, flower gardens and ornamental lake. Here the man who can trace his ancestry back to the early thirteenth century spent many thousands of dollars in an attempt to retain the old Cotswold atmosphere and save Filkins from the vandalism of modernity. He bought thatched cottages in the village when the jerry-builders were on the prowl for sites, turned one into a village museum, another into a clubhouse for the villagers and two he renovated into homes for old-age pensioners. He provided baths for the villagers, changing rooms for the village sports team, and set the village doctor up in a suite complete with waiting room, surgery and dispensary. He gave the village a swimming pool, a bowling green and tanks for the local water supply.

   And now he has given up 'Goodfellows', turned it into a nursery school, and taken a small cottage in the district. Lady Cripps, only daughter of the manufacturer of a very famous patent medicine, and an heiress in her own right, shares her husband’s views on politics and dietetics. They are vegetarians and non-drinkers. They usually have one meal a day, which Lady Cripps prepares herself, consisting of vegetables, sour milk and wholemeal bread. Their private life chimes with the sincere simplicity of their characters.

   And now the man who was reviled by the Tories, expelled by the Socialists and despised by the Liberals is enthroned with power and authority over all three. No greater contrasts, in many respects, can there be between the essential characteristics of Winston Churchill and Stafford Cripps, the two leaders of Britain’s first real 'United Front' Government, and yet both have at least one factor in common: great moral courage. Neither would demean himself by taking 'the back way out' of any trouble. Both would say: 'I came in by the front door and no one will stop me going out that way.' 

   It is the courage of sincere conviction. It will win the war.