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TWICE a year, Buckingham Palace bestows royal recognition on hundreds of celebrity nonentities and local minions. For centuries the Crown and its serially sycophantic governments refused to release the names of the honourable men and women who declined the blandishment of these trinkets and tawdry titles. It eventually required the Freedom of Information Act and the intervention of the Information Commissioner’s Office to enable me to compile this select list of our most truly honourable citizens.
1) L S LOWRY (1887-1976) Refused OBE 1955, refused CBE 1961, refused Knighthood 1968, refused Order of Companion of Honour 1972 and 1976.
Salford painter Laurence Stephen Lowry holds the supreme honour of having turned down more pathetic baubles than anyone else. The Establishment initially upped the ante from MBE, through CBE until it reached the level of Knighthood in 1968 and when that failed to impress they tried another tack, attempting, twice, right up to the year of his death, to lure Lowry with offers of the more modest title “CH” but he never succumbed to such unworthy blandishments. Respect!
2) KEN LOACH (1936 - - - ) Refused OBE 1977 – “I turned down the OBE for several reasons; it’s not a club you want to join when you look at the villains who’ve got it… As a republican, I can’t accept anything from the Queen… It also meant I would be receiving something in the name of the Empire, which as an anti-Imperialist I don’t see how anyone can accept.”
3) HOWARD GAYLE (1958 - - - ) Refused MBE 2016 – the first black footballer to play for Liverpool FC declined “for the reason that my ancestors would be turning in their graves after how the Empire and Colonialism had enslaved them.”
4) KINGSLEY MARTIN (1897-1969) Refused Knighthood 1965 – Conscientious Objector to WWI. Martin was a journalist with the Manchester Guardian before editing the leading left-wing magazine the New Statesman from 1930 to 1960, where “Martin positively relished being a perpetual critic of the Labour leadership”. In 1957 he chaired the founding meeting of CND and in his books “The Magic of Monarchy (1937)” and “The Crown and the Establishment (1962)” Kingsley Martin put forward the first modern arguments for British Republicanism. “The Monarchy…is the secret well from which the flourishing institution of British Snobbery draws its nourishment.” In a cynical and ill-judged attempt to undermine Martin’s reputation, in 1965 he was offered a Knighthood which he rapidly rejected.
5) ALBERT FINNEY (1936-2019) Refused CB 1980, refused Knighthood 2000 – “Knighthood is a disease that perpetuates snobbery… Maybe people in America think being a 'Sir' is a big deal but I think we should all be misters together.”
6) IORWERTH PEATE (1901-1982) Refused OBE 1963 – joint founder of “St Fagan’s Museum”, Wales’ national folk-life collection. After registering as a Conscientious Objector in 1941 Peate was sacked as Curator of the collection but later re-instated by the museum’s Board of Governors. Uninterested in joining the English Establishment and committed to studying, preserving and promoting the culture, language and everyday artefacts of the people of Wales, in 1963 Iorwerth Peate creditably refused to be appointed an “Officer of the Order of the British Empire”. Da Iawn, ti!
7) BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH (1958- - - ) Refused OBE 2003 – Rastafarian performance poet Benjamin Zephaniah comprehensively rejects everything the honours system represents - “I get angry when I see the word “empire”; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds me of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised.” Benjamin deserves an extra honours point as his eloquent shaming, live on Channel Four News, of Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, MBE not only prompted her to guiltily return the bauble but transformed her in into a vociferous (if belated) critic of these cringeworthy awards.
8) HONOR BLACKMAN (1925-2020) Refused CBE 2002 – Acclaimed actor, self-declared republican and Liberal who opposed Monarchy and Margaret Thatcher, “She was merciless…she did damn all for empowering women… I’m not too happy about the Falklands either…” Honor by name, Honour by nature!
9) J G BALLARD (1930-2009) Refused CBE 2003 – Novelist James Graham Ballard was contemptuous of the honours system, “It is exploited by politicians and always has been…I think it’s deplorable when leftwing playwrights like David Hare who have worn their socialist colours on both sleeves for so many years, should accept a knighthood… The honours system is a Ruritanian charade that helps to prop up the top-heavy monarchy… It makes us look a laughing stock and encourages deference to the crown.”
10) BOB HOLMAN (1936-2016) Refused MBE 2012 – In 1987 Christian Socialist Bob Holman abandoned his comfy life teaching “Social Administration” at Bath University to put theory into practice and work on community projects in Easterhouse, one of the most deprived parts of Glasgow. Spurning the condescension of royal recognition in 1987, Holman comprehensively excoriated the honours system not just to explain his own action but explicitly to incite others to decline: “The unelected monarchy reinforces and sanctions inequality. The BBC and most of the press pour undiluted praise on the royals whilst imposing a virtual gag on the views of republicans. No senior politician has the courage to question the continuation of the monarchy…Refusing a royal honour is a small step but one in the right direction.” Amen brothers and sisters!
(This is the third and final part of Chris’s series on the British Honours System – previous articles are archived and available on this NORTHERN VOICES site)
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4 comments:
A fine list, Chris. I think, however, that you underplay Lowery's right to the no. 1 position. You describe his offer of the "more modest" honour of CH. The Companion of Honour is much coveted. Unlike the 3,000 odd other honours that are churned out of the patronage machine each year, the order of the CH is limited to 65 people at any one time, and any reader of this blog would recognise almost all of their names. Its membership is restricted, by invitation, not just to retired senior politicians, but to people of real distinction in the arts. It is often awarded as a "top-up" to the more run of the mill knighthoods and peerages given to the favoured few. So, current membership includes: Janet Baker, David Attenborough, David Hockney, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Nicholas Serota, Roy Strong, Paul McCartney and Kiri Te Karwana.
The fact that an old Tory rent collector from Salford turned down the invitation to join them, or their predecssors not once, but twice, is a real statement of principle. Perhaps he was guided by the sentiments of another old Tory "Northern Voice", Sir Robert Peel, who said "I wonder people do not feel the distinction of an unadorned name."
If you're so impressed by 'Lowery's right to the no. 1 position' then you should get his name right: it's Lowry, without an 'e'.
Should not Joseph Conrad, one of our greatest novelist, according to F.R. Levis in his book 'The Great Tradition' be included in this list? In 1924, in the last year of his life, Conrad declined a knighthood.
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