From the Editor…

Welcome, dear reader, to our bumper Christmas issue, complete with a calendar for next year, featuring some of your choices for the Top 20 Things British.

There is only one thing to do after you have collapsed on the sofa after Christmas lunch and that is to watch the Queen.

And so we bring you a history of Royal Broadcasting, beginning with George V who first used the BBC Empire Service, which later became the World Service, to broadcast to the far-flung colonial administrators from his drawing room at Sandringham.

Christmas is a time when families get together. But what of those who have no family? Our regular contributor Patricia Stoughton, who has written so movingly on the British War Cemeteries in Northern France, recently reminded me of the funeral in November for Harold Percival.

He died alone in a nursing home aged 99, never having married or had children, and having lived a nomadic life after doing his wartime service in 617 (Dambusters) Squadron.

The undertaker placed an ad in the local newspaper asking if anybody could help, which was picked up by the social media and went viral.

Finally Harold’s funeral was attended by many hundreds of people, none of whom knew him, including men and women from the armed services who came to pay their last respects.

Some US Air Force personnel even travelled a long distance to be there. They say that Christianity is fast fading as the main religion of this country.

But there is still much decency among us which owes its existence to Christian morality and teaching.

I think you would need a heart of stone not to find something inspiring about this tribute from strangers.

You might have thought that this man was destined for nothing by being forgotten, but no man is an island.

A very good Christmas to all our readers, may you have all you wish for, and we will meet again in a New Year.

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