It's Nigger Sir, it's gone!

Yeah, that is just awful.

I was kind of ashamed when I was reading something about a Canadian regiment in WW2 with one man in it who was from the Bahamas. They gave him a racist nickname.

 

Totally agree Adam except, to some people, Nigger (the dog) has significance that far surpasses idle curiosity. The dog was an icon (otherwise people wouldn't have heard of him as many Squadrons had dogs as mascots etc as did at least one 3RTR tank crew of which I'm aware) and, according to my mum who used to take Nigger for walks (she knew Guy Gibson) he was a lovely little dog (not that that has anything to do with his name). It just so happens that he had a name that has several meanings (that's the beauty of the English language - one spelling can have several meanings depending on context), one of which is a totally unacceptable racial slur. Most people can tell the difference while some can't/won't or have an agenda. I'm personally ambivalent about the gravestone provided the full story is still told - at least I understand it is being preserved in the Museum - although I am genuinely concerned about the censorship of history. Those who forget their history are, after all, doomed to repeat it.

 

This is nothing but old man grumbling about how much better things were in their days. You' have to recognise when 'your time' has passed and a newer generation are in charge and that they see things differently from you. They are the people in power and they are making the decisions. We no longer send kids up chimneys or let 7 year old work 12 hour shifts in factories. Woman can now vote and homosexuality is legal. Over time the shift in attitude once seen as progressive now is the accepted view and becomes the norm. My granny was a sweet old woman born in the 19th century and she used to make me laugh with her jokes about 'black men'. I would still laugh today but not openly. I think Bernard Manning is hilarious, still do (but Jim Davis is vile) but I can see why others might not think the same way so I do not defend Manning rather I keep my mouth shut on the subject. If my sweet old gran were to say the same things today as she did in the 50s & 60s she would be publicly shamed on Youtube and be prosecuted.
Its different today and as Robert Zimmerman famously said :

Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled

 

As someone who has had dogs all my life and currently stables 4 of the buggers I can say it just a dog.

 

It was a black labrador and Black Labradors Matter too

 

I am not in favour of iconoclasm, I think that South Africa has got right re memorialisation. http://www.theobservationpost.com/blog/?p=1830

However, I think I can understand why the RAF might have decided to replace the dog's headstone.

Our society is polarised along demographic lines of young snowflakes v old gammon. Judging from the occasionally fractious conversations chez sheldrake young people do care about offensive words. I would imagine the RAF recruiting would be a lot more comfortable if there was no racist stigma associated with one of their most famous units. Their future recruits will be from the snowflake generation.

The name of the dog is irrelevant to the story of 617 Squadron, but it generates disproportionate noise and has prevented the film being remade. If the dog had been named anything else Peter Jackson would have remade the Dambusters the nearest thing to a British Band of Brothers.

For what it is worth, the dog's name does say something about Guy Gibson and his leadership style and personality. It was not OK to name your dog N*gg%r in 1943 in a service which recruited several thousand black airmen and women from the Caribbean, some of whom served as air crew. (But not in 617 hand picked by Gibson). I spent a week in 2010 participating in a staff ride facilitators course run at RAF Cranwelll. One topic we studied was the leadership styles of Guy Gibson and Leonard Cheshire. Neither would have reached command level in the modern era.

Gibson was the life and soul of the party. If he liked someone he would indulge them,. If someone crossed him or on a whim he could be very unfair.The Canadian historian Ted Barras showed me the grave of a Canadian officer, Lewis Burpee IRRC, who died on the Dams raid, thinking he was a flight sergeant because Gibson didn't want to tell him that he had been commissioned. Gibson may have died because he thought he did not need any familiarisation training on the Mosquito. At low level in the dark it is possible he made a fatal; error changing fuel tanks with a fiddly switch. Maybe it is politic to erase a visible reminder of the flaws of a many we would prefer to remember as the gallant young leader of an intrepid band who undertook a spectacular mission.

 

I understand the point you are trying to make but have you listened to any song lyrics favored by current young people? I worked in a factories in "Joisy" (New Jersey) for many years and thought I heard everything under the sun but the stuff I hear today embarrasses me.

 

If you check the data you will find voting intentions divide mainly according to age and educational qualifications. In both the Brexit vote and Trumps election they were the two most striking divides. The good news for the under 45s is the post-war baby bulge will largely be solved in the next 20 years and the stranglehold of the old will be removed.

 

You sound like my parents in the 1960s and I bet they heard the same from their parents.

 

Reminds me of the time I used the (to me) innocuous word (extract it from the brand 'Sugar Puffs') in a remark (about a flamboyant male friend of hers) to one of my daughters in the reception area of her hairdressers. I could not fathom why everyone went silent and stared at me.

 

...except that they will then be the 'old folks' who will no doubt be totally willing to let their 'under 45s' dictate what is right and what is wrong....or will snowflakeiness have gone out of fashion by then? I somehow suspect it will have. I will wait to find out!

 

Deleted

 

You missed the point.

Currently 'old people' are disproportionately represented compared to 'young people'.

Once the current 'old people' pass on and are replaced by the formerly 'young people' who are now 'old people' they will no longer have the numbers to outvote all the new 'young people'.
As a pressure group 'old people' will, in 20 years, now be outnumbered by 'young people'.

This is the age spread for where I live

 

I find it puzzling that they used Gothic script for the dog's new grave marker. Couldn't they have better shown where the Nazi dog lies by inscribing it in Sütterlin ?

 

Ooooh, put me down for a maisonette in Name Erased Close please (first left off Orwellian Terrace)

Kind regards, always,

Jim.

 

It's all getting ridiculous and beyond a joke if these articles are to be believed.
Sailors told to stop using male-themed Navy terms like 'unmanned' and 'man power' | Daily Mail Online
Civil servants claim they do not feel comfortable with a Treasury room named after Winston Churchill | Daily Mail Online

Tim

 

Raises the on-topic, non-toxic question: are we still allowed to use the word 'niggled' much?

 

Totally understand your logic and concur.....except that, according to a very recent assessment (during the last week or so), the Worlds population is likely to decrease very significantly during the next 100 years with the population of many countries at least halving. This is due to ongoing reductions in fertility (the number of children per mother). The only part of the World where the population is likely to increase is sub-Saharan Africa where the population could treble. The overall effect of all of this is that there will, by the turn of the century (sounds a long way off but is actually well within the likely lifetime of many people already born today) be far more old people than young people. Full turn of the circle and with a very different demographic than we even see today. We do indeed live in a time of great change and with very significant change to come.