Big Brother’s watchful gaze is a chilling thought
THERE is something very sinister about this list compiled by the Chinese government of prominent citizens of Britain. Why would they want it? Apparently, the information it contains about the celebrated is gleaned from reference books.
This is not the first such list. The Germans made one identical in the 1930s ‘for use’ in the event of a successful invasion in 1940. Apparently Goering had his eye on Blenheim Palace as his future home and the Luftwaffe was told to avoid it. Personally, I would have fancied Goring and given umlout.
And, seeing as this page seems to have a definite martial tone in Battle of Britain week, a curious coincidence occured to me the other day. One evening some time ago I was passing the darkened entrance to my neighbour’s house. It was snowing.
She had just died, an elderly schoolmistress, widowed some years previously. Her husband also in his time a schoolmaster who had had a most interesting war, had been an enthusiastic and industrious photographer. He had been an
it an observant man.
Through flurries of snow I noticed a large photograph protruding from a skip and, briefly, salvaged from the falling snow hundreds of photographs of local scenes which included a small album of negatives, each carefully numbered, which I had developed.
The most remarkable of them were two of members of the Hitler Youth, cyclists all and identical in appearance and uniform in Victoria Street, outside Gough & Davy’s shop. They appear now in a history of Grimsby I wrote 20 years ago. The other day the final, 26th, episode of the celebrated The World At War TV epic was shown. On it were other identical shots of these youths who on their return to the Fatherland compiled notes on docks, installations, railway stations and so on. They were to form captions for relevant photographs taken by the Luftwaffe in the 1930s for obvious use in the War. I had a copy of the resulting booklet at one time. What all this proves is that we may feel that CCTV cameras and so on observe our every move. Big Brother, be he Chinese or German, keeps an eye on us as well. It’s a chilling thought.