Taking root, a circle of life
QUESTION What is the purpose of the elevated concentric rings in a field just off the M11 near Harlow, Essex? THIS is a 130m long and 3m high organic artwork at Theydon Bois Wood, Essex, which is clearly visible from the M11.
In 2006, the Woodland Trust bought a 79acre site there and planted 35,000 native trees to act as a buffer zone to the motorway. A £45,000 grant from GreenArc — a charity dedicated to improving the environment and accessibility of the Green Belt and countryside around the North and East of London, Hertfordshire and Essex — paid for competition-winning artist Richard Harris to create this public artwork at the site.
The design was inspired by tree seeds and is made of soil from the site, shaped into concentric seed- shaped mounds and topped with white paths.
The slopes of the mounds have each been planted with a different species of native tree: hornbeam, birch, oak, lime and hazel.
As the trees grow, the paths will develop an individual feeling and atmosphere, due to the characteristics and growth patterns of each species. The trees will be coppiced (cut to just above the ground) every seven to 15 years. This means the earthwork and paths will gradually disappear from view as the trees grow — as will the distant views of London from the paths — to be revealed again when the trees are cut.
J. B. McIntosh, Bishop’s Stortford, Herts.
QUESTION Why, when addressing someone forcefully, are we sometimes said to be ‘hectoring’ them? SEVERAL reference books suggest this term is derived directly from the Trojan hero Hector, but the character portrayed in Homer’s Iliad — and even more so in English literature (including Shakespeare’s Troilus And Cressida) — is a model of heroic virtue, the antithesis of a braggart and bully.
The Iliad attributes these negative qualities to Achilles, Ajax and Diomedes. It would not be surprising if one of their names had been used in this way.
The fact that the term in this sense first appeared in the 17th century points to another source.
As early as the 1600s, London was terrorised by gangs with names such as the Mims, Bugles, Dead Boys, Roaring Boys, Circling Boys, Bickers, Nickers, Tityre Tu, Scowrers, Mohocks and Hectors. They f ound t heir amusement by vandalising shops and taverns, assaulting the watch, attacking wayfarers, slitting the noses of victims with swords, rolling old ladies in barrels and other such outrages.
When the gangs fought each other, they wore identifiable colours and distinctive belts and pins. The gangs were an eclectic mix of social classes. The Tityre Tu gang, for instance, are unlikely to have been illeducated ruffians, as their name comes from the opening phrase of Virgil’s First Eclogue. The privileged and nominally well-bred Mohocks named themselves after American Indians.
The Hectors probably took their name from the Iliad, and this appears to be where the idea of a swaggering bully comes from.
Gareth Pullman, Oxford.
QUESTION Why were maritime workers targeted by Joseph McCarthy in Fifties America? A CAMPAIGN against alleged Communists i n the U. S. government and other institutions was carried out under Senator Joseph McCarthy from 1950 to 1954. Many of the accused were blacklisted or lost their jobs, though most did not, in fact, belong to the Communist Party.
It is popularly remembered in the public imagination as an attack on Hollywood, where hundreds of actors, screenwriters, directors and composers were blacklisted — including superstars such as Charlie Chaplin, Danny Kaye, Orson Welles, Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Miller and Dorothy Parker.
Blacklists were at work throughout the entertainment industry, in universities and schools and the legal profession. Industrial workers also faced dismissal and blacklists, especially if they were active in Left-wing unions.
The largest wave of dismissals occurred in the maritime industry. The Magnuson Act — brainchild of Washington State Democratic Senator Warren G. Magnuson — combined local fears of radicalism in waterfront unions with nati onal mechanisms of military port security.
This legislation provided the legal basis for a federal screening programme of maritime labour, called the Port Security Program, which gave the coastguard absolute discretion over which labourers had access to America’s ports.
Beginning in 1951, shortly after the outbreak of the Korean War had raised fears of the ‘ red peril’ to fever pitch, all dockworkers and merchant seamen were required to apply for new security passes.
To be cleared for work, the Commandant of the Coast Guard in Washington DC had to approve of the ‘character and habits of life’ of each applicant.
Seamen or dockworkers could be denied these documents if they were accused of being affiliated or showing sympathy towards any organisation that the Attorney General deemed ‘totalitarian, fascist, communist or subversive’.
As with any other McCarthyite security review, the identities of accusers, and often the nature of accusations, were kept secret from the accused. Up to 3,800 seamen and longshoremen lost their jobs and were often deprived of unemployment benefits.
While the Port Security Program aimed to break the strength of radical unions such as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union (MCS), it actually functioned to foment united and trans-coastal unions against conservative anti-Communist efforts.
Joanne Billingham, Southampton.
QUESTION During World War II, there were many examples of German forces using captured tanks, re-marked and repainted, against the Allies. Are there examples of the Allies doing the same with German tanks? FURTHER to earlier answers, my father served with the Polish 2nd Corps in Italy and spoke of using a captured German truck as a runabout.
However, with regard to the Allied use of German tanks, M & G Green’s book, Panther, Germany’s Quest for Combat Dominance (ISBN 978-1-84908-841-1), states that the French army employed Panther tanks post-war until 1952, when they were replaced by U.S. tanks supplied under a military assistance programme.
More long-lived was the Jagdpanzer 38(t) or ‘Hetzer’. This compact, simple, reliable tank destroyer was based on a pre-war Czech chassis and served on the Russian front and in the West, including the Ardennes offensive of December 1944. It continued to be used by the Czech and Swiss armies until 1970.
John Beksa, Chesterfield, Derbys.
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