Controversy at Biggin Hill

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Robert Badger

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Aug 2, 2017
Hi, Some of you in the London area may have seen an item on the BBC evening news last Friday concerning Bromley Council's plans to demolish part of the RAF Memorial Chapel to build an ugly square building which will be the long awaited Battle of Britain Museum. I always thought we were to get a mini Duxford type building that could take large artifacts and even an aircraft, but this box it seems is to have just photos and video displays. If you click on the following link to Downe Village Website you can see the news piece when you scroll down a bit: www.downe-kent.org.uk
An On-Line Petition has been started to convince the Council to think again, please click on this second link and share with everyone: Protect Biggin Hill St George's RAF Chapel of Remembrance | Campaigns by You
 
Welcome to the new political reality of not memorializing past conflicts. In so called "blue" state areas here various WW1 and WW2 memorials have quietly been shuttered and or removed entirely as potentially harmful to young psyches. Brings to mind the old saw about those that forget their past are condemned to repeat it. Sad commentary on "modern" sensibilities and the entire "PC" movement.
 

Care to elaborate, and provide examples?

And please don't use the WW1 Cross menorial example. That has already been debunked as typical fake news coming from typical certain political leaning social media sites (because people think fake news only comes from the other side, and do not care to fact check things out of fear). Nor was it the "state" that was requesting it to be changed to a less religious icon of a memorial. It was a private group asking for it to be changed, not taken down or removed. There goes those pesky "alternative facts" getting in the way.

So unless you have real examples, lets not turn this into a the typical red vs blue, liberal vs conservative BS. Go to a political forum for that.
 
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DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
So unless you have real examples, lets not turn this into a the typical red vs blue, liberal vs conservative BS. Go to a political forum for that.
Click to expand...
I wasn't making a political point but a couple of demographic ones.
1 More than 50% of babies born in London have at least one parent that was born overseas.
2 London is growing, Biggin Hill is now classed as a small town in Greater London, that wasn't its status in 1940. The value of land is increasing accordingly.

As the number of people with a connection to its past goes down and the cost goes up commemoration projects are more likely to be shelved, sadly.
 

I wasn't quoting your post either though.
 
Well the 2 that come to mind was the WW2 memorial museum at Park and Blue Hills avenue. In Bloomfield CT, when I was a kid it was a nice little place to go. Had a little outdoor area that had the list of War Dead from Bloomfield inscribed on a marble stone. That went away in the early 2000's the area is now a service station.

The second example was the Tarrifville Memorial Park near the old Tarrifville Post Office in Tarrifville CT. It also had a small stone, I think granite, inscribed on one side with WW1 dead and the other was WW2 dead. It was I believe privately owned but maintained by the town. It disappeared in 2008.

The first selectmen of that area in Bloomfield said in a town meeting attended by my father that "there were plenty of memorials elsewhere" and that "it was morbid and hateful" to expose children to lists of people that died killing other people.

Now I am fairly politically neutral myself and would not want to add political discussions to this forum as I don't think it is the place for such. But I will say if we do not acknowledge the prevailing winds of change from out elected officials on both sides of the divide we can and will lose significant portions of our history.

All over the south Civil War memorials are being removed. Mostly under the auspices of removing "racist" statues. This is a growing trend, and as history is continually revised more memorials are at risk.
 
By the way, reading the stories behind the removal of Civil War memorials, some of the folks they honored may well have been racist. Not commenting on that at all, just the fact that political winds and societal acceptances change over time, and what was suitable for being memorialized one decade can become objectionable the next.
 
Meanwhile......back at Biggin Hill?
 
Interesting, you would think certain political leaning "news" sources would be all over a political figure saying something like that.

As for the civil war monuments, I agree they should not be removed, but at the same time I can understand the argument of the people wanting them removed. The argument of fighting over state rights is a pretty thin line, considering the right they were defending was the right to keep men enslaved. If you go an read the individual state Declaration of Causes and Secessions, they all clearly state the right to own slaves as one of the reasons. So despite revisionism today, it was about slavery. At least in a big way.

If a state today decided to enslave people, and call it there state right to do so would that be ok?

Way off topic now...

Point simply was I can understand why some people are angry over civil war monuments, even if I don't believe they should be removed.

On another point, after re-reading my initial post above, I think it can be construed as a personal attack. It was not meant to be one.
 
The original post was about the destruction of an RAF memorial chapel to make way for a Battle of Britain museum. This annoys me on many levels most of which are political. It was a place of Christian worship being replaced by a place that raises more cash and "foot fall" is as far as I will go.
 
I understand and agree, it is sad. The only thing I can think of is some form of grass roots movement to object. However that led to my original comment about the current climate not being conducive to such causes any longer so unlikely to have a successful outcome.
 
DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
On another point, after re-reading my initial post above, I think it can be construed as a personal attack. It was not meant to be one.
Click to expand...
No offense taken, and sorry if I seemed to be injecting politics, was mostly observing the societal climate of the times, which is often confused with the political, made worse by my blue/red state comment, so my bad.
 
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