• READERS, be reassured and courageous. Historically Britain has dealt with “second waves” before.

According to WC Sellar, RJ Yeatman, 1066 And All That, for example:

The 55 BC Roman invasion “left Britain subjected… to that long succession of Waves of which History is chiefly composed.”;

We survived the “Wave of Egg-Kings” (eg Eggberd, Eggbreth, Eggfroth, Eggbeard, Eggfish, Eggdeath);

“Canute and the Waves” was a “misunderstanding of the Rule Britannia that the King of England was entitled to sit on the sea without getting wet. But finding they were wrong… he originated ‘Paddle your own Canute’.”

Plus “English History has always been subject to Waves of Pretenders.

These have usually come in small waves of about two – an Old Pretender and a Young Pretender” (for example, Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck). And, later, an elder Pitt and a younger Pitt.

In the 16th century came the Elizabethan “Wave of Beards” which “settled upon all the great men”.

And in Victorian times there was not only a “Wave of Justifiable Wars” but a “Wave of Inventions”.

So we must all try to keep waving, not drowning.

MIKE BOR
St George’s Fields, W2