Ian Hislop
Self-confessed patriot Ian Hislop lives in Kent, the verdant 'garden
of England', but he has lived a nomadic existence.
"'England, with all thy faults, I love thee still' - I've always felt
that," he says.
"My father was Scottish, my mother was English, but came from Jersey,
I was born in Wales but left after five months.
"As a child I lived in Nigeria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Hong
Kong and was then sent to prep school in the south of England!"
Delving into his past Hislop discovers that both his grandfathers fought
valiantly for King and country - over a wide range of wars.
His father's father fought in the First World War, while his grandfather
on his mother's side saw service in the Boer War.
"Someone like me spends their life asking the question 'Why?' about
everything," he muses. "But men like my grandfathers - 'Theirs not to
reason why, theirs just to do or die' - they just did it. Seeing that
resolution, discipline and courage is quite extraordinary."
But it is the Second World War which Hislop examines first.
His mother was celebrating her 11th birthday when the Nazi occupation
of Jersey began.
"She didn't talk about it much, but now I'm fascinated to know what
it was like to have been in the only part of Britain occupied by the
Germans.
"Whenever I'm confronted by people of that generation I'm always impressed
by what they did and hopeful that I would have behaved in the same way.
But part of me worries that I wouldn't."
Visiting the First World War trenches and sites of the conflicts of
the Boer War, Hislop is fascinated by his history.
"I assumed that genealogy was a bit of an anorak's hobby," he admits,
"and that people who knew who their great-grandfathers were to seven
generations were a bit dull.
"But it has been incredibly interesting to find out the sort of people
my relatives were and the things they did."
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