So the Bank of England wants ideas for new banknotes: let's start with our war heroes

Independent

3 days ago

My initial response to the news that the Bank of England wants to redesign our banknotes was to wonder whether Threadneedle Street's pointy heads had really thought this through.
Whatever they come up with is all but guaranteed to offend someone, and that's before you factor in social media to contend with. The latter is populated by armies of people who spend their lives getting offended. They come from the left, and they come from the right, and history tells us that it is remarkably easy to get on the wrong side of all of them.
Mercifully, such joyless scolds are somewhat out of step with the British public. Large parts of it have a cheerfully irreverent sense of humour, which can also create problems for officials. Remember Boaty McBoatface? In 2016, the National Environment Research Council decided that it would be a good idea to conduct a public poll to decide the name of its shiny new polar research vessel.
Boaty was one of the ideas, and it rapidly went viral, easily winning the poll. Cue red faces all around and a nasty dilemma. They solved it by choosing to name the vessel the Sir David Attenborough, who is popular with the public, even though his name picked up barely a tenth of the votes Boaty received. The latter's moniker was given to one of the ship's subs. A nice compromise, I suppose, but if it had been down to me, Boaty would have been the choice.
You can see what's coming: step forward, Notey McNoteface. Let's face it, the world's not in a great state, the economy's spluttering, we have an incompetent government, no good choices when it comes to alternatives and it's too damn hot. We could all do with a diversion. Notey could give us a good laugh during the dog days of summer.
However, we also kicked around some more sensible ideas. What we came up with was a series of banknotes featuring lesser-known war heroes.
My own favourite, being a man with legs that don't work properly, was Sir Douglas Bader, a Second World War flying ace, even though he lost the lower part of both legs while attempting aerobatics in 1931. Sir Douglas didn't let this stop him from becoming a heroic flyer until he was shot down over occupied France. There, he was involved in numerous escape attempts, for which he ended up getting sent to Castle Colditz. Disabled Britons who aren't Paralympians or Professor Stephen Hawking rarely get much recognition. This would help to correct that.
A fine choice to join Sir Douglas would be the First World War's first and only female soldier, Dorothy Lawrence, a reporter who had to disguise herself as a man to get to the front. Illness forced her to give herself up, and she was promptly arrested. Her conduct was a very British mix of heroism and subversiveness.
Then there is Sir Nicholas Winton, the stockbroker who helped rescue 669 Jewish children from Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War. His humanitarian achievements were barely known until an appearance on the BBC's That's Life in the 1980s.
You could make a platoon of deserving Gurkhas who have won the Victoria Cross. So, how about a design featuring several of them?
Billy Strachan, a Jamaican pilot who fought for Britain in the Second World War, joined Windrush after being demobbed and became a lawyer in the UK. He was also a human rights activist who fought for workers and universal suffrage and against colonialism. He might represent a step too far for the Bank because he was also a committed communist. But I'd vote for him, given the option.
Simon Weston, who survived severe burns during the Falklands War, is better known than some of these but is nonetheless deserving of celebration. He subsequently became a formidable charity fundraiser and campaigner for better treatment of troops and veterans. He became a thorn in the side of the Blair government during the Iraq War, too.
Yes, we're going with people again here. But so what? For those who sneer at my list because, yes, it is inclusive, I would kindly suggest you eat grass. Alternatively, try reading the stories of the people I've nominated. There is no tokenism here. To the contrary. What researching this revealed to me is that Britain has an awful lot of mightily impressive war heroes who could do with a leg up (with apologies to Sir Douglas) in terms of recognition.
Just think of the designs that you could come up with to celebrate these individuals. I still like the idea of annoying the Bank of England and the political class by giving Notey McNoteface a push, but I think some very worthy candidates on my list would also irritate Threadneedle Street and maybe even Downing Street if they picked up momentum.
As it is, they'll probably go for something inoffensive and dull. Pictures of buildings or bunnies and suchlike are already being mooted. Enough already. It's people who use banknotes. The people I've suggested should be celebrated.