As if the UK Honours System wasn’t already debased enough, there are those who seek an alternative affirmation of their merit and completely bypass it.
In the 60s and 70s, I lived in a small county town (Beverley, capital of the East Riding of Yorkshire – much to the nearby socialist city of Kingston upon Hull’s annoyance). I can remember only six townspeople who went by titles other than the traditional Miss, Mr. or Mrs. I never think of a religious-calling title as falling into quite the same category of oneupmanship, except for certain self-aggrandising evangelical pastors. These elevated townspeople were a Knight, a Judge and four retired Army officers (two Majors and two Colonels). It did not then occur to me that there was anything particularly untoward about not just being a common or garden Mr., although I did even as a youngster think that the use of military rank after retiring (unless possibly an ennobled Field Marshall, General or Admiral etc.) was both rather pretentious and also just a little bit pathetic.
I had an Uncle, conscripted in WW2 and shipped out to India and Burma. Once de-mobbed he became a Library Van Driver, driving a huge pantechnicon of books, along with a lady librarian, to villages throughout East Yorkshire. He was no fan of war reminiscing and had a particular disdain for those who went on and on about their military service. He was also convinced that people of his generation developed a nasty habit, as they aged, of becoming obsessed with their military service, even when they’d spent the entire war in the UK in the quartermaster’s store. Consequently, he took special pleasure in crossing out military titles on the library cards of the county set and writing in ‘Mr.’ instead (I don’t think they ever noticed, as no complaints were made).
My first real face-to-face encounter with a retired Colonel was as a regular customer at the fishmongers where I had a teenager after-school and Saturday job. The Colonel and his
Lady wife always strode into the shop, ignoring the long queue, stepped purposefully into the gap at the top end of the counter, where we retrieved fish from the iced window display, and loudly barked their order (always for smoked haddock, routinely complaining about the price). I was told on my first week in the job to just drop everything and serve them immediately and get them out of the shop before anyone complained about queue jumping or their entitled attitude. Years later I learned that they had lived in India until Independence, waited on hand and foot by servants, and simply were unable to adjust to living like normal people in the UK and would have been upset if their behaviour offended others. Whether they were so unaware, I’m still not entirely convinced.
Does anyone though actually bother to check out the backstory of these ‘I’m better than you – I’ve got a (sort of) title’ types? Apparently not, until sometime goes wrong.
Much later I worked with a knighted individual who everyone in the employing organisation accepted as being not only a Sir but also a wealthy one; he was in fact neither and was finally exposed by the broadsheets as a Walter Mitty swindling character, after he came to a sticky end abroad. Despite my own gut feeling, and a particular incident I shouldn’t have witnessed, something never seemed quite right to me. No one else however thought it necessary to make any enquiries, and just accepted Sir G as being a genuine knight. As a consequence, he got away with it for years.
Should we be surprised when not only do the credentials of these ‘titled’ individuals not always check out or provide real justification for using a military rank for many decades after leaving the Forces – but also that their families are often extremely snobbish or downright wrong-uns? I can’t imagine being brought up by a father (incidentally it’s always the men) who insisted that he was not a plain Mr., without eventually telling him he was making himself look ridiculous, unless of course I thought that being the son of a retired Force’s man of officer rank somehow brushed off on me, and my siblings, and gave us social standing that others might respect or even envy.
It’s my personal conviction that those who give themselves airs and graces, frequently (but to be fair not always) pass on their delusions and sense of entitlement to their offspring. It’s the same with those who pay for, or just award themselves, multiple bogus academic qualifications, or those who sex-up their CVs. Unfortunately, many people are naïve – only judging a book by its cover or a bottle of wine by the fancy label.
The moral of this rant is:
Don’t take people’s claims at face value without first checking them out for yourself, and never give money to these people before, and definitely not after, you’ve rumbled them. They, or their family, will only misuse it – until something happens to unleash the wrath of the MSM that previously launched and lauded them.
Footnote:
My Grandfather’s best friend bore the remarkable name of Squire Montague Alphonso Hebb. His Mother apparently decided to name all her sons in a similar aspirational style, but I can find no evidence of any other of these names being officially registered (I suspect this now was an urban myth or a long-standing joke of Squire’s). Squire himself didn’t ever claim to be a genuine ‘County Squire’ and was actually a tanner and smallholder. There can exist a gap between harmless eccentricity and definite delusions of grandeur.
Martin Rispin has had a career in many different sectors, most lately in the fields of English Tourism and Heritage based Urban Regeneration. He now lives, retired, in Kingston upon Hull.
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Interesting that now the WWI generation has gone and the WW2 generation now on its last legs, those who would have wallowed in their wartime exploits, had they been old enough, are now all Falkland or Middle Eastern war heroes/bores/pretenders. Let’s hope that the ‘pandemic heroes, heroines’ and cult survivers don’t follow their lead – unfortunately they undoubtedly will aided by TPTB with physical memorials and a chance for Joe public to share in the glory.
Academics with Ph.D.s who call themselves ‘Dr’ outside the academy are surely more common (and worse?) than ‘Sirs’, ‘Colonels’ and ‘Majors’ nowadays. I did once know an academic who, not having a Ph.D., found a way of leapfrogging those who did. He had always been a ‘Mr -H’ until, coming back from the summer holidays (sorry, ‘long vacation’) one year, he announced (it was an announcement) that from then on he was to be known as ‘Mr de Winter -H’. But don’t such snobberies belong to a lost and (by anyone under 50) almost forgotten past? Isn’t the thing now to sound working class or — if you can’t manage that (like John Peel and Jamie Oliver) — at least to sound uneducated?
On a more mundane note, in the 70/80s there was a fairly “upmarket” sit-in fish and chip shop in Ewell, Surrey (I know). It was upmarket then because it served fresh prawns and crusty bread before the usual fare which was actually very nice. Anyway, because it was considered “a cut above”, a queue used to form on a Saturday evening around 6pm and every now and then a famous local (one Norman Wisdom and his beau) chanced upon the queue. He’d walk up to the door where the owner stood and usually gained admission because of his “rank” and a full palm – until he didn’t! The cheer was quite a joy to behold.
We have one in our village. During and post pandemic restrictions, “The Colonel” with his “vast knowledge of logistics and man management” decided he should be in charge of local resilience measures and proceed to compile lists of those with 4×4’s, diesel supplies, portable generators, food and water supplies etc etc. He made quite a nuisance of himself strutting around, clipboard in hand, poking around sheds and barns. It came to a point when another local, a genuine ex soldier, made contact with The Colonels old regiment.
Seems our hero was actually a sergeant in the catering corps, and not a very good one either. Words were quietly spoken to him.
He was noticeable by his absence from our Remembrance Day gathering. He and his magnificent uniform and racks of medals had previously added quite a sense of occasion…
Another Captain Peacock of ‘Are You Being Served’ fame – almost exposed by Alfie Bass (Mr. Goldberg) in one episode. There are far more of these imposters at large than the public realise, including the high-profile one the writer’s article obviously has in mind.
Professor Captain (Retd.) Roger Watson here 🥸
Don’t forget to add strings of letters after your name for added impact (although LGBTQ+ now probably trumps these as credentials)
Sometimes one sees academics or medics in particular with so many initials after their name that you wonder how they have have had time in thier lives to do anything else other than acquire another one. Perhaps it is a form of intimidation by those who are too wet to stand on thier own merits, normally being men they probably have beards too! People who use pseudonyms on comment pages are also hiding their true selves, feeling free to throw shit at all and sundry without risk of anyone knowing the identiyf of the thrower.
Some people do spend their entire lives acquiring qualifications/joining things that add to the list of letters after their names.
I disagree, the use of pseudonyms on comments has little of relevance to the actual comment (unless seriously libelous or vindictive) as readers are unlikely to actually know the commentator so their name isn’t of primary importance, and there are various legitimate reasons why some choose to use them especially online.