Maenan: The Second Battle of Britain.

INTRODUCTION Maenan Manor stands in beautiful countryside near Llanrwst, North Wales. If its bricks, mortar and timbers had the power of human speech, what a story it could tell. During Britain’s greatest peril from 1939 to 1945, it served as a boarding school for children who were evacuated to the safety of the countryside in order to escape Hitler’s Luftwaff e whose blitz wreaked havoc on Britain’s cities. Th e school, started by Miss K. Bullick and Miss E.M. Jacques in 1930, was a microcosm of the national spirit, a spirit which saved Britain from its fi ercest foes, foes who hammered at the nation both at home and abroad. In those days, children were inculcated with the spirit of loyalty, duty, patriotism and the need for such virtues as honesty, ethics, morality and integrity in all aspects of life. Britain’s ancient and enduring heritage of traditions and customs were held in the highest regard, and children were taught that Britain’s constitution had given the country the sort of stability and greatness such as no other country on earth had had, has, or ever will have. Th e British people believed in the nation, believed in the greatest empire the world had ever know, believed in the constitution which had made all these marvelous things possible, things denied to other nations. Th e British people believed in the monarchy, believed in parliament – they believed in themselves, but, above all else, they believed in God. Britain was still a Christian nation, it still held to the precepts of the Lord, it still held the Church in the highest regard and saw it as a pillar of the establishment and as the moral conscience of the nation. And in 1945, Britain, though severely weakened, was unconquered and unbowed. And Maenan Manor, a small speck in this great Sea of Integrity, had played its part, and its noble architecture, like the noble souls it sheltered, could stand proud and erect before the world. Maenan Manor fi nally closed its doors in 1969, but, if we continue to attribute human qualities to inanimate objects, we can say that, little did Maenan realise that the major part of its work still awaited it. Th is may seem unusual to the reader who is well aware that in the opening years of the twenty fi rst century these great values have all but crumbled into dust, and in their place have been set up concepts and ideas totally alien to Britain’s traditions – political correctness, multi-culturalism, supranationalism, disloyalty to Queen and Country and contempt for the traditions and customs which once made Britain a proud and upright nation. Sloppy dress, coarse manners, foul speech, sexual permissiveness, guady “art” and the sneering at our own heritage are the daemons which have driven out the Angels of Light. God is no longer worshipped – except the god of materialism whose temples are wide open and frequented on Sunday by the devotees of fads and fashions, while God’s True Temple is deserted and abandoned except for a small core of faithful. But as our tale will relate, Maenan Manor, which, in the war years of 1939 – 1945 was merely one barely noticed drop of water in a sea of high values, would, for all those who believed in the British way of life, be an island of refuge in a vast ocean of misery. Mrs. Mary Hopson (nee Hulme), who has greatly assisted the author in the production of this work, and her brother Frank had the great privilege of being among the pupils at Maenan Manor during the years of the Second World War. Mrs. Hopson therefore has fi rst-hand knowledge of the school and of its two great founders, Miss Bullick and Miss Jaques. Her book I Remember the Manor captures the atmosphere of Maenan and is a must for anyone aspiring to taste the fl avour of good solid traditional education, an education which taught and encouraged the traditional values, above all, those of sacrifi ce and selfl essness. Th e author, Mr. Francis Andrew, is a post-war baby and thus has no personal experience of Maenan Manor. He is therefore heavily dependent upon Mrs. Hopson’s experience both of Maenan and of the war years. It is our fervent hope that through this work, readers will be brought to a better understanding of the evil forces at work, forces which have succeeded in doing nothing less than to bring Britain to its very knees. And with a clearer perspective of the nature of these forces and their wicked perpetrators, loyal British people will be able to descry a pathway which leads them to the place of exile of lost values and abandoned beliefs and so be enabled to construct a route map in the great journey towards not only national recovery, but towards the very recovery of the very nation itself. Th e root cause of our woes is the rejection of Christianity. If we have turned our back on God, then, for sure, God will have turned His back on us. Th e nation’s Christianity is not some optional extra (as so many Christians erroneously think), some fad or fancy that can be dispensed with on a mere whim; for whether we are believers or non-believers, fervently devout or lukewarm, the fact remains that our Christianity, even if only in an institutional sense, is woven into the fabric of the nation’s being. Reject that Christianity – and the nation falls. Th at is why this work is a blend of politics and religion; its chapters have Christian themes based upon Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, for Britain is indeed a holy nation. We fi rmly hold that if we reach out to a much off ended God, and tell God that we are truly sorry, He will reach out to us and give back to us our nation as He did once to the Israelites of old. A.D. 2009.