Britannia Radio

Please read the prophetic words of Dorothy L Sayers, writing in the Spectator in this extract from a letter written during WWII from Peter Wimsey "somewhere abroad" to his wife, Harriet, who is looking after their own and his sister's children in an English village.

 It is part of a short series DLS wrote for the Spectator in 1940. "....you are a writer - there is something you must tell the people, but it is difficult to express.

 You must find the words.

 Tell them, this is a battle of a new kind, and it is they who have to fight it, and they must do it themselves and alone.
 They must not continually ask for leadership - they must lead themselves.
 This is a war against submission to leadership, and we might easily win it in the field and yet lose it in our own country.
 I have seen the eyes of the men who ask for leadership, and they are the eyes of slaves.
 The new kind of leaders are not like the old, and the common people are not protected from THEM, as they were from US. In our time, their ignorance was a protection, but now they have eaten knowledge and are left naked.
 I have no time to explain myself properly, but you will understand.
 It's not enough to rouse up the Government to do this and that.
 You must rouse the people.
 You must make them understand that their salvation is in themselves, and in each separate man and woman among them. If it's only a local committee or amateur theatricals or the avoiding being run over in the blackout, the important thing is each man's personal responsibility.
 They must not look to the state for guidance - they must learn to guide the state. Somehow you must contrive to tell them this.
 It is the only thing that matters.
 I can't very well tell you just how and why this conviction has been forced upon me, but I have never felt more certain of anything." she adds -
(I can not locate the source for this last part but I will look for it - p )

"There are not going to be any more leaders. The people must learn to lead themselves." __._,_.___