BRISTOL-HANNOVER COUNCIL

HEUTE www.Bristolhannovercouncil.org.uk SPRING 2013 TIME TO CELEBRATE!

Bristol-Hannover Council rejoices in the prospect of an air-link between Bristol and Hannover, and congratulates BMI on their initiative. Bristol-Hannover Council was founded in 1947. Since then many thousands of Bristolians have travelled to Hannover, a city then of ruins, of necessity by circuitous routes and using different forms of transport. There they have always been enthusiastically welcomed, and in the same way many thousands of Hannoverians have visited Bristol. Since the early days there have been regular exchanges of schoolchildren, students, trades unionists, choirs, theatre groups, sporting groups, youth and church groups. These continue to flourish. Without a direct air link they have all taken place with inconvenient and not easy travel arrangements and at considerable cost.

The facility of a direct air-link will be of the greatest convenience to those many English and German groups and to the many families and individuals in the West Country who enjoy visiting Hannover and its surrounding area of great beauty and interest, and to those from , the second largest German state, for whom the West Country is a particular attraction. It is particularly fitting that we in Bristol have a direct link with Hannover, from which our Royal Family came in 1714 in the person of King George I, when the two countries were united under the same crown with their successors in the Personal Union, something which is still today highly valued and celebrated in Hannover.

Bristol-Hannover Council believes that the appointment of a voluntary Bristol-Hannover tourist officer would be highly advantageous, to inform the tourist officers in Bristol and Hannover of the new air-link and its many benefits, and to encourage the promotion of new tourist and commercial links between the two cities, particularly supporting the many international Trade Fairs which are held in Hannover. If any member would be able to take this on, please let us know.

Bristol-Hannover Council has an exchange of citizens every year – this year a group will come from Hannover, in 2014, the year of the 300th anniversary of the accession of the Hannoverian George I to the English throne, a group of Bristolians will visit Hannover, where great celebrations are planned. We also celebrate in Bristol, usually in February, ‘Rosenmontag’ or Fasching, perhaps more widely known as Mardi Gras, we support the German Christmas Market, we meet for an Annual Dinner and on less formal occasions socially and to watch German films. We publish a newsletter HEUTE with our events and news, and more information can be found on our website at bristolhannovercouncil.org.uk.

SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE DUE FOR 2013-14 – please complete a membership form (enclosed) if you do not pay by Direct Debit, and send with your subscription to our Treasurer, Katerina Seery.

(page1) GUY DRIFFIELD OUR INDOMITABLE DUO Bristol-Hannover Council was very saddened to Members will remember that we were asked by learn of the death of Guy Driffield who had been Hannover to discover some of those children who a stalwart member since the beginning and for donated shoes to Hannover children in 1947, as many years its Treasurer. He was born on 25 some of the recipients would like to trace them to April 1924 in Cologne, of a Yorkshireman father thank them. We did announce this in the POST and French-Swiss mother. On the outbreak of the but received no response. But our two Second World War he was on a school trip to indomitable members, Lynne and Frank, didn’t Italy, taking part in a gymnastics display, when give up there. They took themselves to the he was urgently summoned home to flee with his Central Library and went through every copy of family to England, where he studied German and the EVENING POST and EVENING WORLD (I French at Oxford. On graduation, he was guess they left out the Saturday Greenuns and appointed a member of Staff at Colston Boys’ Pinkuns of that time.) Just imagine it! But they School and later was appointed Head of Modern found many references to the early stages of the Languages at St Thomas More School. On Hannover Exchange and photocopied them and retirement he continued as an active member of have produced a dossier of 19 A4 pages which BHC and in his later years continued to take a forms a precious document reflecting our early keen interest in our activities. Ann Kennard years. represented BHC at his funeral and sent The EVENING POST published a letter ‘to condolences to his widow, Helga and family. cheer up the dear children of Hannover’ written by a nine-year-old boy, which was discovered in a WHAT’S BEEN GOING ON heap of gifts received by Bishop Hans Lilje on his Yes, again we won the Paul Garland Trophy for visit in 1947. He wrote, winning the annual Bristol International ‘We are sorry that your town was badly Twinning Association Quiz. Our star performer bombed, and that in winter you have very bad this year was Gerard, our Secretary. The weather, so we have collected many gifts so that problem is, this means we have to set the you can go to school and perhaps to Sunday questions for next year’s Quiz! School.’ This was written by Robert Burfoot of ----- Hillfields Park Junior School. He continues ‘We Our annual Rosenmontag Party on 11 February hope it will soon be repaired and gradually built was a success and much enjoyed by all those who up again, and, when we grow up and you grow celebrated with us, including the Lord Mayor. up, there will be peace between Germany and our ----- Isles.’ IF ANY READER OF HEUTE CAN Plans are now well underway for the visit of our IDENTIFY ROBERT, PLEASE LET US Hannover friends in June. They arrive on KNOW! Thursday June 6th, and on the following day we CHOCOLATE and SHOES have arranged for them a visit to the City Record Miss D. I. Porter, headmistress of Mina Rd. Office. On Saturday June 8th we visit Tyntesfield School, motored six pupils to Bristol Youth House and on Sunday hope to visit Beeses Tea Committee offices, Great George St., where they Gardens. On Monday 10th is the Reception by the met the Hannover Bishop, who was imprisoned Lord Mayor, followed by a meeting of the two by the Nazis, and sentenced to death. committees, with a Farewell Dinner in the Movietone camera shots, to be published in a evening. The party leaves on Tuesday June 11th. magazine for Germany, were taken as the ----- children, Terry Dicks (10), Maurice Merchant At an International Women’s Day event at the (1O), Colin Jeston (10), Nina Harris (10), Jean City Hall, Ann met and chatted to the Workman (9), and Eileen Pearce (9) shook hands granddaughter of CROFTON GANE. Is that with the Bishop. name familiar? He was one of the Famous Five of They told him the chocolate they gave him for the Goodwill Party and was the first Chairman of the children of Hannover had been saved from Bristol-Hannover Council. their sweet ration. The school had collected over ….. 100 pairs of shoes. Requests from Hannover for links with Choirs, Councillor R. St. John Reade, vice-chairman Orchestras and Drama Groups keep coming in Bristol Education Committee, reported that over and are being dealt with by committee members. 400 pairs of shoes had already been collected in This can only strengthen BHC. local schools. AN UNWILLING MIGRANT but, unfortunately, she died taking a walk in He didn’t really want to come here, but he made gardens a few weeks before Queen up his mind to endure it. Although he had been Anne died. (Her statue marks the spot.) So we got told on August 5 at two o’clock in the morning George instead. that he was to migrate to London, he lingered as But the great achievement of the Georges (I, long as he decently could in Herrenhausen and II, III, IV and William IV) was that they gave us sauntered for many a day through its prim walks. our Constitutional Monarchy. Unlike the He reluctantly began his journey on August 31 monarchs of any other country, they stood back and travelled from Hannover (as our visitors will from ruling and left the affairs of running the travel in June) via Holland, and reached The country to their ministers and parliament. For Hague five days later, but the exertion of the this we must be eminently grateful, and celebrate journey so far had been so great (or his the 300th anniversary of their arrival with joy. unwillingness to go any further) that he stayed We speak with respect of the Georgian period there until September 16th when he embarked (particularly of its architecture and literature). and reached Greenwich two days later. When he Hannover too is celebrating the anniversary of arrived it was raining and foggy. He did not come the Personal Union of Britain and Hannover with alone, but brought his two favourite mistresses five extensive exhibitions. There will also be with him. Not his wife. He had already divorced significant exhibitions in London, and here in her and shut her up in the castle of Ahlden. He Bristol the Bristol-Hannover Council must told everyone he met how much he disliked celebrate the arrival of George I. England, its people and its ways. He spoke very The Personal Union came to an end when little English and those who surrounded him Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837. spoke no German. He could not abide the English Hannover law would not allow a woman oysters – he grumbled at their queer taste and Electress, and they got the Duke of Cumberland want of flavour. (His attendants later discovered instead, a dissolute son of George III, under that he liked stale oysters with a strong rankness whose statue we meet outside the Hannover about them and then at least one of the objections station. We look forward to it next year! of the King of England was removed.) For this was the person of the unwilling migrant. The year BACK TO THE FUTURE! was 1714. We are involved in a number of initiatives and plans So three hundred years ago. How did all this in the not so distant future: come about? The reigning House of Hannover Our Annual Dinner will take place on Thursday May was one of those lucky families which appear to 2nd at the Albion restaurant in Clifton – please put the have what may be called the gift of inheritance. date into your diaries - seasonal menu and order form George Louis, who in 1714 became George I of to follow. Britain, was the son of Ernest Augustus and ------Sophia, the twelfth of thirteen children of We have had a meeting with the organisers of a Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, sister of European Sustainability Conference being organised st Charles I of England, and daughter of James I & at the Arnolfini on 20-21 June by the Schumacher VI. Elizabeth had married Frederick, the Elector Institute. We hope to have representation from Palatine, and her life was crossed by the opening Hannover at the conference. ------of the Thirty Years’ War. We have also had a meeting with the Director of the Sophia, Electress of Hannover, the mother of S&B Automotive Academy in Bedminster, Jon George, always treasured her English heritage. It Winter, with a view to setting up a link with a is Sophia we must thank for the gardens of Berufsbildende Schule in Hannover. The Academy Herrenhausen. She was the confidante of the (nothing to do with Michael Gove’s Academy philosopher Leibniz. Although the twelfth child programme) already has a link with Hamburg of Elizabeth Stuart, it was she and her heirs who through an EU Leonardo programme, but also has were named in the 1701 Act of Settlement to links training apprentices from other institutions whom the English crown was entailed, should around the world. Mr Winter was very enthusiastic William III and Anne not have issue. This was to about the idea of linking up with Hannover, especially exclude the successors of James II and any other now that we have direct flights from Bristol International Airport, and we have great hopes for Roman Catholic claimants (Sophia’s older partnership possibilities. siblings were either already dead or Roman

Catholic). Sophia longed to be Queen of England,

FROM THE ARCHIVES From: HOW IT BEGAN: THE GOODWILL MISSION: THE ORIGINS OF THE BRISTOL-HANNOVER INTER CITY PARTNERSHIP – A PERSONAL VIEW BY AUGUST CLOSS (CONTINUED) (Originally published in German. Translated into English 1986 by N. Osborne)

About a year before the memorable Bristol-Hannover Civic Visit both cities engaged preparatory visits. Oberbürgermeister Weber and Oberstadtdirektor Bratke came to us in January 1949 with a small group of councillors and heads of departments. Both visited me privately. Gustav Bratke, stepping out of the car, stumbled and lost his balance. In order to banish all evil omens I reminded him of William the Conqueror, to whom were attributed the words, as he fell: ‘England soil welcomes me.’ The same evening the Vice-Chancellor of Bristol University, Sir Philip Morris, received the guests from Hannover in the Hall of the University with, special honour: he bade the University and City guests to welcome the guests from Hannover – a friendly gesture and a warm welcome, which meant a great deal to the latter.

At the end of August – on 30 August, two days after the birthday of Goethe – I found myself once more in Hannover at the invitation of the Minister of Culture in Lower Saxony (Voigt) to give the anniversary lecture on Goethe in Herrenhausen. The title of my lecture was ‘Goethe – the Saving Conscience of Europe’. In our post-war years Goethe was the spiritual legacy of a universal vision which passionately affirms life, even the transformation of all events, and which still reveres the mystery of our human existence and its inborn potentialities ‘developing and revealing individual expressions.’ Instead of rigid formalisation Goethe sought organic structure. To us he remains a symbol of a concept of life, in which the tension between the inwardness and the fluctuating demands of a relentless actuality is overcome and stands beneath the law of flux. ‘Everyone who at a time of instability is minded to be unstable increases evil and spreads it even wider.’

On 16 November 1949 members of the Hannover Landesmusikschule were in the German Department of our University and played Bach and Handel. In December 1949 we received, through the good offices of Gustav Bratke, a magnificent Wilhelm Busch Exhibition. In the following spring the Vice-Chancellor of what was the Technical High School of Hannover, Professor Flachsbart, gave in the Bristol German Department a lecture on ‘Humanity and Science’. The new high spot of the Inter-City Partnership was the Civic Visit of the City of Bristol to Hannover, from 23 to 30 March 1950. No one could have dared to imagine that three years after the Goodwill Mission this important Civic Visit at the highest level was possible. In the delegation were the Lord Mayor, Alderman P. W. Cann, and his secretary, G. H. Gibbs, the Sheriff, F. M. Arkle, and his wife; the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Sir Philip Morris and Lady Morris; Alderman St. John Reade, Councillor F. W. Byrt; and the writer of this record.

We were officially welcomed at the station by Oberbürgermeister Weber and Oberstadtdirektor Bratke. On the Rathaus the flags of Bristol and Hannover hung side by side. The programme prepared for the Bristol guests reflected the inexhaustible powers of renaissance in social and cultural life. Highlights of the entertainment were a performance of Mozart’s Magic Flute in Herrenhausen, and he opening of Hannover’s industrial Fair. Our farewell from Hannover was celebrated in Bratke’s own home, for it was at the same time a homage to the Oberstadtdirektor who had contributed so much to the success of the Goodwill Mission.

Official and private exchanges consolidated our cities’ partnership. In the spring of 1952, from 30 March to 3 April, the return official Civic Visit of Hannover to Bristol took place. In the delegation were Oberbürgermeister Weber, Oberstadtdirektor Wiechert, and the City Councillors Frau Hente, Professor Hennig, Herr Lehnhoff and Herr Wittneben; in addition, Herr Bratke, Professor Oppermann, Stossberg and Ernst. In the evening the delegation attended a performance of T. S. Eliot’s Family Reunion at the Theatre Royal. The members were much impressed by the Church of St. Mary Redcliffe, the supremely graceful church –a kind of ‘Mozart in Stone’ – and by the view from the equally famous Suspension Bridge. In the same year we heard the sad news of the sudden death of the former Stadtdirektor Gustav Bratke, who had that precious gift of a warm heart and inexhaustible energy, with no trace of quibbling or pettifogging bureaucracy, who from the time of the Goodwill Mission in 1947 onwards gave us unique help in all matters related to the exchange, whether large or small in importance. I myself gave a commemorative address in the Bristol-Hannover Council, naming him justly and admiringly ‘a good German and true European’.

A similar charismatic influence was exercised by the personality of Lower Saxony’s Ministerpräsident Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf, on young and old alike. To my great surprise and joy he visited Bristol University on 29 and 30 October 1953,and gave a lecture which was enthusiastically received. He spoke of his lighthouse, his official work and activity, and of his love of the poetry of Theodor Storm, some of whose poems in hochdeutsch and plattdeutsch he quoted by heart. And so with memories of the two characters Bratke and Kopf I bring to a meaningful conclusion the record of the first formative years of the Bristol- Hannover Partnership. (page 4)