We don’t have Thanksgiving in Britain, but this does not stop us giving thanks and Christmas is a good time to do it. Last year, when I made a visit of farewell to the great medievalist Jeremy Catto, who was dying, his American partner of 57 years, John Wolfe, said that they always kept Thanksgiving. I asked Jeremy what he gave thanks for. ‘I give thanks that the Pilgrim Fathers left,’ was his characteristic reply. We fell to deploring the growth of modern puritanism in all its nauseating forms.
Thanksgiving should glow in every English heart for the fact that Queen Victoria married Prince Albert and brought to this country that wide-ranging, humane European of genius, who could have excelled as an engineer, a politician, a soldier, a musician. Our Sidney and our perfect man. People sometimes ask me if there is any modern equivalent and the closest I can get is to mention the current director of the V&A, Tristram Hunt.
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