[Hill Walker]

I’m not sure what it is about the Southampton area but it does seem to be a hotbed of political over-correctness. I’ve noticed several such events in the past. One stupidity in particular sticks in the mind, someone wanted to remove the syllable ‘man’ from the words ‘management’ and ‘manager’ despite being at a loss to provide replacements and totally failing to recognise that both words are related to the verb ‘manage’ and all are gender irrelevant anyway.

However in respect of this painting it specifically honours those who interrupted their studies and in many cases lost their lives for the sake of this country, virtually all of these were white, British and middle or upper class because that’s who were in British Universities at that time. There were a very small number of non-white colonial students that were being educated for administrative positions in their home countries but their circumstances would usually have precluded their involvement. I wonder how many non-whites were in American Universities in 1916 - answered possibly on the fingers of one or two hands?


It should however be noted (because its often forgotten) that there were significant numbers of both British and French colonial troops in the trenches in France as well as in conflict in other parts of the world where conflict occurred.