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Graham Nash

Graham William Nash (born 2 February 1942) is an English-American musician, singer and songwriter. He is known for his light tenor voice and for his contributions as a member of the Hollies and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Nash is a photography collector and a published photographer. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1997 and as a member of the Hollies in 2010. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours List for services to music and to charity.

Nash holds four honorary doctorates, including one from the New York Institute of Technology, one in music from the University of Salford in 2011 and one in fine arts from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Early life
Graham William Nash was born on 2 February 1942 in Blackpool, Lancashire, to where his mother had been evacuated from her hometown of Salford when World War II began. The family returned to Salford, where Nash grew up. At the age of 14, Nash's father was sent to prison for a year for receiving a stolen camera; he had bought the camera as a present for Graham but had then refused to disclose to the police the name of the relative who had sold it to him.

The Hollies
In the early 1960s, Nash co-founded the Hollies, one of the UK's most successful pop groups, with school friend Allan Clarke, and was credited as the group's leader on their first album. He was featured vocally on "Just One Look" (1964) and sang his first lead vocal on the original Hollies song "To You My Love" on the band's second album In The Hollies Style of the same year. He often sang featured bridge vocals on later Hollies recordings ("So Lonely", "I've Been Wrong", "Pay You Back With Interest") and provided lead vocals on several later singles, notably "On a Carousel" and "Carrie Anne" (both 1967).

Nash encouraged the Hollies to write their own songs, initially with Clarke, then with Clarke and guitarist Tony Hicks. From 1964 to mid-1966 they wrote under the alias L. Ransford. Their own names were credited on songs from "Stop Stop Stop" from October 1966 onward. In 1965, Nash, with Allan Clarke and guitarist Tony Hicks, formed Gralto Music Ltd, a publishing company which handled their own songs and later signed the young Reg Dwight (a.k.a. Elton John) who played piano and organ on Hollies 1969 and 1970 recordings.

Nash was pivotal in the forging of a sound and lyrics, often writing the verses on Clarke, Hicks & Nash songs. However, Nash also composed songs by himself under the 'team banner' (like Lennon & McCartney), including "Fifi the Flea" (1966), "Clown" (1966), "Stop Right There", and "Everything Is Sunshine" (1967). The Butterfly album included several of his songs that had less group participation and exhibited more of a singer-songwriter approach. He was disappointed when this new style did not register with their audience, especially "King Midas in Reverse" (Nash and producer Ron Richards clashed over this song because Richards believed it was 'too complex' to work as a hit single).

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Nash initially met both David Crosby and Stephen Stills in 1966 during a Hollies US tour. On a subsequent visit to the US in 1968, he was more formally introduced to Crosby by mutual friend Cass Elliott in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles. Nash left the Hollies to form a new group with Crosby and Stills. A trio at first, Crosby, Stills & Nash later became a quartet in 1969 with Neil Young: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY).

With both configurations, Nash went on to even greater worldwide success, penning many of CSN's most-commercial hit singles such as "Our House" (about the house in Laurel Canyon shared with his then-lover Joni Mitchell); "Teach Your Children" and "Marrakesh Express" (both of which had been rejected by the Hollies); "Just a Song Before I Go"; and "Wasted on the Way". Nash, nicknamed "Willy" by his bandmates, has been described as the glue that keeps their often fragile alliances together.

Nash became politically active after moving to California, as reflected in his anti-Vietnam War songs "Military Madness" and "Chicago / We Can Change the World" (about the trial of the Chicago Eight).

Crosby & Nash
In 1972, during CSNY's first hiatus, Nash teamed with Crosby, forming a successful duo. They worked in this configuration on and off for many years, producing four studio albums and a few live and compilation albums. His song "Immigration Man", Crosby & Nash's biggest hit as a duo, arose from a tiff he had with a US Customs official while trying to enter the country.

Solo career
In 1971, Nash released his first solo album Songs For Beginners on Atlantic Records. His second album Wild Tales, was released in 1974. Later, Nash would perform these two albums live on tour in 2019.

In 1979, Nash co-founded Musicians United for Safe Energy which is against the expansion of nuclear power. MUSE put on the educational fundraising No Nukes events. In 2007 the group recorded a music video of a new version of the Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth".

Hollies reunion
Nash briefly rejoined the Hollies in 1983 (to mark their 20th anniversary) to record two albums, What Goes Around... and Reunion. In 1993, Nash again reunited with the Hollies to record a new version of "Peggy Sue Got Married" that featured lead vocal by Buddy Holly (taken from an alternative version of the song given to Nash by Holly's widow Maria Eleana Holly)—this Buddy Holly & the Hollies recording opened the Not Fade Away tribute album to Holly by various artists.

Later years
In 2005, Nash collaborated with Norwegian musicians A-ha on the songs "Over the Treetops" (penned by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy) and "Cosy Prisons" (penned by Magne Furuholmen) for the Analogue recording. In 2006, Nash worked with David Gilmour and David Crosby on the title track of David Gilmour's third solo album, On an Island. In March 2006, the album was released and quickly reached No. 1 on the UK charts. Nash and Crosby subsequently toured the UK with Gilmour, singing backup on "On an Island", "The Blue", "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", and "Find the Cost of Freedom".

In addition to his political songs Nash has written many songs on other themes he cares about such as of nature and ecology—beginning with the Hollies' "Signs That Will Never Change" (first recorded by the Everly Brothers in 1966)—later CSNY's "Clear Blue Skies", plus anti-nuclear-waste-dumping ("Barrel of Pain"), anti-war ("Soldiers of Peace") and social issues ("Prison Song").

Nash appeared on the season 7 finale of American Idol singing "Teach Your Children" with Brooke White.

In 2010, Nash was inducted a second time to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this time as a member of the Hollies. He received an OBE "for services to music and charitable activities", becoming an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Diplomatic and Overseas Division of the Queen's Birthday Honours List on 12 June 2010. Nash received the title of George Eastman Honorary Scholar at the George Eastman House on 22 January 2011, in Rochester, New York.

Nash contributed a cover of "Raining in My Heart" to the 2011 tribute album Rave on Buddy Holly.

On 22 January 2016, Nash announced the forthcoming release on 15 April 2016 of his new studio album entitled This Path Tonight (his first collection of new songs in fourteen years) and shared the title track from it through MOJO magazine's website. On 4 February 2016, Rolling Stone magazine unveiled a new song from the new album, the reflective "Encore," the tender tune that wraps up Nash's new album. Upon the upcoming release of his new studio album in April 2016, Nash planned a solo tour from 25 March 2016 at the Byron Bay Bluesfest in Australia, continuing United States on 22 April 2016 at Saban Theatre, Beverly Hills, California, to visit Europe starting from the UK on 21 May 2016 at the Albert Hall, Manchester and ending 14 June 2016 at the Alte Oper Hall, Frankfurt, Germany.

He was still touring in the fall of 2017, performing in New Jersey and New York in September.

On 29 June 2018, Rhino Records released the two-disk box set Over The Years, a 30-track collection of Nash's demos made from 1968 to 1980, featuring highlights from the CSN debut album Crosby, Stills & Nash ("Marrakesh Express"), CSNY follow-up Déjà Vu ("Our House", "Teach Your Children"), song selections from subsequent CSN albums, four tracks from Nash's 1971 solo album Songs For Beginners, with "Better Days" and "I Used To Be King" presented as unreleased mixes. The most recent recording on the compilation is "Myself at Last" from Nash's 2016 solo album This Path Tonight. The second disc in this set features 15 demo recordings, 12 of which have never been released.

Photography career
Interested in photography as a child, Nash began to collect photographs in the early 1970s. Having acquired more than a thousand prints by 1976, Nash hired Graham Howe as his photography curator. In 1978 through 1984 a touring exhibition of selections from the Graham Nash Collection toured to more than a dozen museums worldwide. Nash decided to sell his 2,000 print collection through Sotheby's auction house in 1990 where it set an auction record for the highest grossing sale of a single private collection of photography. Nash said that some of the auction profit would be given to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for the acquisition of contemporary photographs.

In 2010 21st Editions published a monograph titled "Love, Graham Nash" which includes facsimiles of his lyrics paired with signed photographs by Graham Nash and printed by Nash Editions.

Experimenting
In the late 1980s Nash began to experiment with digital images of his photography on Macintosh computers with the assistance of R. Mac Holbert who at that time was the tour manager for Crosby, Stills and Nash as well as handling computer/technical matters for the band. Nash ran into the problem common with all personal computers running graphics software during that period: he could create very sophisticated detailed images on the computer, but there was no output device (computer printer) capable of reproducing what he saw on the computer screen. Nash and Holbert initially experimented with early commercial printers that were then becoming available and printed many images on the large format Fujix inkjet printers at UCLA's JetGraphix digital output centre. When Fuji decided to stop supporting the printers, John Bilotta, who was running JetGraphix, recommended that Nash and Holbert look into the Iris printer, a new large format continuous-tone inkjet printer built for prepress proofing by IRIS Graphics, Inc. Through IRIS Graphics national sales rep Steve Boulter, Nash also met programmer David Coons, a colour engineer for Disney, who was already using the IRIS printer there to print images from Disney's new digital animation system.

Coons worked off hours at Disney to produce large images of 16 of Nash's photographic portraits on arches watercolour paper using Disney's in-house model 3024 IRIS printer for a 24 April 1990 show at Simon Lowinsky gallery. Since most of the original negatives and prints had been lost in shipment to a book publisher, Coons had to scan contact sheets and enhance the images so they could be printed in large format. He used software he had written to output the photographic images to the IRIS printer, a machine designed to work with proprietary prepress computer systems.

In July 1990, Nash purchased an IRIS Graphics 3047 inkjet printer for $126,000 and set it up in a small carriage house in Manhattan Beach, California near Los Angeles. David Coons and Steve Boulter used it to print an even larger November 1990 show of Nash's work for Parco Stores in Tokyo. The show entitled Sunlight on Silver was a series of 35 celebrity portraits by Nash which were 3 feet by 4 feet in an edition of 50 prints per image, a total of 1,750 images. Subsequently, Nash exhibited his photographs at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego and elsewhere.

Nash Editions
In 1991, Nash agreed to fund Mac Holbert to start a fine art digital-based printing company using the IRIS Graphics 3047 printer sitting in Nash's Manhattan Beach, California carriage house. Holbert retired as road manager for Crosby, Stills and Nash so that he could run the company. It opened its doors on 1 July 1991 with the name of Nash Editions Ltd. Early employees included David Coons, John Bilotta and a serigraphic print maker named Jack Duganne. They worked to further adapt the IRIS printer to fine art printing, experimenting with ink sets to try to overcome the fast-fading nature of IRIS prints, and even going as far as sawing off part of the print heads so they could be moved back to clear thicker printing paper stocks (voiding the $126,000 machine's warranty). Nash and Holbert decided to call their fine art prints "digigraphs" although Jack Duganne coined the name "Giclée" for these type of prints. The company is still in operation and currently uses Epson-based large format printers.

In 2005, Nash donated the original IRIS Graphics 3047 printer and Nash Editions ephemera to the National Museum of American History, a Smithsonian Institution.

Personal life
Nash was married to his first wife, Rose Eccles, from 1964 until 1966. As part of an inside joke, her surname inspired the 1968 song "Jennifer Eccles", and a jocular verse about Jennifer Eccles was also included in the 1968 song "Lily the Pink". Nash was married to his second wife, actress Susan Sennett, from 1978 until he left her for artist Amy Grantham in 2016. Sennett, the mother of his three now-adult children, divorced Nash in 2016 and died of cancer in September 2020. After moving to New York City, Nash married Grantham in April 2019.

Nash released an autobiography in September 2013 called Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life, published by Crown Publishing. Photographs that he took during his career are on display as an art collection at the San Francisco Art Exchange. In interviews pertaining to both the memoir and art exhibit, he mentioned the impact of Canadian-American musician Joni Mitchell, with whom he had a relationship between 1968 and 1970 in California. He also had a brief relationship with American musician Rita Coolidge, as had his bandmate Stephen Stills.

Nash endorsed American politician Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries. In October 2020, he revealed that he had recently started practising Transcendental Meditation after American filmmaker David Lynch paid for him and his wife to study it as a gift. He said of the practice, "Quite frankly, I'm 78 years old and I wish I'd been doing it for 50 years."

On 7 January 2024 Nash was the guest for BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. His choices included "Be-Bop-a-Lula" by Gene Vincent, "Don't Give Up" by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, and Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber. His favourite disc was "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles, which he described as "the greatest song that was ever written, I think."

He used to have a home in San Francisco.

Discography

 * See also discographies for Crosby Stills Nash & Young, The Hollies and Crosby & Nash.

title: Graham Nash


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Blackbushe Airport

Blackbushe Airport is an operational general aviation airport in the civil parish of Yateley in the north-east corner of the English county of Hampshire. Built during the Second World War, Blackbushe is north of the A30 road between Camberley and Hook. For a time, it straddled this road with traffic having to wait whilst airliners were towed across. The south side was used for aircraft maintenance, using wartime-built hangars. Today, only the part of the airfield that lay north of the A30 remains in active use. The historical name for the flat piece of land on which it is sited is Hartford Bridge Flats. The nearest towns are Yateley and Fleet.

Blackbushe Aerodrome has a CAA Ordinary Licence (Number P693) that allows flights for the public transport of passengers or for flying instruction as authorised by the licensee (Blackbushe Airport Limited). The aerodrome is licensed for night use.

One of several airfields eclipsed since 1958 by the growth of Heathrow and Gatwick airports, Blackbushe was once a significant airport for passenger and cargo charter flights for the London area.

Currently based aircraft include several corporate jets, two flying schools, a helicopter training facility, as well as Aerobility, a flying charity. The airport is open to the general public and is also popular for walks around its perimeter and to see the wildlife in Yateley Common and Castle Bottom National Nature reserve.

Royal Air Force
The airport started life in 1942 as RAF Hartford Bridge, and it was used by RAF squadrons throughout the remainder of Second World War for reconnaissance, defence and strike operations using Spitfires and Mosquitoes. It was also the home of the Free French Squadron (Lorraine).

A number of important people landed at the airport including King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Field Marshal Montgomery.

RAF Hartfordbridge was also the home of a new system known as "FIDO" (Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation) built by the Airforce Construction Unit. Pipes were laid down both sides on Runway 26, and fed with fuel. The pipes had small holes, and if the airfield was shrouded in fog, the fuel was ignited. The heat created would cause the fog to rise and disperse.

On 18 November 1944, the airfield was renamed to RAF Blackbushe, due to confusion over a similar area in Norfolk. On 15 November 1946, the RAF had moved out, and the airport was handed over to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, becoming Blackbushe Airport. The A30 was reopened to traffic.

Ministry of Civil Aviation
In February 1947 the airfield was opened as Blackbushe Airport under the control of the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Full customs facilities were provided for both air transport operators and the private owners of light and executive aircraft.

Over the next few years, airlines such as Britavia, Westminster Airways, Airwork, and Silver City all moved in operating Lancastrians (passenger aircraft derived from Lancaster bombers), DC-3s, and Bristol Freighters. Movements by 1950 had risen to 11,000 per year, with 16,000 passengers.

The 1950s saw further expansion, Air Contractors started a scheduled service to the Channel Islands, and Eagle Aviation launched several routes to Europe on DC-3s and Viking airliners. Britavia and Airwork also brought in the Hermes airliner, flying charters to Africa and Australia. Blackbushe became a robust diversion airport for London Heathrow, and as a home for aircraft visiting the Farnborough Airshow. The facilities were constantly being upgraded with new buildings, runway extensions, and new navigational aids and lighting.

Overseas-based charter airlines often used Blackbushe for their flight to the UK, normally finding that the airfield was open for operations, even when other airports in the London area were closed by fog. The airfield's hilltop position helped in this respect. The Avro Yorks of Tropic Airways of Johannesburg visited for several years.

Blackbushe was used as a major location for the 1956 film The Crooked Sky in which the former RAF station buildings and then current commercial aircraft are seen.

The airport was also used as a filming location in the making of the 1951 film No Highway in the Sky directed by Henry Koster, starring James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich and Jack Hawkins.

United States Navy operations

From the early 1950s, the United States Navy (USN) had a facility on the north-east edge of the airport which frequently handled visiting naval aircraft. These included patrol types such as the Lockheed P2V Neptune and the Martin P4M Mercator. Large USN transports that used the airport regularly were the Douglas R5D Skymaster and Douglas R6D Liftmaster. In 1955 USN UK-based communications and liaison aircraft of FASRON 200, previously attached to RAF Hendon, in north London, were switched to Blackbushe.

By 1955 the airport was handling 36,000 movements per year. The US Navy also set up a base as a communications headquarters. This brought new aircraft such as Beech Expediters, Dakotas, DC-7s and Super Constellations. In the late 1950s, BOAC launched operations of the Comet airliners. Other operators such as Pan-Am, SAS, and BEA were using Blackbushe regularly as a diversion from Heathrow. However, with the newly built Gatwick airport, the lease on Blackbushe was not granted, and these operators were forced to start using Gatwick.

On 31 May 1960 the airport closed. All of the infrastructure, fixtures, and fittings were auctioned off. Parts of the runways were dug up. The airport remained closed until 6 October 1962 when it was formally reopened as a general aviation field. During the closure, many light aircraft continued to use the airfield.

Private ownership

The airport passed into private ownership and was formally reopened as a general aviation field on 6 October 1962. There had been a fight to reopen the airport, as there were many objections; however the reopening was due to one man and his resolve, Air Vice Marshal Don Bennett, CB, CBE, DSO. Born in Toowoomba, Australia and best known for his RAF Pathfinder exploits in the Second World War and his escape after being shot down during the raid on the German battleship Tirpitz, he evaded capture and escaped to Sweden, from where he was able to return to Britain.

The Hampshire County Council Planning Committee rejected an application on 25 August 1961, one of two applications for the development of a private aerodrome on the site of Blackbushe Airport. The applications, made by AVM Bennett, were for the use of an area of 325 acres as a private aerodrome, and for the erection of aircraft hangars. The vice-chairman of the committee, Lord Porchester, said that the Ministry of Aviation was not supporting AVM Bennett in his attempt to re-open Blackbushe for private flying. The reported reasons for the committee's decision were that most of the land was to be an open space, so that the proposal would be detrimental to the amenities of Yateley village, and it would interfere with safety and traffic flow on the Basingstoke - London trunk road. Despite many objections AVM Bennett battled the red tape and finally owned and opened the aerodrome in 1962.

The airport became a base for a large collection of historic World War II aircraft, including four Junkers Ju 52s, six Douglas DC-3s and a number of smaller planes, such as Spitfires, which were rarely seen on the tarmac. The finest was, perhaps, a Heinkel bomber, but this was sold in order to purchase a replacement which then crashed soon afterwards.

On 15 July 1978, the airfield hosted an all-day open-air concert, the Picnic at Blackbushe Aerodrome, which was attended by some 200,000 people. Bob Dylan headlined, with Eric Clapton, Joan Armatrading, Graham Parker and the Rumour, Lake, and Merger also appearing.

From 1985 to 2015, the airport was owned by British Car Auctions (BCA), who refurbished the terminal building, and replaced the tower in 1992.

From 1998 to 2009 The Queen's Helicopter was based there..

In 2008, the newly formed Blink launched their European air-taxi service from Blackbushe to over 600 destinations using a fleet of Cessna Citation Mustang aircraft. These were a regular sight at Blackbushe until Blink was closed by its new French owners in 2018.

In 2014, PremiAir, who had been based at Blackbushe since the early 2000s, and who operated light jets and executive helicopters from Blackbushe, went into administration. They were evicted from the 40,000 sq ft of hangars on the north side, and BCA repurposed them as part of their auction facilities.

Present day

In 2015, the airport was sold to Sir Peter Ogden, who previously founded Blink, in 2008. The north side hangars were not included in the sale, so Blackbushe currently has no hangar facilities.

The new owners plan to invest in the refurbishments of the airport and bring the facilities into the 21st century, including building new hangars to replace the space lost on the north side.

Investment has been made in repairs to the taxiways and parking areas, as well as repainting all of the airside markings.

In late 2017, a new airport management team was put in place. They have set about supporting the general aviation activities at the airport.

De-registration of common land and future development
Blackbushe Airport sits on part of Yateley Common. Despite access to the active airfield site being restricted since the 1940s, and provisions of the Aviation Security Act 2018 prohibiting trespass on an aerodrome, development of new facilities is restricted by this common land status. In November 2016, an application was submitted by Blackbushe Airport to Hampshire County Council to deregister the active aerodrome.

Blackbushe Airport have published its vision for the airport's future, which includes a new terminal building, a new café, hangarage for maintenance and aircraft parking, and a flying school hub.

A public inquiry was held at the Elvetham Hotel on 2–5 April 2019. On 12 June 2019, the Planning Inspectorate issued a decision granting the application to deregister the airport from Yateley Common.

Hampshire County Council subsequently sought a Judicial Review of the Inspector's decision which was held at the Royal Courts of Justice on 11–12 February 2020. On 23 April 2020, the High Court ruled in favour of Hampshire County Council. The Court of Appeal upheld this decision, and the Supreme court declined to hear the case, referring the matter back to the Planning Inspector for redetermination. In November 2023 a Planning Inspector issued a decision confirming the footprint of the Terminal Building and part of the airport cafe to be removed from the register of common land, but no curtilage.

In January 2024, Blackbushe Airport submitted a new application to the Planning Inspectorate for deregistration and exchange of 35.3 acres of the airport for an equally sized area at Cottage Farm, some 2 miles to the east of the airport.

Accidents and incidents

 * On 20 January 1956, a Vickers Viscount G-AMOM of British European Airways crashed on take-off when the training pilot mishandled the controls for the starboard engines when simulating an engine failure on take-off.
 * Shortly before midnight on 5 November 1956, a Handley Page Hermes chartered from the Britavia company bringing military families home from Tripoli crashed. 3 crew and 4 children were killed.
 * On 1 May 1957, a Vickers Viking G-AJBO operated by Eagle Aviation crashed near Blackbushe Aerodrome. The Viking suffered a port engine failure after takeoff the aircraft returned and crashed on Star Hill on approach to Blackbushe; five crew and 29 passengers died. The aircraft was on charter to War Office and carrying servicemen and families to RAF Idris in Libya.
 * On 1 September 1958, a RN Sea Hawk XE462 from HMS Ark Royal and part of a seven aircraft display team at Farnborough suffered an engine fire warning, the pilot peeled away toward Blackbushe and felt it necessary to eject from the aircraft over Blackbushe. The aircraft pitched up and entered into a spin and crashed into the ground close to the Silver City Hangar. The pilot Lt R.C.Dimmock survived with a broken ankle.
 * On 26 April 1987, a Cessna 441 Conquest II G-MOXY operated by Brown Air Services Ltd, crashed south of the A30 road as a go-around was initiated after unsafe landing gear indication on final approach. The pilot, as sole occupant, was killed.
 * On 23 December 2000, a Beechcraft King Air 200 VP-BBK spiralled out of control and crashed into a business park at the end of the runway, shortly after takeoff. All 5 people on board were killed.
 * On 20 July 2004, A Boeing B-52 bomber overflew the airport by mistake, having been scheduled to fly past Farnborough
 * On 31 July 2015, an Embraer 505 Phenom 300 HZ-IBN overshot the runway on landing and crashed into the British Car Auctions site. All four people on board were killed, including three members of the bin Laden family.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Blackbushe Airport


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The Jealous God

The Jealous God is a 1964 novel by John Braine. The story, set in an Irish Catholic community of Yorkshire circa in the 1960s, follows a 30-year-old man and his attempts at liberating himself from his domineering mother. The title refers to his mother's wish that her "favorite" son, despite being in his thirties already, pursue the career path of a clergyman. The book was adapted into a film in 2005.

Summary
Vincent Dungarvan is a history teacher at a Catholic school for boys. While his two brothers Matthew and Paul have been married with children for many years, Vincent is still single and living at home with his widowed mother, who is also a teacher. At 30, he is still a virgin. He has gone out with one or two Catholic girls but rejected them when he found them too superficial and boring.

One day, in the local library, he encounters Laura, a new librarian. Fascinated by her good looks and driven by (as he sees it) sinful desire, he is for once able to overcome his shyness and asks her out. Laura accepts, and they immediately fall in love with each other and start dating on a regular basis. However, he prefers not to tell his possessive mother about her, let alone invite her home.

In the course of the following weeks, Vincent's life is shattered by a number of revelations concerning Laura. He is disappointed when she tells him that she is a Protestant and that she has stopped going to church altogether. Furthermore, through a deliberate indiscretion by Laura's flatmate Ruth, he learns that Laura is divorced. For him as a Catholic, this means that he is seeing a married woman, which significantly increases his guilt and helplessness about the situation. Accordingly, they break up.

Soon afterwards, Vincent loses his virginity to Maureen, his sister-in-law, while his brother Matthew has gone out and the children are asleep. On the following morning, back at his mother's, he recollects what happened the previous evening:

"[…] He had deliberately denied himself the one pleasure that had the power to transform his very notion of pleasure; he had committed all the other sins because of indolence or indifference, never stopping to calculate the price. He smiled; it was the same for the sin you enjoyed as the sin that you didn't.

To spend the day talking to schoolboys about James I was, he reflected over his scrambled eggs, an anticlimax […]. He smiled to himself: if he had been a savage he'd have been entitled to wear some special insignia […].

'I'm glad you're so cheerful,' his mother said.

'It was something in the Guardian,' he said."

That very day, Vincent has an appointment with a senior clergyman about his vocation and once and for all makes up his mind not to become a priest. He also decides to see Laura again. In the meantime she has settled down in a flat of her own, and this is where they have sex for the first time, without Vincent confessing to Laura that he has recently made love to his own sister-in-law. When, some weeks later, Maureen announces that she is pregnant again, he is afraid that he might be the father of her baby. Out of jealousy, Maureen writes Laura's ex-husband Robert an anonymous letter, urging him to make up with his wife again. Vincent and Laura split up again as Laura is not certain about her husband's intentions.

In the end two instances of deus ex machina resolve the complicated situation. First, Maureen has a miscarriage, freeing Vincent. Then Robert commits suicide, paving the way for a Catholic wedding between Vincent and Laura, who are planning to leave the past behind and start a new life somewhere else.

Film
The novel was adapted as a feature film by writer-director Steven Woodcock and released in 2005. Jason Merrells played Vincent, Denise Welch played Maureen, and Mairead Carty played Laura. Other actors featured were Marcia Warren (Mrs. Dungarvan), Andrew Dunn (Matthew) and Roy Walker (the Monsignor).

Other reading

 * The British Museum Is Falling Down
 * How Far Can You Go?
 * A Severed Head

title: The Jealous God


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Battle of York

The Battle of York was a War of 1812 battle fought in York, Upper Canada (today's Toronto, Ontario, Canada) on April 27, 1813. An American force, supported by a naval flotilla, landed on the western lakeshore and captured the provincial capital after defeating an outnumbered force of regulars, militia and Ojibwe natives under the command of Major General Roger Hale Sheaffe, the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada.

After Sheaffe's forces were defeated, he ordered his surviving regulars to withdraw to Kingston, abandoning the militia and civilians. The Americans captured the fort, town, and dockyard. They themselves suffered casualties, including force leader Brigadier General Zebulon Pike and others killed when the retreating British blew up the fort's magazine. After the Americans carried out several acts of arson and looting, they seized ordnance and supplies from the settlement and subsequently withdrew from the town weeks later.

Although the Americans won a clear victory, the battle did not have decisive strategic results as York was a less important objective in military terms than Kingston, where the British armed vessels on Lake Ontario were based.

Background
York, the capital of Upper Canada, stood on the north shore of Lake Ontario. During the War of 1812, the lake was both the front line between Upper Canada and the United States, and also served as the principal British supply line from Quebec to the various forces and outposts to the west. At the start of the war, the British had a small naval force, the Provincial Marine, with which they seized control of Lake Ontario, and Lake Erie. This made it possible for Major General Isaac Brock, who led British forces in Upper Canada, to gain several important victories in 1812 by shifting his small force rapidly between threatened points to defeat disjointed American attacks individually.

The United States Navy appointed Commodore Isaac Chauncey to regain control of the lakes. He created a squadron of fighting ships at Sackett's Harbor, New York by purchasing and arming several lake schooners and laying down purpose-built fighting vessels. However, no decisive action was possible before the onset of winter, during which the ships of both sides were confined to their harbours by ice. To match Chauncey's shipbuilding efforts, the British laid down the Sloops-of-war HMS Wolfe (1813) at Kingston and HMS Sir Isaac Brock, at York Naval Shipyards.

American planning
On January 13, 1813, John Armstrong Jr. was appointed United States Secretary of War. He quickly assessed the situation on Lake Ontario and devised a plan by which a force of 7,000 regular soldiers would be concentrated at Sackett's Harbor on April 1. Working together with Chauncey's squadron, this force would capture Kingston before the Saint Lawrence River thawed and substantial British reinforcements could arrive in Upper Canada. The capture of Kingston and the destruction of the Kingston Royal Naval Dockyard together with most of the vessels of the Provincial Marine, would make almost every British post west of Kingston vulnerable if not untenable. After Kingston was captured, the Americans would then capture the British positions at York and Fort George, at the mouth of the Niagara River. Armstrong conferred with Major General Henry Dearborn, commander of the American Army of the North, at Albany, New York during February. Both Dearborn and Chauncey agreed with Armstrong's plan at this point, but they subsequently had second thoughts. That month, Lieutenant General Sir George Prévost, the British Governor General of Canada, travelled up the frozen Saint Lawrence to visit Upper Canada. This visit was made necessary because Major General Roger Hale Sheaffe, who had succeeded Brock as Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, was ill and unable to perform his various duties. Prévost was accompanied only by a few small detachments of reinforcements, which participated in the Battle of Ogdensburg en route. Nevertheless, both Chauncey and Dearborn believed that Prévost's arrival indicated an imminent attack on Sackett's Harbor, and reported that Kingston now had a garrison of 6,000 or more British regulars.

Even though Prévost soon returned to Lower Canada, and deserters and pro-American Canadian civilians reported that the true size of Kingston's garrison was 600 regulars and 1,400 militia, Chauncey and Dearborn chose to accept the earlier inflated figure. Furthermore, even after two brigades of troops under Brigadier General Zebulon Pike reinforced the troops at Sackett's Harbor after a gruelling winter march from Plattsburgh, the number of effective troops available to Dearborn fell far short of the 7,000 planned, mainly as a result of sickness and exposure. During March, Chauncey and Dearborn recommended to Armstrong that when the ice on the lake thawed, they should attack the less well-defended town of York instead of Kingston. Although York was the provincial capital of Upper Canada, it was far less important than Kingston as a military objective. Historians such as John R. Elting have pointed out that this change of plan effectively reversed Armstrong's original strategy, and by committing the bulk of the American forces at the western end of Lake Ontario, it left Sackett's Harbor vulnerable to an attack by British reinforcements arriving from Lower Canada.

Armstrong, by now back in Washington, nevertheless acquiesced in this change of plan as Dearborn might well have better local information. Armstrong also believed that an easy victory at York would provide the government with a significant propaganda coup, as well as bolster support for the Democratic-Republican Party for the gubernatorial election in New York.

The attack was originally planned to commence in early April, although a long winter delayed the attack on York by several weeks, threatening the political value of such an attack. In an attempt to overcome these delays, Democratic-Republicans supporters circulated proclamations of victory prior to the battle to the New York electorate. The American naval squadron first attempted to depart from Sackets Harbor on April 23, 1813, although an incoming storm forced the squadron back to harbour, in order to wait out the storm. The squadron finally departed on the next day.

British preparations
The town of York was not heavily fortified, with insufficient resources preventing the construction of necessary works needed to adequately defend it. As a result, Sheaffe had instructed government officials in early April 1813 to hide legislative papers in the forest and fields behind York, to ensure they would not be seized in the event of an attack.

York's defences included the town's blockhouse situated near the Don River east of the town, the blockhouses at Fort York to the west, and another blockhouse at Gibraltar Point. The settlement was also defended by three batteries at the fort and the nearby "Government House Battery" which mounted two 12-pounder guns. Another crude battery, known as the Western Battery, was located 1.6 km west of the fort, in present-day Exhibition Place. It contained two obsolete 18-pounder guns, which originated from earlier conflicts and had been disabled by having their trunnions removed, but they were fixed to crude log carriages and could still be fired.

Fort York was also defended by a western wall and a small unarmed earthwork between the fort and the Western Battery. About a dozen cannons, including older condemned models, were mounted in these positions, in addition to two 6-pounders on field carriages. Further west were the ruins of Fort Rouillé, and the Half Moon Battery, neither of which was in use.

Sheaffe was at York to conduct public business. He was originally scheduled to leave the settlement for Fort George but had postponed his departure due to suspicions of an American assault on York. His regulars, most of whom were also passing through York en route to other posts, consisted of two companies (including the grenadier company) of the 1st battalion 8th Regiment of Foot, a company of the Glengarry Light Infantry Fencibles, a company-sized detachment of the Royal Newfoundland Fencibles, a small squad from the 49th Regiment of Foot, and thirteen soldiers from the Royal Artillery. There were also 40 or 50 Mississaugas and Ojibwe warriors, and the Canadian militia.

The American naval squadron was spotted by British sentries posted at the Scarborough Bluffs on April 26, who alerted the town and its defenders using flag signals and signal guns. The Militia was ordered to assemble, but only 300 of the 1st and 3rd Regiments of the York Militia, and a company of the Incorporated Militia, could be mustered at short notice. Sheaffe expected the Americans to launch a two-pronged attack, with the main American landing to the west of Fort York, and another landing in Scarborough to cut off a potential retreat to Kingston. To counteract this, Sheaffe concentrated most of his regulars, the Native warriors and a small number of militiamen at Fort York, while most of the militia and the companies of the 8th Regiment of Foot positioned themselves at the town's blockhouse.

Battle
The Americans fleet appeared off of York late on April 26. Chauncey's squadron consisted of a ship-rigged corvette, a brig and twelve schooners. The embarked force commanded by Brigadier General Zebulon Pike numbered between 1,600 and 1,800, mainly from the 6th, 15th, 16th and 21st U.S. Infantry, and the 3rd U.S. Artillery fighting as infantry. Dearborn, the overall army commander, remained aboard the corvette Madison during the action.

Early on April 27, the first American wave of boats, carrying 300 soldiers of Major Benjamin Forsyth's company of the U.S. 1st Rifle Regiment, landed about 6.4 km west of the town, supported by some of Chauncey's schooners firing grapeshot. The American force intended to land at a clear field, west of Fort York, but strong winds pushed their landing craft 3.2 km west of their desired landing site, towards a wooded coastline in today's Humber Bay. Forsyth's riflemen were opposed only by Native warriors, led by James Givins of the British Indian Department, and the grenadier company of the 8th Regiment of Foot, who were dispatched to the area by Sheaffe. Only the Natives initially engaged the American landing. With American cannon fire threatening the roads on the waterfront, the British units dispatched from Fort York had to traverse through the forest behind the waterfront; and were unable to reach the landing site before the Americans started their landings.

Sheaffe had also ordered a company of the Glengarry Light Infantry to support the Natives at the landing, but they became lost in the outskirts of the town, having been misdirected by Major-General Aeneas Shaw, the Adjutant General of the Canadian Militia, who took some of the militia north onto Dundas Street to prevent any wide American flanking maneuver. After it became apparent that no landing would occur east of the settlement, Sheaffe recalled the companies of the 8th Regiment of Foot from the town's blockhouse.

As the landings progressed, the British and Native force was outflanked and began to fall back into the woods. The U.S. 15th Infantry Regiment was the second American unit to land, with bayonets fixed, under a hail of fire, shortly followed by Pike, who assumed personal command of the landing. Sheaffe arrived with the rest of the 8th Regiment of Foot, the Royal Newfoundland Fencibles, and a few dozen militiamen after the U.S. 15th Infantry Regiment had landed. The grenadier company of the 8th Regiment of Foot charged them with the bayonet. The grenadiers were already outnumbered and were repulsed with heavy loss. Pike ordered an advance by platoons, supported by two 6-pounder field guns, which steadily drove back Sheaffe's force. After Sheaffe failed to get the Fencibles to renew their advance, the British began to withdraw, with the newly arrived Glengarry Light Infantry covering the retreat.

During these landings, the American naval squadron bombarded the four gun batteries defending York. Chauncey's schooners, most of which carried a long 24-pounder or 32-pounder cannon, also bombarded the fort and Government House battery, with Chauncey himself directing them from a small boat. British return fire was ineffective.

The British tried to rally around the Western battery, but the battery's travelling magazine (a portable chest containing cartridges) exploded, apparently as the result of an accident. This caused further loss (including 20 killed) and confusion among the British regulars, and they fell back to a ravine at Garrison Creek north of the fort, where the militia was forming up. American forces advanced east towards the fort, and assembled outside its walls, exchanging artillery fire with the fort. The naval squadron also bombarded the fort, having re-positioned themselves directly south of the fort's stockade. Sheaffe decided that the battle was lost and ordered the regulars to retreat, setting fire to the wooden bridge over the River Don east of the town to thwart pursuit. The militia and several prominent citizens were left "standing in the street like a parcel of sheep". Sheaffe instructed the militia to make the best terms they could with the Americans, but without informing the senior militia officers or any official of the legislature, he also dispatched Captain Tito LeLièvre of the Royal Newfoundland to set fire to the sloop-of-war HMS Sir Isaac Brock under construction at York's Naval Shipyard and to blow up the fort's magazine. The two sides continued to exchange artillery fire until Sheaffe's withdrawal from the fort was complete. The British had left the flag flying over the fort as a ruse, and the Americans assembling outside its walls assumed that the fort was still occupied.

By 1:00 pm, the Americans were 200 yd from the fort, and their artillery and the naval squadron were preparing to bombard it. Pike was questioning a prisoner as to how many troops were defending the fort. Shortly after the bombardment began, the magazine (which contained over 74 tons of iron shells and 300 barrels of gunpowder and had been rigged by the British to explode) blew up. The explosion threw debris over a 500 yd radius. General Pike and 37 other American soldiers were killed by the explosion, which caused an additional 222 casualties. Fearing a counterattack after the explosion, American forces regrouped outside the wall, and did not advance onto the abandoned fort until after the British regulars had left the settlement.

Casualties

The American loss for the entire battle was officially reported as 52 killed and 254 wounded for the Army and 3 killed and 11 wounded for the Navy, for a total of 55 killed and 265 wounded. The majority of American casualties originated from the explosion at the fort's powder magazine. An archaeological dig in 2012 unearthed evidence that the destruction of the magazine and the impact it had on American soldiers was a result of poor position, and bad luck. The Americans just happened to be at the exact distance of the shock wave and its debris field.

The British loss was officially reported by Sheaffe as 59 killed, 34 wounded, 43 wounded prisoners, 10 captured and seven missing, for a total of 153 casualties. However, historian Robert Malcomson has found this return to be inaccurate: it did not include militia, sailors, dockyard workers or Native Americans and was incorrect even as to the casualties of the regulars. Malcomson demonstrates that the actual British loss was 82 killed, 43 wounded, 69 wounded prisoners, 274 captured and seven missing, for a total of 475 casualties.

Surrender
Colonel William Chewett and Major William Allen of the 3rd York Regiment of militia tried to arrange a capitulation, assisted by Captain John Beverley Robinson, the acting Attorney General of Upper Canada. The process took time. The Americans were angry over their losses, particularly because they believed that the ship and fort had been destroyed after negotiations for surrender had already begun. Nevertheless, Colonel Mitchell of the 3rd U.S. Artillery agreed to terms. While they waited for Dearborn and Chauncey to ratify the terms, the surrendered militia was held prisoner in a blockhouse without food or medical attention for the few wounded. Forsyth's company of the 1st U.S. Rifle Regiment was left as a guard in the town. At this stage, few Americans had entered the town. The next morning, the terms had still not been ratified, since Dearborn had refused to leave the corvette Madison. When he eventually did, Reverend John Strachan (who held no official position other than Rector of York at the time) first brusquely tried to force him to sign the articles for capitulation on the spot, then accused Chauncey to his face of delaying the capitulation to allow the American troops licence to commit outrages. Eventually, Dearborn formally agreed to the articles for surrender. The official terms of surrender permitted civil servants to continue carrying out their duties, and surgeons to treat British wounded. As a part of the terms of surrender, any troops remaining in York became prisoners of war, although those serving in the militia were "paroled," and allowed to return home so long as they do not rejoin the conflict until an official prisoner exchange had secured their "release". Members of the York Militia were ordered to relinquish their arms, and proceed to Fort York garrison. The officers of the militia were subsequently released on "parole," although the rest of the militia remained imprisoned for two days. Kept without food, water, or medical attention, the imprisoned militia was eventually released at the behest of Strachan.

The Americans took over the dockyard, where they captured a brig (HMS Duke of Gloucester (1807)) in a poor state of repair, and twenty 24-pounder carronades and other stores intended for the British squadron on Lake Erie. Sir Isaac Brock was beyond salvage. The Americans had missed another ship-rigged vessel, Prince Regent, which carried 16 guns, as she sailed for Kingston to collect ordnance two days before the Americans had been sighted. The Americans also demanded and received several thousand pounds in Army Bills, which had been in the keeping of Prideaux Selby, the Receiver General of Upper Canada, who was mortally ill.

Burning of York
Between April 28 and 30, American troops carried out many acts of plunder. Some of them set fire to the buildings of the Legislative Assembly, and Government House, home to the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada. It was alleged that the American troops had found a scalp there, though folklore had it that the "scalp" was actually the Speaker's wig. The Parliamentary mace of Upper Canada was taken back to Washington and was only returned in 1934 as a goodwill gesture by President Franklin Roosevelt. The Printing Office, used for publishing official documents as well as newspapers, was vandalized and the printing press was smashed. Other Americans looted empty houses on the pretext that their absent owners were militia who had not given their parole as required by the articles of capitulation. The homes of Canadians connected with the Natives, including that of James Givins, were also looted regardless of their owners' status. Before they departed from York, the Americans razed most of the structures in the fort, except the barracks.

During the looting, several officers under Chauncey's command took books from York's first subscription library. After finding out his officers were in possession of looted library books, Chauncey had the books packed in two crates, and returned them to York, during the second incursion in July. However, by the time the books arrived, the library had closed, and the books were auctioned off in 1822. Several looted items ended up in the possession of the locals. Sheaffe later alleged that local settlers had unlawfully acquired government-owned farming tools or other stores looted and discarded by the Americans, and demanded that they be handed back.

The looting of York occurred in spite of Pike's earlier orders that all civilian property be respected and that any soldier convicted of such transgressions would be executed. Dearborn similarly emphatically denied giving orders for any buildings to be destroyed and deplored the worst of the atrocities in his letters, but he was nonetheless unable or unwilling to rein in his soldiers. Dearborn himself was embarrassed by the looting, as it made a mockery of the terms of surrender he arranged. His soldiers' disregard for the terms he arranged, and local civil leaders' continued protest against them, made Dearborn eager to leave York as soon as all the captured stores were transported.

Aftermath
The Americans occupied the town for nearly two weeks. They sent the captured military stores, including 20 artillery pieces, away on May 2 but were then penned in York harbour by a gale. Chauncey's vessels were so overcrowded with troops that only half of them could go below decks to escape the rain at any time. They left York on May 8, departing for the Niagara peninsula. where they required several weeks to recuperate. Sheaffe's troops endured an equally miserable fourteen-day retreat overland to Kingston.

Around 300 to 400 Iroquois warriors assembled and marched towards York shortly after the battle, in an effort to launch an attack on the American forces there. The Iroquois were approximately 50 km west of York, in present-day Burlington, when they learned that the Americans had departed York; resulting in the expedition to be called off.

Effects on the war
Many members of the Provincial Assembly and other prominent citizens severely criticized Sheaffe, both for his conduct generally and during the fighting at York. For example, Militia officers Chewitt and Allan, the Reverend Strachan and others wrote to Governor General Prévost on May 8, that Sheaffe "kept too far from his troops after retreating from the woods, never cheered or animated them, nor showed by his personal conduct that he was hearty in the cause." Sheaffe lost his military and public offices in Upper Canada as a result of his defeat.

However, the Americans had not inflicted crippling damage on the Provincial Marine on Lake Ontario, and they admitted that by preserving his small force of regulars rather than sacrificing them in a fight against heavy odds, Sheaffe had robbed the Americans of decisive victory. Secretary of War Armstrong wrote, "[W]e cannot doubt but that in all cases in which a British commander is compelled to act defensively, his policy will be that adopted by Sheaffe – to prefer the preservation of his troops to that of his post, and thus carrying off the kernel leave us the shell."

The effects of the capture of York were probably most significant on Lake Erie, since the capture of the ordnance and supplies destined for the British squadron there contributed to the defeat of the British squadron at the Battle of Lake Erie. However, most of the naval supplies captured were not used by the Americans, who abandoned a portion of the captured goods before they departed from York, while the remaining supplies were set on fire during the Second Battle of Sacket's Harbor in May 1813.

Societal consequences
As the American attack on York occurred on the first of New York's three-day election period, the battle did not directly benefit the Democratic-Republic Party as Armstrong had originally envisioned. However, early proclamations of victory issued prior to the battle, did contribute to the reelection of Daniel D. Tompkins, the Democratic-Republican candidate to be the Governor of New York.

According to Pierre Berton, the battle, and occupation of York served as a watershed moment for the settlers of York. Those who fought the Americans became celebrated in the local community, while those who aided the occupation were viewed by the community as traitors. The documentary film Explosion 1812 argues that the battle had a much greater impact than previously assumed. The mistreatment by US forces of the civilian Canadian population, dogged resistance by militia and the burning of British symbols and buildings after the battle led to a hardening of Canadian popular opinion against the United States.

Several commentators viewed the American transgressions at York as justification for the British Burning of Washington later in the war. Prévost wrote that "as a just retribution, the proud capital at Washington has experienced a similar fate". Strachan wrote to Thomas Jefferson that the damage to Washington "was a small retaliation after redress had been refused for burnings and depredations, not only of public but private property, committed by them in Canada".

Second incursion, July 1813
Chauncey and Dearborn subsequently won the Battle of Fort George on the Niagara peninsula, but they had left Sacket's Harbor defended only by a few troops, mainly militia. When reinforcements from the Royal Navy commanded by Commodore James Lucas Yeo arrived in Kingston, Yeo almost immediately embarked some troops commanded by Prévost and attacked Sackett's Harbor. Although the British were repelled by the defenders at the Second Battle of Sacket's Harbor, Chauncey immediately withdrew into Sacket's Harbor until mid-July, when a new heavy sloop-of-war had been completed.

Chauncey sortied again on July 21 with 13 vessels. Six days later, he embarked a battalion of 500 troops commanded by Colonel Winfield Scott at Niagara. Chauncey sought to relieve the British-Native blockade of Fort George, by attacking British supply lines at Burlington Heights at the western end of Lake Ontario. Winfield Scott's force disembarked east of the heights at Burlington Beach (present-day Burlington) on July 29 but found the defenders too well entrenched for any assault to be successful.

Anticipating Chauncey's intentions, Major-General Francis de Rottenburg, Sheaffe's successor as Lieutenant Governor, ordered the bulk of the troops at York to Burlington Heights. However, this left York largely undefended, as most of its militia were still on parole. The American squadron proceeded to York in order to seize food stores to feed its soldiers. The last remaining troop in York, members of the 19th Light Dragoons, collected the military supplies they could carry and withdrew along the Don River. The American landing of 340 men at York was unopposed, with the American force burning the barracks at the fort and the military fuel yards, and looting several properties. They also seized 11 batteaux, 5 cannons and some flour, before reembarking on their ships, leaving the settlement later that night. The library books that were looted after the battle in April 1813, were returned to the settlement during the second incursion into York.

The Ontario Heritage Foundation erected a plaque in 1968 near the entrance to Coronation Park, Exhibition Place, Lake Shore Boulevard, in commemoration of the event. The plaque reads:

"On the morning of July 31, 1813, a U.S. invasion fleet appeared off York (Toronto) after having withdrawn from a planned attack on British positions at Burlington Heights. That afternoon 300 American soldiers came ashore near here. Their landing was unopposed: there were no British regulars in town, and York's militia had withdrawn from further combat in return for its freedom during the American invasion three months earlier. The invaders seized food and military supplies, then re-embarked. The next day they returned to investigate collaborators' reports that valuable stores were concealed up the Don River. Unsuccessful in their search, the Americans contented themselves with burning military installations on nearby Gibraltar Point before they departed."

Third incursion, August 1814
In the months after the second American incursion into York, the defences around the harbour were significantly improved, as the British needed to protect a four-vessel squadron that would be stationed at the town's harbour. On August 6, 1814, the American Lake Ontario squadron pursued HMS Magnet, before its captain set fire to the ship, preventing its capture. Suspecting the ship sailed from York, the American naval squadron made its way to the settlement in order to evaluate the situation, and discover if any more ships could be captured there.

Arriving near York's harbour, the American squadron dispatched USS Lady of the Lake (1813) to negotiate under a white flag, in a ploy to evaluate the town's defences. However, the militia stationed at Fort York opened fire at the schooner, which returned fire, before withdrawing to rejoin the American squadron. The 8th Regiment of Foot, and the 82nd Regiment of Foot were sent to York in an effort to bolster the town's defences. The American squadron did not attempt to engage the newly built defences, although they remained outside York's harbour for the next three days before sailing away.

Legacy
The burning and looting of York after the battle, along with the destruction of other Upper Canadian settlements during the war, saw public opinions on Americans shift among the residents of Upper Canada. Historian, Charles Perry Stacey notes in the years before the war, American settlers had regularly settled into Upper Canada, with the colony essentially becoming a "transnational space," and the only distinction between Americans and Upper Canadians existing on paper. However, in the years after the war, Stacey notes a "deep prejudice against the United States," had emerged amongst the colony's settlers. Stacey further notes that the burning of York, and other American transgressions during the war, were later used by Canadian nationalists to create a national narrative that sees the "birth of the Canadian nation," as a result of the conflict.

Several Canadian Army Reserve units perpetuate the linages of Fencibles, and militia units involved in the Battle of York, including the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders (Glengarry Light Infantry), the Queen's York Rangers (1st and 3rd regiments of the York Militia), and the Royal Newfoundland Regiment (Royal Newfoundland Fencibles). Five active regular battalions of the United States Army (2-1 ADA, 1-2 Inf, 2-2 Inf, 1-5 Inf and 2-5 Inf) perpetuate the lineages of several American units engaged during the Battle of York (including Crane's Company, 3rd Regiment of Artillery, and the old 6th, 16th, and 21st Infantry Regiments). Within the British Army, the 8th Regiment of Foot is today perpetuated by the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment while the 49th Regiment of Foot is perpetuated by The Rifles Regiment.

On July 1, 1902, Walter Seymour Allward was commissioned to sculpt the Defence of York monument at the Fort York burial grounds. The monument was erected to commemorate those that fought in defence of York; as well as the British, Canadian, and Native warriors who fought in the War of 1812.

On April 27, 2013, the City of Toronto government and the Canadian Armed Forces commemorated the 200th anniversary of the battle with a Presentation of Colours to the 3rd Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment. The ceremony took place at Queen's Park, and was presided over by Prince Philip. The ceremony was followed by a military parade of 1,500 sailors and soldiers from the Canadian Army, and the Royal Canadian Navy; from Queen's Park to Fort York. The ceremony and parade was organize in conjunction with other War of 1812 bicentennial commemorations held in Toronto, and the other municipalities in Ontario. During the bicentennial celebrations, the City of Toronto Museum Services commissioned the creation of the exhibit Finding the Fallen: the Battle of York Remembered at Fort York. The exhibit attempts to document American, British (including the militia), and First Nations combatants that died during the battle.

title: Battle of York


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User:Thanuk

I am Nathaniel Cross from Fleet, Hampshire. I am a computer programmer by profession. I also run the website Than's Auction Supercars

title: User:Thanuk


text:
Neil Bissoondath

Neil Devindra Bissoondath (born April 19, 1955, in Arima, Trinidad and Tobago) is a Trinidadian-Canadian author who lives in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. He is a noted writer of fiction. He is an outspoken critic of Canada's system of multiculturalism and is the nephew of authors V.S. Naipaul and Shiva Naipaul, grandson of Seepersad Naipaul, grandnephew of Rudranath Capildeo and Simbhoonath Capildeo, and cousin of Vahni Capildeo.

Life and career
Bissoondath attended St. Mary's College in Trinidad and Tobago, where he was born in Arima. Although he was from a Hindu tradition, he was able to adapt to a Catholic high school. He describes himself as not very religious and distrustful of dogma. In the early 1970s, political upheaval and economic collapse had created a climate of chaos and violence in the island nation.

In 1973, at the age of 18, Bissoondath left Trinidad and settled in Ontario, where he studied at York University and received a Bachelor of Arts in French in 1977. He then taught English and French at the Inlingua School of Languages and the Toronto Language Workshop. He won the McClelland and Stewart award and the National Magazine award, both in 1986, for the short story "Dancing". Bissoondath was interviewed by Ali Lakhani in the journal Rungh about his views on writing and life.

Awards
He won the Writers' Trust of Canada's Gordon Montador Award in 1995 for Selling Illusions.

Bissoondath has received honorary doctorates from Glendon College, York University and Université de Moncton. In 2010 he was made a Chevalier of the Ordre national du Québec. In 2012, he was awarded the NALIS (National Library of Trinidad and Tobago) Lifetime Literary Achievement Award.

Novels

 * A Casual Brutality (ISBN 9781896951409) – 1989
 * The Innocence of Age – 1993
 * The Worlds Within Her (ISBN 9781896951874) – 1999 (Nominated for a Governor General's Award)
 * Doing the Heart Good (ISBN 9781896951645) – 2002
 * The Unyielding Clamour of the Night (ISBN 9781896951874) – 2005
 * The Soul of All Great Designs (ISBN 9781897151327) – 2008

Novella

 * Postcards from Hell – 2009

Short story collections

 * Digging Up Mountains – 1986
 * On the Eve of Uncertain Tomorrows – 1990

Non-fiction

 * Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada 1994

title: Neil Bissoondath