Gareth Jennings

Man of many interests, History, Royalty, Comedy, Music and Fitness

[Britain's Lost & Living Pubs @Britains___Pubs]

If you love Britain's pubs, share this post and help others find a page that's dedicated to them.

Thank you all for all the support.

[Bobbie @bo66ie29]

The timeless beauty of the city of Oxford. A captivating film from 1961.

[Gareth Jennings @GarethJennings6]

Do you remember when you joined X? I do! #MyXAnniversary

[Gareth Jennings @GarethJennings6]

@carryontitterin Omg that is just impossible 😱

[Gareth Jennings @GarethJennings6]

@benonwine YES definitely.

[Gareth Jennings @GarethJennings6]

@carryontitterin Carry on up the Khyber is my favourite.

[Jim Chimirie 🇬🇧 @JChimirie66677]

Another British tradition quietly taken off air. Another shrug from the @BBC. This time it's the Boat Race - first broadcast on radio in 1927, on television since 1938 - dropped after nearly a century. Why? Not low viewing figures: last year's men's and women's races pulled in more people than the Masters and Formula One. Not cost: it's cheap by sports standards and pumps millions into the London economy. The truth is uglier.

Inside the BBC the word that killed the Boat Race was "elitist." The new head of sport was said to be "lukewarm." That single term - "elitist" - is now a licence to scrap anything rooted in Britain's past. It's the same quiet vandalism we've seen around the Proms, Remembrance coverage, and the monarchy. The BBC no longer sees its job as showing Britain to itself. It sees its job as remaking Britain.

The Boat Race isn't a cocktail party for gilded Oxbridge types. It's free to watch, pulls two hundred thousand ordinary spectators to the Thames every year, and has always been a working-class London day out. Rowing may have its posh stereotype, but the event is about rivalry, endurance and spectacle - things any nation should be proud to show the world.

Yet the BBC's cultural gatekeepers have a deeper allergy: tradition that isn't re-branded, rewritten, or apologised for. They can throw millions at "inclusive" events nobody asked for and wall-to-wall virtue TV. But a British crowd on the riverbank waving flags? That's suspect. That's "exclusive."

This is what happens when institutions stop believing in the country that built them. They measure value not by what the public loves but by what fits the new ideological checklist. The numbers didn't matter; the narrative did.

And we pay for it. Every household is forced to hand over a licence fee to a broadcaster embarrassed by its own culture, one that keeps hacking away at the few things still able to unite a fragmented nation.

The Boat Race will survive. Channel 4 has taken it on, proof there's nothing obsolete about it. But the BBC's retreat matters. It's a signal: if something feels too British, too rooted, too recognisable, it's up for cancellation.

A broadcaster that can't celebrate its country is no longer serving it. It's time to ask why we're still paying for our own cultural erasure.

[Old England in Colour @englandincolour]

Mae West the elephant takes an apple from a passing tram driver during her daily exercise along Grays Inn Road, London in 1936.

[Gareth Jennings @GarethJennings6]

@SZade15 What drivel you speak.

[Gareth Jennings @GarethJennings6]

@FXMC1957 Thanks for sharing that. I'd never heard the last part of the broadcast.

[Gareth Jennings @GarethJennings6]

@AndreasKoureas_ And that is what a statesman should sound like. Shame there are no Winston's in politics these days.

[Gareth Jennings @GarethJennings6]

@NoKingCharlie @chrisshipitv That's another batch of support the so called not my king group has lost through a distasteful and ill timed comment.

[Gareth Jennings @GarethJennings6]

@afneil I think the public should get to see the government accounts.

[Lord Ashcroft @LordAshcroft]

For every retweet of this post, I will donate £1 to the @VC_and_GC_Assoc up to £50,000.
Time is running out following @I_W_M’s decision to close the Lord Ashcroft Gallery.
Visit while you still can, to honour the bravery of those who risked so much to protect our great nation.

[Gareth Jennings @GarethJennings6]

@BirminghamWeAre Oh wow what a beautiful pub. So sad it is closing.

[Gareth Jennings @GarethJennings6]

@HistoricEngland Brilliant thank you so much.

[Gareth Jennings @GarethJennings6]

@yerbooti65358 @timecaptales Not for Germany though

[Gareth Jennings @GarethJennings6]

@yerbooti65358 @timecaptales Nobody was forced into military action. But there again, the embargo was in response to japan's military expansion.

[Gareth Jennings @GarethJennings6]

@fopminui Oh wow thats wonderful. I love the style like art deco. Fantastic.