Produced by LAURENCE GILLIAM
On his particular Saint's day, the Welshman honours St. David, the Irishman St. Patrick, and the Scots-man St. Andrew ; but the Englishman seems to take little interest in St. George once he grows up, though year after year he cheers the patron Saint of England in Where the Rainbow Ends when he is young. Perhaps it is that St. George is too legendary a figure, and that the Englishman, grown up, needs more than the drum-beat, the shining armour, the red cross of the Saint to summon him to action.
Yet St. George's Day offers a glittering array of reasons for national pride. April 23 is Shakespeare's birthday. It is also the anniversary of the raid on Zeebrugge by the Dover Patrol. It is a day of love for England, however much Englishmen may pretend it isn't. Henry Ainley playing Henry V moved our hearts, with ' God for King Harry, England and St. George ', and there will be hearts that will be stirred by this English pageant that conjures up English history.