It’s not easy confronting somebody who is a foot soldier for the worst period in modern European history. It’s also not easy having to talk to somebody who idolises one of the few truly evil people in human history, and tried to copy him.
This is what I was able to do as a child without actually knowing what the man was up to in private or having been a part of what he was doing in public in some parts of inland England at the time.
Neither I, nor any of my family, were connected to the activities of Ian Edmund Bannen at all. It was only a chance invitation to my grandfather that led me to being also present at a time he visited a location along the South coast of England.
He was obviously a despotic and deeply disturbed man. Near to death he had little to offer to people at all. However, he was able to mumble things and also state some things harshly to people who stood around him. He was a horrible figure with a demonic mentality. This was clear in that brief encounter.
Later, I learned a lot more about what he said to people and I understood more about why men like that are hated here. It’s obvious that fascism doesn’t have a place in England at all, and, for the rest of us, it threatens our way of life.
It’s not allowed because it’s based only on criminal activity and it also teaches us the wrong things. This is what drew his protégé to him in the first place. The unfolding drama only increased in this next pair of hands. It’s a lesson about stopping things as soon as they start.
