Setting the Legion ablaze
You could be forgiven for thinking that British Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Gordon Brown had nothing in common.
When Brown established a "government of all the talents" in 2007, appointing a number of 'outsiders' including Admiral Sir Alan West, Digby Jones, Sir Richard Branson and Baroness Neuberger to his government team, it was hardly a new idea. Churchill had also drawn upon the centuries old idea to good effect during the Second World War.
When, in July 1940, he instructed Minister of Economic Warfare, Hugh Dalton, to "set Europe ablaze," Britain's wartime leader set in train the establishment of the Special Operations Executive, a clandestine organisation that certainly relied heavily on a "government of all the talents".
Special Operations Executive Headquarters at 64 Baker Street
The S.O.E, borne of Churchill's conversation with Dalton, was established to carry out acts of sabotage and subversion behind enemy lines. It drew potential agents from the British Armed Forces, military intelligence and resistance groups across occupied Europe.
Secret training locations were established across the British Isles and a small army of highly skilled instructors was recruited to prepare trainees like Edward Yeo-Thomas, Odette Sansome, Violette Szabo, Nancy Wake and Joachim Rønneberg for the covert operations that lay ahead.
Nowhere was the "government of all the talents" model in greater evidence than at the S.O.E. "Finishing School" in Beaulieu between the autumn of 1940 and the end of World War II. Here, in large country houses across the Montagu estate, a special team of instructors honed the skills of the trainee agents, tested their resilience and resistance to hardship, danger and torture and assessed their state of readiness for espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines.
The Rings - the Special Operations Executive Headquarters at Beaulieu
Lt. Col Stanley Woolrych was Commanding Officer of the "Finishing School" for much of the war and he gathered together a team expert in the arts of murder, burglary, sabotage, propaganda, forgery and the like. But, not for him a team of trained military personnel and career intelligence officers, Woolrych drew many of his instructors from Civvy Street.
One of the war's most secret and successful organisations relied on the talents of, among others, couturier Hardy Amies, screenwriter and poet Paul Dehn, Sandringham gamekeeper William 'Nobby' Clark, John Wedgewood of the famous pottery making family and Scottish burglar and safe-breaker Johnny Ramenski.
Such was the eclectic, and in some cases eccentric, character of Woolrych's team that they were described as "a shoal of pretty odd fish" by none other than Kim Philby who was himself an S.O.E. instructor at Beaulieu.
S.O.E Instructors at Beaulieu - many of them civilians with special talents
The missions, sacrifices and achievements of S.O.E. agents during World War II have been widely documented but the vital role played by the instructors at Beaulieu and other training establishments across the country is less well known despite having played an important part in the victory.
Churchill marshalled these 'talents' in the 1940's and Gordon Brown recruited for the cause in more recent times. And, if we search diligently we are sure to find many, more modest "governments of all the talents" beavering away today to very good effect.
One English rugby club issues a special form with its subscription reminder encouraging the members to record their occupations, practical skills and interests. When a plumber is required to fix the showers, legal advice is sought and when culinary skills are needed to prepare post-match meals, the club database identifies the expertise contained in-house and the jobs get done.
How often, in a Legion Branch, County Office or Haig House is there a job to be done that suffers for want of appropriate expertise? Maybe we are tempted to struggle on when a source of appropriate expertise is in our midst?
An audit of skills at every level of the Royal British Legion would surely identify a wealth of previously untapped and readily available experience, energy and enthusiasm.
Identifying the source is, of course, not enough for it must be investigated, evaluated and embraced to ensure that it will truly benefit the Legion. And, if it passes the test, the expertise can then be enlisted, entrusted and encouraged.
It is, of course, a two-way process and Legion members and staff should not be coy about their talents and the contribution they are able to make, not reluctant about offering ideas and support to the organisation.
Exploiting people is not to be encouraged, but exploiting their talents to the benefit of the nation's No.1 military charity is laudable and the process is simple - identify the talent in our midst, use it to good advantage and let's "set the Legion ablaze".
