Install the app
How to install the app on iOS

Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.

Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.

On This Day;

Today is the 47th anniversary of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's historic visit to Israel, the 1st visit by an Arab leader to Israel. 'Historic' is probably too tame a word to describe it - at the time it was thought to be world-changing. It led to the first peace treaty between an Arab nation and Israel, a treaty which, remarkably, still holds to this day.

sadat.webp

Egypt, like all the Arab nations was still at war with Israel but Sadat had the bravery to choose peace in a world plagued by conflicts. The treaty restored Egypt's sovereignty over the Sinai Peninsula, but it also meant breaking with much of the Arab world and facing accusations of treachery, and ultimately cost Sadat his life when he was assassinated in 1981.

The Camp David accords were supposed to be a step to solving all the Arab-Israeli conflicts, not only Egypt -Israel. Sadat offered to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians, using the trust he had built up with the Israelis, but Arafat turned him down. The bravery it took for Sadat to go against the tide, to take a step toward peace despite the personal, political risks, was way beyond Yasser Arafat, who believed violence was the route to Palestinian success. In 2000 Arafat told Bill Clinton that if he was to sign the peace treaty the had been agreed after months of negotiations he "would soon be drinking tea with Sadat."

I first came to appreciate Sadat's greatness when I spent a year living and studying in Egypt where his legacy is mixed - he certainly made mistakes. However, his brilliance at playing the Soviets against the USA, outwitting both, then shifting Egypt from the failing Soviet sphere to the western one, as well as bringing longstanding peace to his country shows he was a visionary who was not only brave but also pragmatic and politically astute.


The world would be in a better place had more leaders the world over shared those qualities.
 
….28th/29th November 1940, the Durning Road bomb disaster. I remember being told of this tragedy and often think of it when driving down Edge Lane.

The Ernest Brown School was chosen as a WW2 bomb shelter as its basement boiler room had a reinforced ceiling. When air raid signals started on evening of 28th Nov, over 300 men, women & children made their way to the shelter. At around 1.55am on 29th the school took a direct hit from a parachute mine, the building collapsed and the boiler burst, sending out boiling water.

Churchill called it ‘the single worst civilian incident of the war’;

IMG_1293.webp

IMG_1294.webp

IMG_1295.webp

IMG_1296.webp

IMG_1297.webp
 

8/12/80

default.jpg

As if that wasn't enough, my (then 18-year old) dad's mother dropped dead of a heart attack running for a bus eight days later.

On a happier note. Deulofeu rinsed Arsenal back in 2013...
 


Welcome to GrandOldTeam

Get involved. Registration is simple and free.

Back
Top