Sermon at Guilsborough ( also delivered  earlier in different form at Hollowell) on 6 November 2005
At 1 o’clock in the morning on this day two hundred years ago Lieutenant Lapenotiere, a Cornishman with a French sounding name, arrived at the Admiralty in London after a 37 hour journey by coach from Falmouth, with twenty one changes of horses along the way.  He carried a despatch describing  the Battle of Trafalgar and the death of Nelson.  Later that morning he met George III  - access to Mr King was obviously easier in those days -  and laid out the order of battle on the royal  breakfast  table using a silver muffinier to represent HMS Victory – an object that acts as a sugar caster.  They sell them on ebay I’ve discovered. It’s now in the museum at Liskard in Cornwall given by the Lapenotiere  family. 
Against that background, .I hope it won’t be considered irregular  if I draw a passage from the Apocrypha for my text this evening. 
“ Let us now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us….
Leaders of the people by their counsels,  and by their knowledge of learning meet for the people.  All these were honoured in their generations and were the glory of their times. “ 
“He’s my hero”.  These days when the cult of celebrity is so much with us, we hear that kind of comment very regularly, or see heroes blazing like media inspired comets across headlines.  It’s become an overused word describing a wide range of achievement, including the sporting prowess of Andrew Flintoff and David Beckham. Inevitably some devaluation has set in, one could argue. 
Yet for those of us brought up on the Nursery History of England or Our Island Story heroes and  heroines are the warp and woof of our history.  Alfred burning the cakes and then defeating the Danes.  Henry V beating the odds at Agincourt – “Gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here.”;   Queen Elizabeth I  at Tilbury  “ I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman yet I have the heart and stomach of a king “ .  
“Never in the field of human conflict” and, in our thoughts to-day,  “England expects that every man will do his duty”, perhaps the best known battle cry of all.  Whether its David of David and Goliath or David of Real Madrid, people look for role models in achievement.  In each of us, even if we disclaim it, somewhere inside there lurks that spark of ambition to do something. 
Yet these famous men and women, often shrouded in myth, were human and had their evident frailties.  Alfred forgot the cakes; Henry V had a misspent youth; Winston Churchhill drank and smoked far more than would, I feel sure,  be recommended by the Guilsborough surgery.  Horatio Nelson might have made it, thanks to Disability Legislation, as a messenger at the Admiralty.  He was vain, vindictive and self-promoting.  And the idea that a man with one eye, one arm, a history disobeying orders, not to mention  a turbulent love life should be put in charge of the destiny of this nation is, of course, to-day  most unlikely.      
Paradoxically, those frailties often make heroes more real to us.  We want to identify with our role models, to feel that whilst achieving great things,  they were or are in some respects like us, making mistakes as we do and subject to the same emotions.   To that extent we understand them and can then admire their deeds. 
But the common attribute in all of those whom I have mentioned was first their ability to win and second their ability to make themselves understood and respected  by those whom they led.   Not living in ivory towers, their feet were firmly planted on the ground.  
Nelson won the battle largely because he made sure by personal contact with his officers, and even more important, with his men, that everyone knew what they had to do that day.  They were all aware of what was expected. Nelson also knew that once begun battles are won by fighting men not admirals. 
Which brings me to the second part of that passage from the writer Ecclesiasticus “and some there be which have no memorial; who are perished as though they had never been………………… their bodies are buried in peace but their name liveth fopr evermore”  
