The Death of a True British Hero
As the media fawns over pop culture icons, an author remembers the flying ace who introduced her to the Spitfire Girls.
Bill Leith was cremated on March 13. There will be no front-page story, no spread in OK magazine, and no Max Clifford PR-perpetrated media blitz. Bill lived out his life and career with dignity and professionalism. He was a modest and old-fashioned British hero who never, ever sought the limelight.
Jade Goody died on March 22. Though many people in Britain feel she is a national figure of greatness, I could not help but cringe every time I saw reality television personality Jade’s malevolent minders storming about as the paparazzi snapped away during her battle with cancer. Bill Leith also fought cancer with courage. He had served his country with distinction and worked until cancer and a stroke overtook him.
Goody became a household name in January 2007 because she went berserk on Big Brother when the Indian “Bollywood” actress Shilpa Shetty dared breathe the same air in the confines of the dreaded house. Her hostility to Shetty was breathtaking and her vulgar epithets were regarded by a large swathe of Britain as repugnant. That is how Jade became a national figure.
In its rapid descent into the dumbing-down of a nation that once gave the world true celebrities of the ilk of Peggy Ashcroft, John Gielgud, and Laurence Olivier, Britain’s media engaged in a bizarre frenzy when Jade married her fiancé Jack Tweed. He was let out of prison for the occasion. Many found the circus around this private ceremony tawdry and disturbing.
Bill Leith married his longtime love Stroma shortly before he died. Like Jade Goody, he was able to be joined for eternity with the love of his life. The resemblance stops there. To the very end Bill never basked in celebrity culture; his military valor in defense of his country will go unnoticed save for the men who served alongside him.
He was based in Palestine during partition and we had many a heated argument about the right of Israel to defend itself. Bill had never forgiven the Stern Gang and Menachem Begin for their deeds during the last days of the British Mandate. I tried to convey the anguish and anger of Jews who had survived the death camps but Bill saw the suffering of his troops as a betrayal and the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem as an unforgivable tragedy. We agreed to disagree; in my own times of hardship Bill was, to coin a cliché, always there and steadfast in his efforts to attenuate my tribulation. It is a tribute to Bill’s generosity, sincerity, and profound patriotism that despite his views on Israel I, a rabid Zionist, remained an admirer every day of our thirty-year acquaintance.
Serving both his and her majesty’s government in many theaters of war as a pilot and later in special operations, as well as having endured being a POW in Korea, in semi-retirement he became an outstanding aerial photographer, filming from an enormous crane well into his seventies. He would have climbed under a table rather than appear on the cover of OK.
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Carol Gould is the Philadelphia-born author of Don’t Tread on Me: Anti-Americanism Abroad, Spitfire Girls, and A Room at Camp Pickett, a play about her mother’s experiences as a WAC in World War II; she has just completed films about black GIs and GI babies. Carol has been a panelist on BBC's Any Questions?, hosted by Jonathan Dimbleby, and is a commentator on Sky News, Press TV, the BBC World Service, and Five Live.
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16 Comments
1. African Moondog:The circus surrounding Jade Goody was mind boggling, what is it about the Brits and their need to connect with a celebrity-any celebrity? Are their lives that empty?
Bill Leith’s attitude to the Stern Gang is shared by many Britons. Yet less than ten years later in 1956 Britain and France became Israel’s first overt allies.
Mar 30, 2009 - 3:07 am 2. Mary Jackson:what is it about the Brits and their need to connect with a celebrity-any celebrity? Are their lives that empty?
Another brain-dead Brit-bashing fest. Have you read the National Enquirer lately? The celebrity culture started in America, and you don’t get much trashier than Hollywood.
Nobody I know gives a sh*t about Jade Goody. Carol Gould is giving her the “oxygen of publicity” here. In six months’ time she’ll be forgotten.
Bill Leith was indeed a remarkable man. Talking of which, Britain’s oldest man, WW1 veteran Henry Allingham is 112 years 295 days old. He is the sole survivor of the Battle of Jutland. More <a href=”http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5071410/Henry-Allingham-becomes-oldest-British-man-ever-at-112-years-and-296-days.html”here.
Mar 30, 2009 - 3:43 am 3. JFM:A RAF veteran tells how when his squadron was told to be transformed to Spitfires, pilots had for days an idiotic smile and about the rude blow to their egos when the first Spitfire landed and a diminutive ATA emerged from her looking like it wasn’t harder than a Tiger Moth (a very easy to fly plane for basic training)
Mar 30, 2009 - 4:58 am 4. Jaci:I don’t think anyone has the celebrity culture cornered like America does. But I think celebs fill the vacuum not having any real royalty creates. Of course, now that The One has ascended to office, he is starting to fill that void in many of my friends’ lives. I wish they would go back to worshiping Will Smith.
Mar 30, 2009 - 9:43 am 5. Robert F:Thanks for telling this story. These people should be remembered, and no, it has nothing to do with celebrity. It is simply part of a great country’s history, and should be remembered.
Mar 30, 2009 - 11:05 am 6. David H:Speaking as an American, I say there is much to be admired in the history of our oldest ally, and examples great and small support Churchill’s claim, for this was one of Britain’s finest hours.
For those Brits reading this, my apologies for our neophyte President’s tacky handling of the visit of your Prime Minister.
I think that anyone dying so young is a tradegy, so even though Jade Goody was not my type I cannot help but feel sorry for her and her kids, even though as a celeb she was an example of everyuthing that is wrong with Britain, to have kind words from Gordan Brown said it all…
Bill Leith sounds like a true Brit and in that I salute him, my father recently lost a friend who was on the Eagle when it was sunk on the famous convoy to Malta, which kept the island going at a critical time, he died in late 2008 and my father was devestated, the Royal Navy put the boat out at his funeral.
Bill and this man are heros and people we should be paying respects to. So Carol sorry for your loss, but also be glad that like my father your life was enriched by meeting a man like this.
Mar 30, 2009 - 11:11 am 7. David H:Robert F, Gordan Brown deserved the tacky handling…
Mar 30, 2009 - 11:12 am 8. Mary Jackson:my apologies for our neophyte President’s tacky handling of the visit of your Prime Minister.
No need. Gordon Brown is a loathesome creature, dishonest, profligate, cowardly, dictatorial and desperately dull.
Mar 30, 2009 - 12:13 pm 9. REDBALL6:BRAVO! Find the producer at the history channel, Americans have our “fly Girls” we need a TV program on those “Spitfire Girls”. Apparently the BBC can’t find its character as its currently chock full of idiots.
Ramp Rat
Mar 30, 2009 - 12:26 pm 10. Brita:check 6
As the diminishing number of real heroes of troubled times pass into the night, with our grateful thanks for what they did, they may be sadly forgotten by some but were always unknown to many. It is inevitable therefore that the media casts round for any old flash-and-bash “star” to moon over – or moan over.
Fifteen minutes of fame indeed, but thanks to the likes of Bill Leith we are relatively free to allow our media whores to chase these fifteen-minuters.
Sadly we are facing yet more troubled times, and it might not be so easy to find the heroes who will stand up to the islamists and the squanderers and the eco-wingnuts. But let’s hope they emerge soon.
Mar 30, 2009 - 1:03 pm 11. Marie Claude:At least, Bill Leith will not be forgotten at the NATO Tiger meet”, having his peers reconaissance is more rewardful.
http :// wiki.france5.fr/index.php/TIGRES_EN_PLEIN_CIEL
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k7Be2RYgtOQoobUxoe (6 videos)
Mar 30, 2009 - 4:13 pm 12. kenny komodo:I knew that the Brits had a spine of steel. First was the British MP representative to the EU and now Mr. Leith. Maybe the rest of Great Britain will wake up to the realization of the trouble they and the rest of the world are in.
Mar 30, 2009 - 7:07 pm 13. Marie Claude:#12 “I am looking for the French and German governments to rescue us” Daniel Hannan
got to think that not all the Brits are lucid
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/#29955003
Mar 30, 2009 - 10:58 pm 14. Corbin Choate:Jane Goody was no hero, on any level. Name one thing she did because it was the right thing to do when there were no cameras around.
Bill Leith, on the other hand, is the absolute definition of a hero. He was selfless, he worked hard and sacrificed for something larger than himself. He realized it was not all about him.
Apr 1, 2009 - 6:00 am 15. Donna V.:David H. and Mary Jackson: I don’t feel bad about the One’s treatment of your PM, but the “presents” he gave to Queen Elizabeth (junk from the airport duty-free shop)- now that’s embarrassing, especially since she treated him much more generously than he deserves. It’s like getting a Mercedes from your uncle for Christmas and giving him a gift-wrapped Kit-Kat bar in return, when you both know you could have done a bit better than that. But hey, that’s the Obamamessiah, all class,…,
Apr 1, 2009 - 4:18 pm 16. Ed N.:Hi, Corbin.
No, Ms. Goody wasn’t always an ideal role model, but toward the end of her life, she did use her celebrity to help her fellow countrywomen, and to help look after her children. I think she handled her circumstances to the best of her ability, and there is something to be said for that.
That being said, Mr. Leith lived one hell of a life, and deserves to be recognized for it.
May both Ms. Goody and Mr. Leith rest in peace.
Apr 2, 2009 - 12:15 pm