YOUR article by Gillian Dymond had me reaching for the memorandum from Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the Foreign Office (quoted by John Julius Norwich, Christmas Crackers 1970-1979) viz:
‘I do not consider that names that have been familiar for generations in England should be altered to study the whims of foreigners living in those parts. Where the name has no particular significance, the local custom should be followed. However, Constantinople should never be abandoned, though for stupid people Istanbul may be written in brackets after it. As for Angora, long familiar to us through Angora cats, I will resist to the utmost of my power its degradation to Ankara.
‘You should note, by the way, the bad luck which always pursues people who change the names of their cities. Fortune is rightly malignant to those who break the customs and traditions of the past. As long as I have a word to say in the matter, Ankara is banned unless in brackets afterwards. If we do not make a stand we shall in a few weeks be asked to call Leghorn Livorno, and the BBC will be pronouncing Paris Paree. Foreign names were made for Englishmen, not Englishmen for foreign names. I date this minute from St George’s Day 1945.’
How perfectly apt for today’s climate!!
Margaret Campbell
The Wirral
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