I was delighted by the invitation to be the guest speaker about Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson at this year’s Trafalgar Day Lunch in Sydney. The Royal Automobile Club in conjunction with the Australasian Pioneers’ Club has, for many a year, celebrated this auspicious day. The Retired Naval Officers’ Club also supports the event - with many of their members attending every year. I myself had attended a few of these in the past.
Image: Oliver Greeves presenting at the 2024 Sydney Trafalgar Day Luncheon.
Photo credit - Thank you David Miller for all the images from this event.
“For Trafalgar Day, we aim to invite a speaker that will bring a different perspective to the historic event. We invited Oliver knowing he would provide challenging stories and little-known facts on the Nelson myth that would make for great interest and stimulating conversation. And that’s exactly what happened.” - Stephen Barker, President
Since then, a decision has been taken to combine Trafalgar Day with the monthly Pioneers’ Club Lunch – when speakers are invited to give their views on historical figures. (I was earlier invited to a monthly meeting which focused on Lord Mountbatten). Another aspect of their monthly meeting they brought into their Trafalgar Day lunch was their tradition of encouraging controversy. As an example, the President of the Pioneers’ Club, Stephen Barker, told me that an earlier Trafalgar Day speech looked at the battle from the point of view of the French!
The Australasian Pioneers’ Club was founded in 1910 to foster mutual help and friendship amongst descendants of pioneers, to foster the pioneering spirit in Australasia, and to promote discussion of Australasian history. Pioneer qualification for membership calls for the tracing of one’s ancestry back to the early days of British settlement in Australasia and the Pacific Islands.
Called to be Controversial
Nonetheless, though I was encouraged to be controversial, I was nervous. My talk was entitled: “Horatio Nelson: Legendary Hero, Myth Making and Awkward Facts.” I am descended from Fanny Nelson who was cruelly dismissed by her husband four years earlier than the battle so my point of view was going to be different. Nonetheless I recognised that for many of the naval officers present, Trafalgar Day is special. It speaks to the sacrifice made by Nelson, his immense courage and his strong sense of duty. How was I to take a different approach while paying tribute to these qualities?
I have been reading David Brook’s “How to Know a Person.” The author talks about the way we communicate which often depends on the paradigm in which we live. His message is that story telling from a personal point of view is powerful. Narrative is better than analysis when we want to know people better. I asked myself if this might be true for Nelson too. Would he have wanted to perpetuate a myth or tell his story as he saw it? Some historians say he became vain when it came to his achievements. He certainly liked to wear his medals and decorations and was once rebuked by the King for wearing foreign decorations to court! Nevertheless he was a realist who knew that he was no saint.
And what about Lady Nelson? She would have wanted people to know who she really was too. Certainly, she would have wanted to dispel the idea she was a “shrew” – as she was portrayed in the film “That Hamilton Woman.” (This “propaganda movie” featuring Vivien Leigh and Lawrence Oliver was made during early days of the Second World War in an attempt to shift American popular opinion towards the British cause).
The Power of Storytelling
In consequence I adopted more of a narrative style in my speech. I interspersed the story of Nelson, Fanny and Josiah with stories about myself and my own family showing slides of some of the Nelson memorabilia we have. I gave fulsome credit to Horatio for the “Nelson Touch” – his strategic ability as well as his personal concern for his sailors and his immeasurable courage in battle. I introduced other points of view too like the opinion of Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, a Nelson biographer and great naval strategist of the First World War. The truth is that Nelson gave great victories to Britain at a time when the country was desperately short of them but some things he did can only be described as shameful.
I noted when people laughed. The audience seemed to particularly enjoy examples of Nelson being 'insubordinate', such as when checking the orders for the Battle of Copenhagen, he raised his telescope to his blind eye, couldn’t see a thing, and then proceeded with his own daring strategy.
The question time was particularly lively and showed how well the audience knew the subject. The discussion explored why Nelson is still famous when so many WWI and II heroes have been forgotten, how he succeeded despite not having an influential family in 'society' and the role of Emma Hamilton.
Only Human
I’d like to believe that I held my audience’s attention with details which were new to them as well as fresh insights of the Great Man. At the end of the day, the applause and the follow- up questions relieved my anxiety. I had met and exceeded my own expectations and did justice to the topic I had been given. Nevertheless one of the audience, a retired Admiral, said to me “you know, it was lonely on those ships – they spent months and months on their own. He was only human…”
“To the Immortal Memory…
“Well informed and insightful – an excellent presentation. I really enjoyed that.”
- Bruce Marich, Director RACA and descendant of Emma Hamilton.
To find out more about my novels and sign up to ‘stay in touch’, visit my author home page. My first novel in the trilogy, Nelson's Folly, is also available as an audiobook.
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