Flying a flag .... and a bit of history

As ever the Long View on BBC Radio 4 didn't disappoint.*

FOR FREEDOM, picture postcard,1919,

Today it explored the current wave of adding flags to lamp posts, road signs and even roundabouts with a moment in the past.

"What does raising a Union Jack or drawing a flag of St George on a street sign signify? 

As flags appear across England and now Wales, Jonathan Freedland and his guests look back to a street gathering in 1780 which also used flags to get a message across. 

Organisers of 'Operation Raise the Colours' say it's about promoting patriotism and is non-partisan but the appearance of flags on mini-roundabouts, motorway bridges and lamposts has been met by opposition from anti-racist groups and by differing responses from some local authorities. 

Eleanor Lawson is a BBC News reporter in the West Midlands where flags began appearing earlier in August. Ian Haywood is Emeritus Professor in English at the University of Roehampton and he has studied the initially peaceful protest and petition which became known as the Gordon Riots. The reader is Django Bevan.

Produced by Jayne Egerton"*

Location; BBC Radio 4

Picture; FOR FREEDOM, picture postcard sold to commemorate the anniverary of the end of the Great War, 1919, Tuck and Son, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://www.tuckdbpostcards.org/

*Flags, The Long View,  BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002httm