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Books

Proof that the British hardly ever had a stiff upper lip

Thomas Dixon’s Weeping Britannia proves that only empire stemmed the flow of our tears

10 October 2015

9:00 AM

10 October 2015

9:00 AM

Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears Thomas Dixon

Oxford University Press, pp.456, £25, ISBN: 9780199676057

The last time I cried was September 1989. That was my first week at public school.

The reason I cried was that my allocated room-mate, a malevolent pixie named Toby Cox who later became one of my closest friends, had informed me that he ‘knew a lot of people’ at Harrow and he was going to tell them all that I was ‘a total dick’.

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