Rebel Yell - Teeeeaa Yaaah

While I have be driving around this wonderful country of ours taking in the delightful autumn scenes of the trees showing their glorious colours, the fantastic sunsets, the rurality of it all, one thing has jarred. Can somebody please tell me why the tea caravans and huts on the side of the road fly the Confederate Flag?

Now forgive me if I am wrong but I thought that the Confederate forces in the American Civil War fought in support of slavery and segregation and in these latter days the flag was a symbol used by the Ku Klux Klan and other right wing groups as a symbol of race hate. So why do our purveyors of the cup of tea fly this tainted symbol?

Ok let’s go with the idea that they link it more with the notion of being a rebel. What are these bacon butty and burger fryers rebelling against? The price of Bourbon biscuits (named interestingly after another rebel prince!) or even Garibaldi biscuits (another rebel). Perhaps they are trying to empathise with all the truck drivers here in the UK who seem to all come from deepest Alabama as they too fly the Confederate Flag and probably have air horns that play ‘Dixie’ too.

What is it with this fixation with the American Civil War and especially with the Confederate side? I can just about accept that some Americans may feel that it is suitable to fly the Confederate Flag and whistle Dixie now and again at home, in much the same way as some individuals here in the UK feel the need to go and play at being Roundheads and Cavaliers, but in the main we have got over our Civil War, but then again it was quite a long time ago. But I can’t understand why our tea vendors and our truck drivers feel the need to ally themselves to this shameful flag.

Maybe they are all racists - that could be the simplest answer or they just haven’t got over watching the Dukes of Hazzard. Or maybe it was the sight of Daisy Duke in those tight – o so tight hot pants that really twisted their minds. Maybe that’s it, the flags are a sign that the sad individual selling hot coffee has never got over seeing Daisy Duke in all her glory during his formative years and now as a sign of their undying love and in the off chance that Daisy, on a tour of the UK, should need a bacon butty they fly the Southern Cross.

Maybe they need our pity rather than our scorn. Yeee Haaar!