Vale Alan James
BAC President monthly message
Frank Salter 6 May 2022
Dear BAC members,
Let me begin by acknowledging Australia’s historic British-derived nation and its sovereignty over all this continent’s land and waters.
Long-term BAC member Alan James passed away on the 4th of April. Alan, who was recently made a Life Member of the BAC, contributed in an unparalleled way to the Anglo community and to the BAC over three decades.
At our meeting of 10 April, the Committee of Management remembered Alan and his many contributions. These were summarized in a motion passed by the Committee at its 13 February meeting:
Motion: That we honour Alan James for his extraordinary service to the British Australian Community and to our people by:
(1) Awarding him Life Membership of the British Australian Community with an accompanying certificate to be presented at a ceremony; and
(2) Establishing an annual award to be titled The Alan James BAC Advocacy Award.
Citation.
Alan James has been an active and influential member of the British Australian Community since the late 1980s. He served as the BAC’s Secretary from 1990-93 and subsequently as BAC’s Publicity Officer for more than two decades.
In that capacity, he helped to organise St George’s Day celebrations on the steps of the State Library of Victoria and Britfest events in Frankston which attracted several thousand attendees in the late 1990s. He also promoted the BAC to the Australian public through radio promotions and by advertising in British pubs in Melbourne and in publications such as the Army News and Quadrant.
He edited the BAC’s print journal Endeavour from 1995 to 2012, creating a professional publication that represented the British community in Australia. He also established the first BAC website and the BAC’s first Facebook group.
Alan has been at the forefront of facilitating the BAC’s transition from a British migrant group servicing the interests of members to an Anglo Australian ethnic advocacy association. To advance the original mission, he initiated a Commonwealth government funded survey which investigated why a proportion of British migrants to Australia returned to the British Isles. He was also in the vanguard of ethnic advocacy, establishing a BAC committee to investigate cases of vilification against the British community in Australia and co-ordinating representations objecting to Anglophobia in the media.
In his many roles over several decades in the BAC, Alan James has been an unswerving advocate for the Anglo community in Australia.
It is fitting that we now formally recognise his contribution.
I and the BAC Committee of Management expressed condolences to Alan’s wife, Margaret and their family.
In other developments, the second installment of “Anglophobia: The Unacknowledged Hatred” is now out in Quadrant magazine. This article rebuts the accusation that Anglos are “prone to racism according to the ideology of “Critical Race Theory”, even when no direct evidence of racism exists”.
Finally, I’m happy to announce that Reg Watson, long-time BAC member and well known historian of Tasmania, has been awarded the inaugural Alan James BAC Advocacy Award. I shall be presenting Reg with the Award at ESU House in Melbourne, on Saturday 25th June, starting at 3 pm. Please watch the BAC and ESU websites for updates.