THE INDEPENDENT REPUBLIC OF BROMYARD

 A VBCW historian writes:

"The famous declaration of the Bromyard Republic ought to have come as no surprise to any of the competing factions within the Herefordshire Civil War, but the available evidence strongly suggests that all were caught unaware. Councillor Arthur Dribblesnot had been sufficiently out of sympathy with the Communist faction to be placed under house arrest by Comrade Colonel Professor Winter's troops, but not considered sufficiently dangerous to be transported to the notorious Presteigne Re-Education Camp (No.1), home - albeit temporary, as is well known - to such "bourgeois renegades" as Sir Alan McGuffin. Yet it was Dribblesnot's enthusiastically received speech on the steps of the Methodist Chapel, Bromyard, that is now considered the true foundation of the Republic.

"No Kings! No Bishops! No Commissars!" Dribblesnot immediately set out the Republic's founding principles, albeit his slogans were subsequently argued to be too negative in tone. Swiftly labelled "the Bogeyman of Bromyard" by his political enemies, it is clear that Dribblesnot, himself a self-styled 'Democratic Socialist', was seeking the broadest possible foundation of support for his Declaration of Independence. This strategy was subsequently vindicated by the adherence to the Republic of local Social Democrats, Liberals (miraculously, both Asquithian and Lloyd George versions), farmers and farm workers, the Bromyard Amateur Dramatic Society, the local Morris troupe and Mommets, and a substantial, if somewhat disorganised, group of Anarchists. The latter certainly became more powerful as time went on, recruiting large numbers of Dada-ists, Surrealists and other "contemporary" artists exiled from Birmingham.

Quite why Dribblesnot chose this moment to act as he did remains somewhat unclear. There is no doubt that Comrade Colonel Professor Winter's hard-line Communism, strongly influenced by the Liverpool Free State (let alone his penchant for collecting honorific titles) had alienated many in the Bromyard area. The fact that Bromyard was geographically separated from the other areas under Winter's authority within the County certainly made it more difficult for him to exercise political control and provide reinforcements, and his personal decision to authorise the publication of the notorious Colonel Mustard's salacious memoirs besmirched his personal reputation. It may be that the entry into the County of large numbers of new BUF troops along the Gloucester-Ledbury road forced Dribblesnot's hand; it is equally likely that the audacious "break-out" of McGuffin from the Presteigne Re-Education Camp (No.1) provided the perfect opportunity for Dribblesnot's declaration.

Whatever the case, the foundation of the Bromyard Republic changed the strategic situation in the Herefordshire Civil War..."

Bromyard's Morris Dance Troupe provided early support for the newly independent Republic,
a fact which is still celebrated (but not spoken about) at Bromyard's annual summer festival.

Bromyard's Methodist Chapel. It was on these steps that Councillor Dribblesnot
gave his famous speech [courtesy "Sites and Sounds of the Herefordshire Civil War" (1998)]