Many will remember Roy Yearly as the quiet man who worked diligently as BAR’s General Secretary Brian Mitchell’s assistant during the 1980s and early 90s. But there was another side to Roy’s life that few beyond his immediate circle could scarcely have imagined.

 

A deeply patriotic man, Roy was convinced that several members of the Wilson government were spying for the Russians and even applied to join MI6 in an effort to expose them. He was also troubled by what he saw as the breakdown of law and order and the government’s failure to do anything about it.

 

His application was rejected, but Roy’s campaign to out the truth continued, using his skills as a poet to write verses expressing his thoughts about what he believed to be the dishonesty of people in power and their apparent unwillingness to protect the best interests of his country.

 

To avoid revealing his identity Roy planned to publish his material using the pseudonym, R.W. Yaye - derived from his full name Roy William John Yearly. In those days before the Internet and social media, disseminating material to a wide audience was beyond the resources Roy had at his disposal, so the project never really got off the ground.  However the poems he wrote still survive, and one, based on Rudyard Kipling’s famous work ‘If’ is printed here.  Roy also wrote a poem entitled ‘Helping Dad’, about the moving business, that he dedicated to George Dunn, WWII bomber pilot featured in The Mover, January 2013, who was his mentor when at BAR.

 

Roy, now 84, still believes his theories about subversion in government to be true, but the passing of the years and a message he believes came spiritually from his late brother, have tempered his resolve to bring the surviving culprits to justice.

 

Roy’s 23 year old brother Henry, a bomber pilot in the RAF, was killed in Italy during the Second World War and it was during a visit to his grave near Bari that Roy believes he made contact. “I was walking away from the grave with my wife when we both stumbled, Marion to the left and me to the right, as if someone has passed between us,” said Roy. “When we returned home a medium at our local Spiritualist church whom we had never seen before, approached us and said he could see a man in a sort of uniform (a flying suit?) and that he thanked us for visiting but that we needn’t have done it.  I think he meant we were together in spirit always and so travelling to his grave didn’t make any difference.”

 

“Henry was far less radical than me and I felt his influence when I was feeling so angry and trying to put things right.  He effectively said ‘drop it Roy’ and so I did.”

 

Roy says he still feels the influence of his brother, although his discontent with the world has passed. “My sins and weaknesses are gone, and now I’m perfect,” joked Roy.

 

Photo:  Roy Yearley at his Berkhamsted home.

 

 

IF Tenacity 

IF you refrain from emigrating
When politicians would so contrive affairs,
That one’s wages can’t be spent on educating.
But are steered towards consumer goods and wares. 

IF, whilst holding prejudice ‘gainst no man,
And knowing all are equal before HIM,
You yet prefer the customs of your people,
To those transient from beyond the rim. 

IF you are tired of being told what Britain now is,
And prevented from shaping now you’d have it be,
Feel resentful of propaganda by all mediums,
Including controls on casting composition for TV.

IF, whilst those things our people gave blood or life for,
Are discarded by knavish fools or foolish knaves,
You can keep your head, and await the proper moment,
When vigour and verve again this island saves. 

IF your latent nationalistic fervour,
Can still be aroused by pulsing heart and brain,
Yet may you keep your virtue,
And Britain be Great again.

 

R.W. Jaye - June 1995

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