“It will be worthy of a free, enlightened and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence”
– George Washington

“America, an immense territory, favour’d by nature with all advantages of climate, soil, great navigable rivers and lakes, etc, was destined to become a great country, populous and mighty; and would in a less time than was generally conceive’d be able to shake off any shackles that might be impos’d on her, and perhaps place them on the imposters”
– Benjamin Franklin

“If there be one principle more deeply rooted than any other in the mind of every American, it is, that we should have nothing to do with conquest”
– Thomas Jefferson

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
– John Adams

“They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society. They reared the fabrics of governments which have no model on the face of the globe. They formed the design of a great Confederacy, which it is incumbent on their successors to improve and perpetuate”
James Madison

“Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”
– Benjamin Franklin

“It seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force”
– Alexander Hamilton

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again”
– Thomas Paine

“Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people… it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other”
– John Quincy Adams

“Without virtue there can be no liberty”
– Benjamin Rush

“Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a free man, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth”
– George Washington

“We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in”
– Thomas Paine

The 250th anniversary of American Independence, 4th July 2026

Skool’s out

CO-INCIDING with the school summer holidays, John Godber’s popular comedy Teechers returns to the Theatre Royal Bath, from Tuesday 28th July to Saturday 1st August, in a new post-Covid version.

Originally written in 1987, Teechers was first performed by the Hull Truck Theatre Company at the 1987 Edinburgh Festival. It rapidly became an audience favourite, and has been updated by Godber, whose eponymous company is now touring the 2026 version, directed by Jane Thornton.

Bristling with teenage swagger and outlandish imagination, the production is a joyful yet biting look at education, aspiration and inequality and is performed by Yorkshire actors Jo Patmore, Levi Payne, and Sophie Suddaby.

Salty, Gail and Hobby use their BTEC Performing Arts exam to showcase their work. What follows is a funny, fast-moving, hard-hitting account of life at Whitewall Academy as they play staff, students and site premises managers, including the new drama teacher Miss Nixon, who has helped get them into drama and changed their lives.

But as Salty, Gail and Hobby conclude their performance and leave state education, it appears that Miss Nixon is moving on too … to the local private school.

Teechers is a fast-paced comedy with a powerful message about the entrenched inequalities of the UK’s education system.

Photograph © John Godber Company