The Eleventh Hour: Call for British Rebirth

by John Tyndall

John Tyndal has been the leader of the National Front and the British National Party. This is his autobiography which gives a clear insight into his political ideas and the factors, experiences and influences which shaped his life.

560 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1988

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.
John Hutchyns Tyndall (14 July 1934 – 19 July 2005) was a British politician. As a prominent figure in British nationalism in the second-half of the twentieth century, Tyndall was involved during the 1960s with neo-Nazi movements, most notably being the deputy leader of the openly neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement under Colin Jordan. However, he is best known for leading the National Front (NF) in the late 1970s and founding the contemporary British National Party (BNP) in 1982. [wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ty...]

Reviews

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tyndall does a great job blasting conservatism. He's right on liberalism as well, but says nothing new about it.

This book is more about his ideas for the future of Great Britain, than about his time in the British nationalist movement. Like Oswald Mosley, Tyndall had great ideas about the future of the isles, but unfortunately never got to carry them out.

[Ravanagh Allan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This British Nationalist stalwart talks nothing but sense!

[Esdaile · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Tyndall was a leading light of British nationalism for many years. He had some major faults and some major qualities. This book is an overview of the political situation as seen by a prominent nationalist activist interwoven with biographical reminiscences. It is neither fully satisfactory as biography nor poltiical statement. The great strength both of the book and of the man lies in the tenacity and coherence of the work and the life. John Tyndall was quite clear about where he wanted to go and why and there are no double standards and no prevaricating. A major weakness, it seems to me, and that emerges in the book as throughout his life and in what he wrote, is a failure to distinguish adequately between the ephemeral and the eternal. What I mean by that is that John Tyndall seems to me to attach far too much importance to political figures and political events who/which will and are forgotten in a short time. They are only shadows. Consequently effort and work is always conceived in a short term perspective, ditto such relatively unimportant events as democratic "general elections" which this man scorned in principle but attached a somewhat exaggerated importance to in real life. While the underlying worldview is one of pessimism, the day to day view is excessively optimistic and the danger of short term optimism is that when it is disappointed, the psychological effects on supporters are far worse than had they been hardened to a long struggle of the kind "you will never see victory in our lifetime". JT never said that, on the contrary, great success was always promised round the next corner, the NF or BNP or whatever his party was called was always about to breakthrough was always scaring the establsihment. Waiting for Godot can be lietrally dispiriting and John Tyndall should accept a good deal of responsibility for attenuating the fighting spirit through too much optimism, an optimism which resulted to a greta extent from his won over-estimation of his own abilities, an over-estimation unfortunately fuelled by sychophantic admirers. The entire British nationalist movement and not only British but movements of this kind around the world, chronically lack constructive criticism, to the extent that any criticism at all is automatically labelled as "factionalism" or direct opposition. The book is written with a striking lack of modesty. Everything is penned with a view to showing the writer in the best possible light and even admissions of error are presented in that way. There is not much humour in the book but one incident was really funny-Tyndall recounts that after his arrest for organizating a "summer camp" attended by Colin Jordan and Lincoln Rockwell, he was arrested. Other prisoners asked him where he had learnt such excellent English. The view was that only Germans could be national socialists and so John Tyndall must be German!
What is left of his efforts? What are his achievements? In my opinion, not very much. To a considerable extent this may be seen as not his fault, since the democratic system is notoriously slanted against any movement which hints at racial segregation or nationalism. On the other hand I am convinced that any movement which charges at the system without having a long background of cultural and notional sympathy behind it, is doomed to fail.
As a footnote, his sudden death was a surprise. I do not wish to hint at the usual conspiracy here but consider it another mark against modern medicine. JT believed in "common sense" regarding one's health, keeping fit, not smoking, having regular check ups. I am told he died of a heart attack soon after a checkup, which does make me wonder about the sense of a check up with doctors, who are all in the pay of the pharmaceutical industry.
Another point: consipracies and probelms such as energy and medicine never reahced the top of this man's prioroty list when not clearly idenfiable as matters of specifically national concern. Thsi book and the man's career is a long history of separation of wanting to break out of a social and political ghetto but not changing focus in order to do so.
Finally, whatever his many faults, John Tyndall is worth a good many of the career politicians and career journalists who have presided over their country's decline and sold such a decline as "inevitable" if not desriable too. In one respect he was surprisingly modest. He does not seem to have considered or cared much about his possible appeal to women but I think he could have made much more impression in that direction had he wanted to and that would have had very definite political cosnequences. Perhaps he was too honest and had too much integrity to be very successful in politics.
Finally: I share John Tyndall's nostalgia for the British Empire. The world would be a better place today if it had survived but to have survived it would have required many more people of this man's mettle. He rests with an easy conscience. I am not sure that will be said about Vladimir Putin or Anthony Blair when they have passed on.