OK, if you go to a view that shows the actual Scawen Rd entrance from a spring/summer month there are two trees that look to me like young oaks.
As for changing the name, I would accept that slavery is not the thing that he’s most famous for but naming anything after people is always likely to be problematic at some point and maybe best avoided.

The school could do with improving nature lessons rather than indoctrination of young children with critical race theory.

The naming of things is tricky I agree, but Drake had a massive connection with Deptford so not random.

Responsibility Deficit Disorder is a medical condition. Symptoms include inability to be corrected when wrong, false sense of superiority, desire to share personal info no else cares about, general hubris. It's a medical issue rather than pure arrogance.

I've seen a good few irrelevant posts on here over the years but that beats them all. What on earth has Drake being a slave trader got to do with Orwell's assertion that obliterating people's understanding of their history is "the most effective way to destroy" them?

So should Drake be eradicated from history then? And his other achievements ignored and not praised?

Edited by Spiderman (12 Jan 2023 4.45pm)

Edited by Spiderman (12 Jan 2023 4.47pm)

Drake was appalling but its over 500 years ago.

He was a slaver and pirate, the accolades to his heroics are balanced by his motives namely to pillage and plunder anything particularly Spanish that came in his way.

The 'circumnavigation' if it was actually that, was a piracy campaign.

The Spanish Armada is a huge propaganda exercise, the subsequent English Armada led by Drake was routed and Philip of Spain resumed his control of the seas.

It's remarkable that the English Armada does not appear anywhere, certainly not in any educational curriculum I only heard of it a couple of years ago.

I remember as a child standing proudly in front of Drake's statue with my Grandad on Plymouth Hoe.

I do not want false history, I prefer the truth about Drake and of course what he did, particularly as a slaver, is abhorrent but we have to consider the context of the times.

Perhaps more people should consider “ the context of the times”. I also think the slave trade was abhorrent but it happened, I cannot change that so have no reason to feel guilty. Having researched my family tree there appears no connection to the slave trade.