The Romantia Controversy And Their Connection To The Far-Right
Sometime in the middle of last year, some folks involved in the far-right British parties were sharing some memories of their times spent in the parlors of Romantia. Since I have been running this blog, these sorts of interactions with the far-right and those who were involved in Romantia keep popping up. At first it was just a vague rumor, then archived articles began turning up, and now we have actual accounts of the Romantia salon by someone who appeared to be well-known in the far-right sphere of influence.
When I first stumbled across these particular stories, they were just entries in a blog, but it appears that they have been compiled into a printed book, a book that very quickly found its way onto the internet archive! Now, I will say that this book is a biography of a man who seemed to be incredibly prone to outright lies, so the details of the events can probably be taken with a grain of salt. However, I do not believe it was a lie that he mingled with the Aristasians, as we have so much other proof that they were quick to invite these types to hang out with them.
The following is lifted from this particular book, you may view the whole thing here and judge for yourself how much is to be believed. It's a read of a few pages, and my comments follow the screen shots.
Now, there are a few things simply incorrect about this, first of which is that, while I believe the list of Miss Martindale's alternate identities is mostly correct, I believe that the Countess Raysendyll was Miss Langridge, as there are a few references to a Countess that seem to be describing Priscilla. This chapter seems to confuse Miss Martindale with Miss Langridge, but this was something that was frequently done by those remembering these days. The little blurb about the history of Aristasia appears to be lifted straight from Against The Modern World, which is straight from the horses mouth (But the horse seems to have disagreed with what was written after it was published) and much of the other information about what they did and believed in seems to be lifted from other sources, instead of first hand accounts. And, I, of course, disagree with the statement "They divided themselves into Brunette (masculine) and Blonde (feminine)". The information about the group names is fairly jumbled, as they certainly didn't change their name to St. Bride's School in the mid 1990s. That was more of a mid 1980s thing that only lived into the 1990s via their computer game publishing.
Now that all of the wrong, confused, and lifted things are out of the way, we are left with a few interesting bits.
This chapter mentions that they were hosting Anti-Metric Society meetings, which appeared to be frequented by far-right people of interest as late as 1999! If this date is correct this puts these antics right in the thick of Aristasia-in-Telluria, when they were hosting Aristasian nights in London, burning pantyhose as a publicity stunt, and inviting girls to their embassies. They also say that these meetings were held on Iffley Road in Oxford, which is quite a different location from their infamous house in Whipps Cross in London, which is where the Weekend At Miss Martindales documentary was filmed. Other sources seem to say they operated in both Oxford and Whipps Cross post-1993.
Another item of note is their system of dating, which I don't believe is something that was commonly noted. This chapter claims "a letter written in 1999 would be dated 1959", which is very similar (but off by 4 or 5 years, I could never decide which!) to something I have picked up reading their earliest forum archives. So, I do feel that this shows a genuine level of interaction with the Aristasians of the 1990s, making note of such a minor, largely unnoticed, quirk.
Ultimately, there is very little new information in this chapter. No great insights into what went down behind their closed doors or no new mysterious names to cross check. Just the uncomfortable fact that the leaderesses of Aristasian were happily hosting far-right spokesmen in their parlors.
