I can't say that I think of myself as a dissenter. A free thinker maybe, but dissenter no.
However I found myself cast in that role recently, when a letter arrived from Computershare PLC.
It concerned the matter of the take over of Manchester United PLC, by the Glazer family and their holding company Red Football Ltd. I had been a proud, if insignificant shareholder in the club i.e. I had one voting share. It had been bought as a sign of allegiance and support, and had been framed and hung in my 'office' (I was self employed at the time).
In 2005 the Glazer's finally completed their takeover of the club when it was announced in June, that Red Football's shareholding had reached 98 per cent (259,950,194 shares), prompting a squeeze out of the remaining shareholders. I had refused to send my share back (they wouldn't let you keep it if you wanted your money back), and without my knowing it, I had joined an elite band of brothers .... the two per cent club .... all 5,305,106 of us.
Anyway, I had long ago forgotten about the matter, until last week, when the letter from Computershare PLC arrived. It was telling me that they no longer dealt with the matter of the dissenters shareholders register, which had now been transferred to the Chancery Division of the Royal Courts of Justice.
So there you are. I am officially a 'dissenter' and my name is held somewhere, along with a few million other like minded souls, in the Chancery Division. I have no idea why, but I am vaguely proud of that ... maybe because it rings with the late medieval, early modern English dissenters. The wonderfully named dissenter groups like the Barrowists, the Behmenists, the Brownists, the Diggers, the Enthusiasts, the Familists, the Fifth Monarchists, the Grindletonians, the Levellers, the Muggletonians and others who echo down both the ages, and my distant history class lessons.
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| A Catalogue of the Severall Sects and Opinions in England and other Nations: With a briefe Rehearsall of their false and dangerous Tenents 1647 Anno Domini |
However I found myself cast in that role recently, when a letter arrived from Computershare PLC.
It concerned the matter of the take over of Manchester United PLC, by the Glazer family and their holding company Red Football Ltd. I had been a proud, if insignificant shareholder in the club i.e. I had one voting share. It had been bought as a sign of allegiance and support, and had been framed and hung in my 'office' (I was self employed at the time).
In 2005 the Glazer's finally completed their takeover of the club when it was announced in June, that Red Football's shareholding had reached 98 per cent (259,950,194 shares), prompting a squeeze out of the remaining shareholders. I had refused to send my share back (they wouldn't let you keep it if you wanted your money back), and without my knowing it, I had joined an elite band of brothers .... the two per cent club .... all 5,305,106 of us.
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| I Am Now Officially A Dissenter |
Anyway, I had long ago forgotten about the matter, until last week, when the letter from Computershare PLC arrived. It was telling me that they no longer dealt with the matter of the dissenters shareholders register, which had now been transferred to the Chancery Division of the Royal Courts of Justice.
So there you are. I am officially a 'dissenter' and my name is held somewhere, along with a few million other like minded souls, in the Chancery Division. I have no idea why, but I am vaguely proud of that ... maybe because it rings with the late medieval, early modern English dissenters. The wonderfully named dissenter groups like the Barrowists, the Behmenists, the Brownists, the Diggers, the Enthusiasts, the Familists, the Fifth Monarchists, the Grindletonians, the Levellers, the Muggletonians and others who echo down both the ages, and my distant history class lessons.
Fantastic names those old dissenters had.
ReplyDeleteCertainly did, but they also had interesting names such as Xpofer, Radulphum, Xrofer, Lancelotus, Marmaducus, Obadiah, and numerous others. And before anyone asks, Xpofer was an abbreviated form of "Christopher".
DeleteXp was an accepted abbreviation for Christ (X and p resemble Greek letters chi and rho, which are the first two letters in the Greek "Cristos"). This lead to the abbreviations Xpofer for Christopher, Xpine for Christine, etc