One Man's Secession

Brownston near Modbury is a hamlet where a man has declared the Independent Sovereign State of Shoreham. Reporter Ted Holmes interviews William Wheal who has been inspired by the state of Monaco and the fact that you only need four people to declare independence. He has seceded from the UK following a decision by Shoreham-on-Sea magistrates in Sussex in 1958 who took possession of his home on Shoreham Beach. Brownston Cross is known as California Cross is today.

It is possible to secede. In 1965 Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe established a new independent and sovereign state through a unilateral declaration of independence without prior agreement with the UK. So did the United States in 1776, the Irish Republic in 1919 and Egypt in 1922. Other states famously tried to break away from their hegemony, Anguilla, Katanga, Biafra and some succeeded including Albania, Bangladesh, Croatia and Slovenia. In 1933 in his novel Lost Horizon James Hilton called his paradise Shangri-la possibly based on Shambhala, a legendary hidden valley of Tibet where peace and perpetual youth reign. It is often a synonym for an unseen utopia, El Dorado, the Holy Grail or the Garden of Eden.