Sunday 9 June 2019

'This isn't the Britain we fought for’

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I wish I had spoken to my father, who signed up for the army on 1 September 1939 (he was in the Territorials and was called up two days before everyone else) about whether England was the country he went off to fight for. He is not here, unfortunately, to ask, but it is very clear that the country his contemporaries fought for has been lost. I hope Brexit undoes some of the damage but most is irremediable.

Nicholas Pringle three years ago sent letters to local newspapers across the United Kingdom asking people who lived through the war to write to him with their experiences and asking
'Are you happy with how your country has turned out? What do you think your fallen comrades would have made of life in 21st-century Britain?'
He has published the articles in a book. 


One writer said Britain was still the best in the world, which is true. Another said that living standards, educational standards and opportunities for women had enormously improved, which is also true. At least one spoke favourably of the EU, but almost all were bleakly disappointed.


Old people usually regret the past but in this case they have good reasons to be disillusioned at what has happened to their country.

I quote from the book, via an article in the Daily Mail, a newspaper which oscillates between being politically correct and being mildly dissident. 

I hope my father would have said the same thing. He was a great nostalgist and lover of the Empire, though he never uttered a word to criticise multiracialism.


'I sing no song for the once-proud country that spawned me and I wonder why I ever tried.'
'My patriotism has gone out of the window.'

'Those comrades of mine who never made it back would be appalled if they could see the world as it is today. They would wonder what happened to the Brave New World they fought so damned hard for.'


'This Land of Hope and Glory is just a land of yobs and drunks'


'Our country has been given away to foreigners while we, the generation who fought for freedom, are having to sell our homes for care and are being refused medical services because incomers come first.'


'We are affronted by the appearance of Muslim and Sikh costumes on our streets.'


 'Nearly all veterans want Britain to leave the EU.'

'Our British culture is draining away at an ever increasing pace and we are almost forbidden to make any comment.'

[A widow blamed the Thatcher's period in office] 'when we started to lose all our industry and profit became the only aim in life'. 

'I disagree with same-sex marriages, schoolgirl mothers, rubbish TV programmes, so-called celebrities and, most of all, unlimited immigration. I am very unhappy about the way this country is being transformed. I go nowhere after dark. I don't even answer my doorbell then.'


'This is not the country I fought for. Political correctness, lack of discipline, compensation madness, uncontrolled immigration - the "do-gooders" have a lot to answer for.'

'We were rigidly taught good manners and respect for older people, but the nanny state has ruined all that. Television programmes are full of violence and obscene language. This Land of Hope and Glory is in reality a land of yobs, drug addicts, drunkard youths and teenage mothers who think they are owed all for nothing.' 
 'In my day, drugs were unknown, families remained together, divorce was a rarity and children felt secure.

'We're now controlled by Germany and France. What a sad irony!' 

'Although I hate what is happening to our country, I am so happy to be here, grumbling, but remembering better, happier days,' 

4 comments:

  1. Actually this is the future they were fighting for and plenty people at the time warned them they were fighting exactly the wrong people if they wanted their Civilisation to survive.

    And things will get much, much worse:

    “Based on these data Lynn has calculated that by the year 2106 the average IQ in Britain should be about 87, 13 points lower than it is now. This will obviously have huge implications for living standards, democracy, political stability, civic society, crime rights, and all of the other issues that are connected to IQ. The only Western country where Lynn predicts no significant intelligence decline over the next 20 years is Canada, because its immigrant population is primarily north east Asian in origin. Similarly, Helmuth Nyborg has calculated that by 2072 Denmark will be 60% Danish and IQ will have gone down by five points, partly due to immigration and partly due to less intelligent Danes having the highest fertility.”

    Edward Dutton, “At Our Wits End: Why we’re becoming less intelligent and what it means for the future.”

    “The central issue is that Churchills war sped up the decline. Churchill is ultimately the reason why we are living through it rather than our descendants some of whom will likely live through far worse. Churchill was born in the Autumn of civilisation and he helped to ensure that it entered its Winter much earlier than it could have by creating a nuclear winter towards the end of Autumn. If there had been no Churchill it is very probable that we would not be this far into the snow and ice of our civilisation’s winter. The trees would merely be bereft of leaves.”

    Edward Dutton, “Churchill’s Headmaster: The Sadist Who Nearly Saved the British Empire.”

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  2. On the positive side, drug and alcohol use is down among young people.

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  3. But rates of smoking must be much reduced. Everyone smoked in 1939, throughout the War and afterwards.

    Why young people still smoke today is unbelievable. I suppose they consider it to be cool.

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