'This isn't the Britain we fought for’

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,'