We are all in the same European boat (From Echo)

We are all in the same European boat

12:11pm Wednesday 1st February 2012 in Letters

Further to Ken Bennett’s letter, it may be of interest to younger readers to have a background of voting for the EU at 18.

It was good to get a different viewpoint and interesting to hear of Winston Churchill’s comments in the Thirties, made before the Second World War and the tragedy of Europe.

In 1946 Churchill gave a speech at Zurich University requesting urgent action and said: “We must build a kind of United States of Europe. In this way only will hundreds of millions of toilers be able to regain the simple joys and hopes which make life worth living.”

Young people did not then spend their time in clubs and discos, but away from their families, hoping to live another day.

During that war my mother, at 17, was drafted from London to Birmingham to work making parts for Lancaster bombers. The machines worked night and day, only stopping when German bombers were overhead, the workers seeking shelter under steel tables.

My father was conscripted into the Army at 22, and at around 25 sent on action in Burma fighting the Japanese. He told me little of the horrors he saw, but he felt dropping the atomic bombs on Japan was the best thing that could have been done.

At 18, in the Seventies, the first decision I was asked to vote on was whether the UK should join the EU.

My thoughts were then as they are now. We have been fighting our neighbours for more than 1,000 years, but we come from the same blood stock, have similar political and religious beliefs, and are ruled by kings and queens who have common ancestors.

A European Union of countries having their own national identity, but working together for the common good, is not that dissimilar to the United Kingdom, a union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

With respect to the euro in value terms, may I remind all that the pound is worth 20 per cent less today than when the euro was introduced.

Gordon Barton
Silversea Drive
Westcliff