Hugh Sykes: Lest We Forget. A memorial in Calais to five young members of the Resistance, "shot here at dawn on September 3rd 1944." Now, Germany and France are at peace with prosperity - and the UK, which helped to achieve both, is in danger of forgetting....
Jane Dunning: I've just finished They Fought Alone by Maurice Buckmaster (F Section SOE). Towards the end of the book, resisters head off to an encounter shouting 'Vive la France! Vive l'Angleterre!'. I felt sad reading this. We are making a huge mistake.
Graves of the Free French in Gordes, Luberon (fairly near Avignon). I'm planning a French Resistance element to Book 3 of my trilogy.
Hugh Sykes: A relative of my wife's was in the resistance in the Haut Morgon, and guided British gliders in at night with the headlights of his car.
Jane Dunning: It must've been terrifying.
Hugh Sykes: When he told me about it, he told me with pride and delight and with no hint of fear.
Jane Dunning: Good. It must've changed everyone so much. I wonder how everyone returned to normality after the conflict ended.
Hugh Sykes: I'm not sure they all did.
Douglas McWilliams: Don’t push it too far. Economic integration has in general reduced tensions, but the Euro has ramped them up. I suspect the lack of war is more because we all exhausted ourselves last time than because of any institutional arrangements.
Hugh Sykes: Enduring peace since 1945 between nations which fought each other with vicious destruction and startling loss of life in two wars in the last century has been an astonishing achievement which it is criminal to jeopardise. [Image: Cologne 1945]
Douglas McWilliams: Thanks for the response. Obviously I disagree with you....but have a good weekend.
Hugh Sykes: How could you disagree with that? Peace is precious.
Douglas McWilliams: I don’t think Brexit places any risk to peace.
Hugh Sykes: The UK is part of a union of mutual trust & cooperation that has helped to anchor priceless peace in Europe for 75 years. There is an ignorant & dangerous undercurrent to Brexit - of xenophobia stoked by people too young (or unimaginative) to know what they are putting at risk.
Thanks Craig - there is an ignorant and dangerous undercurrent to Brexit but I’d argue it comes as much from the peeps who voted Remain, they “didn’t know what they were voting for” and did so just because they were told it’s racist etc to vote leave.
ReplyDeleteAnd EU led peace? NATO? USA bases? Mutually assured destruction? All things the BBC are institutional opposed to so they can’t be the reason......
ReplyDeleteYugoslavia? Ukraine? Georgia (if you count that as European, and the EU do)? These were all wars in which dangerous EU meddling played a big part.
ReplyDeleteI don't suppose Hugh Sykes has any problem with importing millions of people that are ideologically opposed to our ideas of trust, co-operation and peace.
ReplyDeleteAll over the western world barriers are going up within our own borders to protect us from Sykes' friends.
Who are these people that want to wage war on the French and Germans? They certainly aren't the native British and it offensive of Sykes to suggest otherwise.
I think EU has to a degree brought France and Germany together, but there are so many other more powerful reasons for peace in Europe, not the least of which was the partition of Germany at the end of World War II and the Cold War. The EU hardly came out of the conflict in former Yugoslavia with flying colours. Nor am I particularly optimistic about its ability to deal with any future threat, whether it be Putin or a resurgence of ISIS within its own borders.
ReplyDeleteWhat is interesting is Hugh Sykes turnaround regarding the demographics. Apparently it wasn’t older voters with a rose-tinted vision of the past who voted for Brexit, but younger voters who were “too young (or unimaginative) to know what they are putting at risk”. It would seem on the strength of this exchange that it is Hugh Sykes who is wallowing in nostalgia.