My grandfather was a pacifist. He came to this stance as a willing soldier in the First World War who lied about his age to join up, was a non-commissioned officer by the age of 16 and so badly wounded by a chemical weapon (chlorine) attack in the hell of the Flanders trenches that his military career came to an end.
He directed the allocation of Red Cross ambulances around London during the Blitz, working from an unfortified office on the surface during the raids and sometimes going out with the drivers, all as the German bombs rained down on the city.
Another relative was one of the soldiers who helped to liberate Belsen in 1945.
This tradition of service gives me greater satisfaction, in a clan who have provided nurses, doctors, police officers, soldiers, sailors, airmen and other public servants, than the false patriotism of some who would often deny the Holocaust happened.
We are proud we accept family members for who they are, from any country or tradition, and have no truck with the racist nonsense so often trotted out as "community concern". There was a lot of "community concern" leading to a refusal to accept refugees in the Thirties and we all know the scale of the tragedy that led to.
I hold the view that if somebody believes Mother Britannia's skirts are wide enough to hide behind from whatever horror threatens them, we owe our common humanity more than to automatically assume that person is a terrorist or a freeloader.
-G E Stroud, Mayo Road, Brighton
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