Be careful what you wish for

(or I remember, I remember the place where I was born)

Reading the comments of a very large number of those who voted for BREXIT, especially those of my years, I note they often hark back to the past. And especially in terms of making Britain, Great again.

At the same time the younger generation, and especially perhaps the millions who could NOT vote, are beginning to blame us oldies for what has now happened and the risk it poses for the future of the younger generations.

Now I voted remain, worked to persuade others, put up my posters and am devastated at what has happened. I believe it can come all right but it will take time and time is the one thing I and orhers, even the Baby Boomers of which I am older by a tad, do not have For us this could be a grey end to an otherwise good life.

But then I started to think what this 'Great' Britain was all about. And I realised it is just about as credible as the 'facts' of the BREXITers.

It starts with what we are lot were taught at school in the 40s, 50s and into the 60s – all about the pinik bits. How we were great because we had 'Empire'. How we were improving the whole world through our own success and achievements.

But then I grew up a bit and looked closer. True, Britain did become Great by being first in a lot of things. And in having a lot of stuff in the ground to use. But that soon ran down, And then like the rest of Europe we started exploring and plundering. The Germans did it, the Spanish did it, The Portuguese did it. The Dutch did it, The French did it. Everyone wanted a bit of the globe – and we got most largely due to having the Royal Navy to make sure what we took, we held.

Of course we were not there just to deliver clergy and bibles. Nor even to trade stuff for slaves. We were there mostly to plunder. And we went on doing it right through to the Second World War. We did get Great but it was by climbing on the shoulders of millions of little people.

Gold, diamonds, precious stones and metals, spices and herbs, and cotton and silk and actual plants and... well you get the picture.

Some got hacked off early and dumped us – the Americas got fed up with being taxed without any representation and told us to sling our hook. Given their own treatment of native Americans we should not have been surprised. Oh no, that was us really.

.Canada kind of tried with the help of the French but, basically we locked down. Down under, the natives of New Zealand and Australia were either slaughtered, ignored or corrupted and we took what we wanted. Then we took the land, feeding up sheep on the grasses that once sustained genuine aborigines. What would you do for a spadeful of earth...

Then, as the world began to wake up to what Europeans had done, Europe managed to shoot itself in both feet. Twice. And both times they ended up being bailed out by, guess who? One of our old colonies. Ain't that sweet?

And so the sun began to set on an empire that once spanned the globe. One by one the pink bits went out to turn green, and orange, and blue and black and very, very fed up with the UK.

But Europeans are not so easy to get away from. They gave up the ideas of war-war and went for jaw-jaw. The Common Market, European Free Trade Area, The EEC and finally the EU. Peace, tranquility, free travel and a modicum of prosperity reigned. Not like the old days – after all little of value was left in the ground in Europe and the days of daylight robbery abroad were over. Deals, agreements amd tariffs were the drivers.

Most of Europe settled in to the idea but the sceptered little islands of Britain were never totally convinced that they were part of Europe. That fortress channel (La Manche to others) had grown a callous skin that would not fully yield. The good old days, the good old days. We don't want or need Europe. Fog in channel, continent cut off. Little Englanders.

Rose tinted our view and it saw a brave world of green fields, waving corn, stooks and hayricks, doughty drifters bringing in the little darlings, tough blackened miners hewing the stuff raw to the hearth. This was the place. Mine's a pint.

Only of course it wasn't like that. What I remember is cold houses, curtains frozen to the window pane, crippled kids with polio, suddenly absent school chums who vanished during various outbreaks, steel calipers on ricketty limbs, plenty of those most distressing things like Spasticism as we called it then. And pretty grils who suddenly got a bit fat, then vanished, never to be talked of again. The lady in the next street suddenly in prison for her nasty little sideline.

Open razors, bicycle chains and knucke dusters in the street. Queues a mile long for almost everything. Horse shit along every street. Smog that killed friends andf family and very nearly my mother. No fridges – rancid milk. Daily shopping. Queues again.

And then, just when we thought we were getting out of the mess we found we had too few workers for the hospitals, trains, buses and tubes. So we shipped them in from our former and few existing colonies. Our West Indian friends, our Carribeanm chums. Except no homes for 'Blackies' (forgive me) or even Irish actually. And conspiracy theories about successful black pianists buying houses all over London for her Jamaican friends. Actual fact – she bought two houses in Brixton for her father and mother and her aunt! Because we loved her jangly piano and laughing eyes.

And spivs in the street who ran at the sight of a 'bobby' – and women who would warn them voluntarily. And pavements made narrow by the crushed legs of our heroes from the front, dumped and scrapped by a grateful nation and now forced to beg, The stink of horse meat stalls to feed our pets. The embarrassing farce of Suez. The threat of the bomb in every towering cloud.

Cars that killed – with dumb iron bumpers, wicked mirrors, hopeless brakes, tyres that skidded if it even looked wet (assuming they had not punctured). And no home heating so you could die as quick as a wink with blue or pink paraffin heater that would burst intio flame at a knock. And if it all got too much you could pop your head in the gas oven and drift off to a quiet death, always hopeful that your body would be found before someone lit a match to look for you. Kaboom. Always assuming the un-earthed electrics had not got you first.

And prefabs that looked OK but froze in winter, leaked like sieves and lasted way, way into the 60s before homes fit for heroes were built.

Oh yes and farm workers paid so little and treated so badly they genuinely used hay in their trousers for warmth. But food was pricey even so.

Yep – it was indeed a Golden Age and those who voted for it may well prove the old saying – be careful what you wish for...