This is one of the saddest days of my life. I was born just twenty years after the end of WW2. Twenty years after the liberation of Auschwitz. Twenty years is nothing…When I was 8 years old, Dad explained to me what joining the “Common Market” meant. About trade and friendships with people from “abroad”. We already went to Spain for holidays – in the days when holiday resorts were fishing villages with a couple of hotels – and I’d already made friends with a couple of Spanish children. In my 20s/30s I drove across Europe when there were borders, where each country had a different currency – I couldn’t take a pet and I had to have a Green Card. In 2015 we set off for France (via Italy) in our car with a puppy and an elderly cat. It was unbelievably simple – in terms of paperwork, not pets! Now, as you know, I live and work in France with John and my English/French pets. In the 47 years since that conversation with my Dad, I don’t think I’ve ever really seen the EU celebrated; I’ve not read a newspaper article or watched a TV programme that really says what we “get” from the EU, only what we “give”. Certainly, if there were any, I’ve missed them. Successive governments have blamed the EU for everything that’s wrong in the UK. At the very least, what we “get” from the EU has been taken for granted. I honestly believe that today we are taking a huge step backwards, and I feel sad to my very core.
