Ignoring the lessons of the past.

My Granddad joined the Coldstream Guards in 1936 in order to learn a trade. As no gardener's labourer was going to marry Emma Meades, he Mother started.

So, Granddad joined the Guards and went away to that London, did guard duty at Buckingham Palace, The Bank of England among many of the less glamourous guard posts available.

And then the winds of war blew. He was part of the British Expeditionary Force that went to France, and had to be rescued from Dunkirk in May 1940. He stood in line on the beaches and in the sea waiting for his turn to be saved.

Four years later he took part in D-Day, and fought his way through northern France, Belgium, Holland and into Germany. Seeing action at Arnhem and Remagen.

Nana though he "was just a cook".

He spoke little of the war, and what he did. Just about life with his comrades, and what he used to cook, aand once I was old enough, taught me some clean regimental songs.

Thus, he survived ten years in the guards having dodged bullets for the full six years of the war only for Nana to insist he leave before his timed promotion kicked in, again without a trade.

He worked where he could, but he didn't complain.

Remember that on the cusp of victory, the British people voted Churchill out of power so the Welfare State could be created ready to welcome the heroes back. A future worth having fought for.

Churchill himself wanted there to be a "United States of Europe", to forge closer political links so there couldn't be another war. So, over the years and decades the EEC then the EU was formed, not just as an economic union, but a political one. One which had its basis in the very war the UK celebrated yeterday in the most jingoistic of terms.

In leaving the EU the UK turned its back on the very foundations of what Churchill laid, but in an irony, Churchill is the Brexiteers hero. In the same way that the founder of the single market, Maggie Thatcher, was their poster girl, and would have fought against their precious Brexit.

Flag waving happened up and down the country yesterday, muted due to the lockdown, but concentrating almost exclusively on the part the UK only played.

The Daily Hate Mail went further and changed the definition of VE Day from Victory in Europe to Victory over Europe.

That the RAF had Polish squadrons, and the free people of the continent in many countries, even Germany, fought beside us, and without the arrival of the US into the War and the onslaught on the Nazis from the east by Russia, we would have lost.

But, the UK waved flags, sung We'll Meet Again, watched the Queen give a speech, ignoring the contribution Europe made to our national story, while all the time the CIVID virus sweeps though care homes killing off the last of that generation.

While we all clap.