I applaud Ceri Jayes’ letter, September 8, on slavery. There is a tendency to view historical events from today’s perspective and not from that of their own times.

As a result we see absurdities such as the British Prime Minister apologising for the Irish Potato Famine; (as someone whose ancestral family in part came to England because of the famine, and experienced a much better standard of life a generation or so later, may I say that I have completely forgiven, just as I am sure the family of President Kennedy has…); and another piece of daftness is that recently we have heard a demand for the demolition of the Trafalgar column because it looks back at a time when the British practised slavery .

The fact that the Royal Navy spent the next century fighting slavery at sea is conveniently ignored. It needs historical perspective, not knee-jerk sentimentality, if these matters are to be properly considered.

On the matter of the EU designating the Second World War as “The European Civil War,” on the other hand, no such perspective is necessary or even possible.

For the EU, it is an inconvenient fact that for much of the last century the Germans behaved rather badly and several of our European neighbours thought their bread would be best buttered if they joined in.

Britain’s resistance was not a European reaction; Europe was thought of as the Continent, over there, a place where one went to either holiday or dig a trench and fight.

It was a British Imperial reaction, and involved the Russians and later the Americans for reasons of history and economic advantage. It was, literally, a world war.

There is a limit to the size of organisations. Exceed it, and one loses regional identity. It might be a good idea to remember this, as we watch attempts to expand our local council area into one far too big to protect regional interests.

Nick Bradshaw

Fore Street, Kingsbridge