There was a lot more post war reconciliation in the UK than is often acknowledged. Many Italian, German and some Ukrainian POWs stayed on as farm hands, then went into small businesses.They had earnt the respect of many local communities, because of their good conduct and religious piety, whilst prisoners . In turn they received charitable help through Church organisations and sympathetic locals. One should remember many young Axis servicemen had lost everything and had nobody to return home to, or that their home and family were now behind the iron curtain. This wasn’t lost on the locals who had encountered similar loss. My cousin married the son of a Ukrainian Baker, our local butcher, Hans Kraal, was in the Kriegsmarine . My Father used to banter with him saying “I should have shot you when I had the chance”. Ernst Muller, also Kriegsmarine, married an English woman and went back to Germany, returning to our village every year, often staying with my parents.

There is an interesting point here. Where I used to live, in Walthamstow was twinned with a German town and this arrangement was set in place shortly after the war. The generation that actually fought the war, my parents generation (I was born in 1952) regarded the war as something to be put behind you and get on with your life. The idea of regarding football as a continuation of the two world wars (a sentiment wholly absent in Germany) only really started in the 1970s. My parents would never have booed the German National Anthem and frankly weren’t obsessed with flying flags.

Great piece, the clown in Batley and Spen – Galloway, Robinson, Labour, LimpDim etc would do well to read it. As would the Tories, the only reason they’ve not got tarred with the dirty tricks brush is they don’t need to. The Socialists including EDL, Hizb Ut Tahir etc at each others throats and ignoring the voters.