THIS month contained two dates of which all British people should be aware. They are, respectively, the dates of D-Day and the Battle of Waterloo.

Regrettably, a majority of people under 40 will not know much about, or understand the significance of these events.

Our children are simply not taught about British history as previous generations have been. It used to be believed that, for a people to know where they were going, they had to know where they had come from, and to understand and share the same values.

British society has been based on the rights, responsibilities and liberty of its individuals. Our law works (at present, anyway) on the basis that individuals can do anything they wish to do, except those things prohibited by law for the good of society.

This is fundamentally different to the European, or "Napoleonic", concept which holds that individuals have no rights, except those given to them by the state.

These principals have been central to the formation of the British State, and our ancestors sometimes had to defend their ideas of freedom and individual liberty at great cost. We now seem to be prepared, through a mixture of apathy and ignorance, to surrender these values.

The French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, made the first modern attempt to create a centrally governed European superstate; the second attempt was by the German Dictator, Adolph Hitler. Britain, sometimes alone, stood in the way of both.

The third attempt, this time peaceful and stealthy, is taking place today, not far from the battlefield of Waterloo, in Brussels.

We British don't seem to know, or care, where this project is taking us. Should we not, in this Jubilee year, think a little more about our future within the EU, before we allow ourselves to be fully immersed in it ?

R G SPENCER,

Malvern.