I FEEL that the time has come for the silent majority of my wartime generation to speak up before it is too late. We have had to sit back and watch our beloved country being given away by the truck load to the Socialist powers in Brussels.

As teenagers in 1939, our lives were turned upside down as we answered the call to fight the most evil enemy of the century and in thousands of cases laid down our lives for the honour of our country. We were to be deprived of going to university, of travelling around the world, of being able to enjoy all the crazy, zany things that teenagers do. Young men fought on the high seas, on land and in the air so that Britain could remain free from tyranny - but at what a price.

My late husband was a Battle of Britain fighter pilot and I was a WAAF officer. We were just two of the many, many, young people doing our best during those dark and sinister wartime years. Six whole years.

Our young spirits were at an all-time high when peace was declared. "It's all over", we said joyfully. "Now we can pick up the pieces and start to live our lives to the full".

Little were we to know that the post-war years were to be far from a panacea of our dreams. We were to witness a colossal decline in all the things that we had been brought up to respect and which had made us a great country. The honouring of our fathers and mothers, the day-to-day courtesies which came so naturally to our generation, kindness and care to our neighbours and even to strangers, discipline within the family and indeed family values.

The total lack of morals, the "anything goes" syndrome is paramount, family standards are ridiculed and it now seems normal for families to eat their meals on their laps in front of the television, thus depriving families of the opportunity for gathering around the table for their meal and conversation; manners as we knew them are no longer acceptable. Children are dumped in nurseries from an early age instead of being reared within the security of their homes, with most important of all - their mother to love and care for them - and mothers who do have the maternal desire to do so are more often than not made to feel abnormal.

Policemen no longer can police as their predecessors did; their hands are tied and their work has become impossible. This also applies to teachers, who also have to be subjected to violent pupils. Discipline is now a dirty word.

Mr Blair, whose arrogance is nauseating, and his gang of ministers have created havoc in the countryside, delving into areas they simple know nothing about. How dare they give away all that we fought for. We are islanders and should remain so. We have produced the best nurses, doctors, inventors, farmers and a judicial system envied throughout the world.

My message is: WAKE UP - FIGHT TO PRESERVE BRITAIN before it is too late. We fought to save Britain for you. Do not let us have died in vain.

MURIEL PUSHMAN, Madresfield.