The Sacrifice He Made Is Worthless

Although he has a chestful of medals and a proud record as the country’s oldest poppy seller, Alec Penstone insists he is not a hero.

‘The heroes are all the dead ones. The heroes are the ones we left in the Arctic and on the Normandy beaches,’ the 100-year-old says from his home on the Isle of Wight.

But, in the eyes of the millions of proud Britons who saw him give a damning appraisal of the state of the nation on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Friday, the D-Day veteran, who fittingly was born on St George’s Day, absolutely deserves the label.

He told shocked presenters Kate Garraway and Adil Ray that the sacrifice of the lost men of his generation ‘wasn’t worth’ what the country has become.

‘What we fought for was our freedom, but now it’s a darn sight worse than when I fought for it,’ he added on TV.

Now, as his words continue to fuel debate online, Alec has explained his point of view at length in a wide-ranging interview with the Daily Mail.

‘It was my own personal opinion, but evidently it touched a chord with very many people. My daughter has had so many messages from all over the world,’ he says.

The widower – who is also a veteran of the Arctic convoys that took vital supplies to Russia in the Second World War – is filled with grief and outrage about what he sees as Britain’s decline.

‘I don’t know what the hell we fought for and [why we] lost so many wonderful men. The country has gone to rack and ruin,’ the grandfather-of-two continues.

‘There are too many people with their fingers in the till. Faith in our country was the best thing [when he was young].

‘But nowadays there’s too many people that just want their own little corner and bugger everybody else.’

Rather than his anguish being fuelled by any kind of hostility, Alec stresses: ‘I’m not against foreigners coming into the country provided they behave themselves.’ 

His fears for the state of the country echo a major study this month that discovered that eight in 10 Britons feel the nation is divided, up five percentage points from two years ago and 10 per cent since 2020.

Researchers from King’s College London and Ipsos Mori conducted the survey, which also revealed that half of the respondents believe Britain’s “culture” is changing too quickly, up from a third.

One particularly striking finding that chimed with Alec’s lament was that nostalgia for Britain’s past increased in every single age group, even among 16 to 24-year-olds.

Almost a third of people in that age bracket wanted Britain to return to how it ‘used to be’, up from 16 per cent in 2020.

Asked about his opinion of wartime prime minister Winston Churchill and how he feels today’s politicians match up to him, Alec says: ‘I admired him. He was a leader. And he made sure what needed to be done was done.

‘There is no comparison whatsoever to the modern leaders. In this world today, it is every man for himself.

‘I’ve got no feelings for any of them.’

During his appearance on Good Morning Britain, which came ahead of Remembrance Sunday today, Alec was treated to a rendition of Vera Lynn’s wartime hit We’ll Meet Again by all-female troupe the D-Day Darlings.

Typically, though, he was dismissive of his own actions after his war service had been explained.

‘I cannot see anything that I’ve done, specially that wouldn’t have been done by other people of my generation. I’m just one of the lucky ones, I’m still alive,’ he told the ITV presenters.

Alec urged his taxi driver to slow down so he could give a salute as they passed the Whitehall Cenotaph on the way home from his filming.

On several occasions, he has been part of the parade of veterans who form the heart of the Remembrance Sunday service at the London monument each year.

This time, though, he is staying at home and laying a wreath at his local memorial instead.

We should be giving this man a knighthood because what he had to say makes a lot of sense, although I’m sure he wouldn’t want a knighthood.

Our children of this generation have no idea what it was like to fight in a war; they just look through rose coloured glasses. There was war, intense poverty, ration cards, and air raid shelters. Our men were coming home with arms and legs blown off; it was nothing short of a miracle that they even survived.

I wasn’t in the war, but my mum used to tell me stories about being in the air raid shelters as young as 6 years old. Women giving birth to their babies down there. We are not hard done by; we are extremely blessed to be here because if Hitler had invaded England, it would be a whole new ball game.

The trouble is, we have been given too much, and our children have no appreciation for what they have. Now it’s just the norm, and our government just want to take, take, take.

Things have changed, but we should never forget what was before, because if there was no before, there wouldn’t be a now.

What we don’t want are invaders that don’t belong here; otherwise, we may as well have let Hitler in!