John Ayres

The photo was taken in 1959, when I was first appointed as a Deck Officer in the New Zealand Shipping Company, so it is more appropriate to the contents of my book 'The British Empire. My Part In Its Decline''. I was born in 1938 in Stratford on Avon and spent my formative years as a publican's son. I had always had a romantic view of life at sea and was able to indulge my fantasy by, firstly, enrolling as a Cadet at the School of Navigation, Warsash, and then as an Apprentice with the New Zealand Shipping Company. I then stayed with NZSC for a further two years before deciding that I had outlived my fantasy. I came ashore in the Spring of 1962.My book covers this period. Since then I have had various jobs in sales, marketing and as a Company Director involved in innovative transport - not exactly a 'career' in conventional terms. I have been happily married for nearly 58 years and have two daughters and five grandchildren. We are retired and live in Hampshire. The book started as a chronicle of my family history, which started in the late 17th Century. I produced it for my grandchildren. My family and friends strongly suggested that the period when I was in the Merchant Navy was worthy of a book by itself.

As I wrote this story, reflection on my experiences has caused me to examine elements of UK political events since the late 1950s, in particular the UK's relationship with 'Europe', However Europe is defined, my concerns are, and have been, with that part of Europe that began with the Coal and Iron Community then developed through the Treaty of Rome into the European Economic Community and , finally, the European Union. It is my opinion that the UK public has been misled about the panacea of joining the EU. We have developed as a maritime nation committed to free trade, whereas the EU is essentially a land based organisation with a historic alignment with mercantilism (the Bourbons, Napoleon, Prussianised Germany, Hitler). Our legal history and systems are different. As Churchill so rightly said ,'we are with Europe, but not of it'. He was echoed by Hugh Gaitskell, who declared at Macmillan's first attempt to join the then EEC, 'you are throwing away a thousand years of history'. De Gaulle drew on his experiences as a client nation during the Second World War to understand that the UK would always choose the USA and the open sea over Europe. The argument that the EU is our biggest trading partner is a consequence of joining the EU, not the reason for doing so. In modern historical times, Europe has not been the UK's principal trading partner. It has been EU rules that have produced this result. Our politicians, still largely consisting of 'Remainers' and their cohorts, have consistently failed to move away from EU restrictions since 2016. This has been to the enormous detriment of our trade and has enabled business to drag its heels over modernisation and productivity.