Crow Sister....I'm 54 years old..and whether folks on here like it or not..I *remember* a time when what you've put above was is EXACTLY what DID happen.

OK, so times have moved on, a great deal, and now most prefer Chicken Korma to Lancashire Hot Pot, but...and it's a big BUT....but one of the reasons why the BNP is getting the support it is, imo, is because for decades we've never been allowed to mention our past, our memories, or to think back..

I was brought up on Roast Beef and Roast Potatoes..My Dad loved Eccles Cakes..I used to love seeing the Beefeaters, on a rare trip to London, soaked up the history, loved it all. I still love it, the Kings and Queens, the houses and castles..

There is NOTHING wrong with who we are. We are England...and that encompasses our memories, our past, present and future....

Now those memories also include the tantalising scent of curry drifting down the High Street, the Notting Hill Carnival, the Imagined Village and so much more, all of which have *enriched* this nation, but let us also remember our past too.

Hell, every other country in the world is allowed to, so why not us?

My childhood was NOT racist. My father went to war to ensure that scum like Hitler didn't win, that facists didn't rule the world..but to say what you've said above, is stirring nothing but anger, in my opinion, although I realise you may not have meant it that way.

I had a wonderful childhood, grew up in a wonderful country, but I've watched my country tear itself apart, because it lost sense of who it was, where it was going. It absorbed the hatred poured down on us by so many, when ALL countries have bad things in their past. Yes, we had slavery, but we also had William Wilberforce! Many other countries also had slavery, including the African nations themselves...Not ALL thing within the British Empire were bad...Yes, much was appalling, but there was some good there too.

My kids still have the occasional plate of Roast Beef and Yorkshire puddings, and that does NOT make them racist.

Neither does loving the sound of Church Bells, or seeing cricket being played on village greens...I don't give a flying duck what colour skin the players may have...It's the esssence of watching something that has been enjoyed for so long, that is part of who we are..

It's no different from loving folk songs for the same reason...

I get so sick of the way the racist label is flung around at innocent folks.

I'm English, I'm also British, but more importantly, I'm just one of the Human Race...and I see souls, not colours.

I loathe the BNP, but I love the country I grew up in...and the way it's changed too, in the areas where it's changed for the better...but I hate the way we've been made to feel so wrong, for so long...when England, in particular, (as the book goes) is one of the most welcoming and tolerant nations in the world!

So REJOICE over our Lancashire Hot Pot, and serve it up next to the Curry, because the Hot Pot is AS important as the Korma...

And THAT is what has been forgotten for so long....

AND...it is THAT which is feeding the BNP's success...

In my ever so humble opinion...

And no, I did NOT vote for them, before the usual bunch come in here yelling 'nasty little racist' at me...

Thank you.