Life is very different up close to the border

When I was about 12 years old in the 1980s I was at RAF Valley in Wales.

My father was a pilot in the RAF, flying the Hawk jet trainer.

To me, the smell of jet fuel is the most exciting smell in the world.

It smells of aeroplanes, wide open spaces, rippling grass, power, speed and thundering noise.

At Valley my mother and sister once hid under the kitchen table because a squadron of Harrier jump jets flew low and slow over the house in the fog looking for the runway.

Behind it all was the noble aim of keeping the country safe.

I remember asking my father about the possibility of being captured and tortured.

“I hope I never get tortured”, he said. “It’s quite easy to get someone into a state where they want to die.”

There was a problem: the danger of the IRA.

RAF Valley is next to the Holyhead ferry to Dublin.

RAF personnel were not allowed off the base in uniform, because they were a target.

Today, I find myself amazed to be listening to Sinn Fein politicians and agreeing with what they say.

I met Chris Hazzard MP at the Irish Border Communities’ protest in London.

Since 1155 the British have been involved on the island of Ireland.

Between 1600 and 1650 English and Scottish people were moved to the north of the island – and the City of London was made to pay for it.

Cromwell’s soldiers; civil war in the

1920s; the Troubles... the border area is nothing like the difference between Devon and Dorset.

British army security checkpoints were still there until 2007.

My aim is not to score points off Dr

Cooper. I wish Dr Cooper were more aware of the realities of the border area.

I wish he were more aware of the essential decency of the peace effort of the European Union.

I hope he has noticed the Border Communities’ protest in support of the open border last Saturday, November 20.

I imagine Dr Cooper writes from a comfortable room in Maidenhead.

May I invite him to visit Phoenix Manor road near Enniskillen in Northern Ireland.

There, on the other side of the A46, is the border.

The R920 road runs for 300 metres in the Republic of Ireland, before crossing the river Erne, over the bridge, into the small town of Belleek, famous for its fine porcelain, in Northern Ireland.

That is just one example of what the border is like.

According to the Irish Borderlands project, by Queen Mary University of London, being from the border area is an identity in itself.

PHIL JONES Member, European Movement UK

Bourne End