VE Day: Europe and our peace is once again threatened by a dictator - Christa Ackroyd

I love learning the meaning of words and their origins and so I can tell you that pacifist, far from its common usage which has come to mean a rejection of war in solving conflict, is actually broken down into two parts.

Pax which is Latin for peace and the suffix ist which shows someone is a believer or follower of something.

A believer in peace. And there is not one right-minded person on the planet surely who would not choose peace over war any day of the week. Note the use of the term right-minded.

In the coming week we will be celebrating the 80th anniversary of VE day, Victory in Europe when the King and Queen accompanied by their young daughters Elizabeth and Margaret were called back to the balcony not once, not twice, but eight times to wave to the cheering crowds.

The sense of relief must have been incredible even though it was to be several months later that conflict was finally over when Japan surrendered.

But the end of five long years of fighting was in sight and the young princesses were allowed to slip out of the palace and mingle anonymously in the joyous atmosphere.

Queen Elizabeth later recalled, “We stood outside and shouted, ‘We want the King’… I think it was one of the most memorable nights of my life.”

King George VI, like Churchill, also gave a radio address. In it, he praised his subjects' endurance and called for a lasting peace.

He also paid tribute to those who could not join in the celebrations, saying: “Let us remember those who will not come back…who have laid down their lives. We have come to the end of our tribulation and they are not with us at the moment of our rejoicing."’

And so this week we will celebrate those same men and women who gave all those lives in order that we could live ours.

It is so easy to trot out the figures. In Britain alone almost 400,000 troops died. Seventy thousand British civilians were also to perish mostly in bombing raids across our towns and cities with London being the worst hit.

And still the King and Queen refused to move to safety in a show of strength and resilience with their people. But it was not just here that war took its toll. Fifteen million people on both sides were to die.

Twenty five million were wounded and a staggering 45 million members of the public were killed. Figures too huge to contemplate and certainly not to celebrate.

And yet this week’s anniversary is important for two reasons. Firstly as an act of remembrance for those who suffered, those who died, those who lost loved ones and those who came back changed for ever.

Because I have met many people who fought in battle, yet very few who could bring themselves to talk about it, the emotional damage, too great, the personal loss too deep. Yet to a man and woman they all said the same, they would do it again for freedom.

And so this week I will watch the commemorations, witness and join in the partying wherever it takes us whilst also remembering the 75th anniversary when in the middle of the pandemic all we could muster was a distanced party with our neighbours, when our freedom was curtailed not by war but by circumstance.

And yet as we pass around the oh-so British fare probably while listening to Vera Lynn with our family and friends, I cannot truly celebrate while the bully boys in the Kremlin and, yes, in the White House are in charge of the asylum, as they hold the fate of Ukraine in their hands.

Putin may have brought out the big guns and the troops but the cat and mouse politics of Donald Trump is doing nothing other than to embolden him.

Europe and our peace is once again threatened by a dictator flexing his muscles and wanting more. And we must never ever let that happen.

For those who say the war in Ukraine is not our war, you are so, so wrong. What would have happened to us if we had ignored Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939?

Do you truly believe Putin does not have the same expansionist aims? I do. And that includes encroaching on our Nato allies and our European friends.

But if Putin is a threat then so too is Donald Trump. His treatment of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has been not just disrespectful but down right dangerous.

As some commentators said after he accused him, not Putin of taking us into World War Three there would have been champagne corks popping in the Kremlin that night.,

And yet Donald ‘I will end this war in 24 hours’ Trump is not our biggest threat. In a way his antagonism to our European neighbours with tariffs and his dismissive attitude has only brought us closer together after the disaster of Brexit.

Our biggest threat is that with all our economic woes (largely as a result of the war in Ukraine and the lack of stability that has come with it) good men and women do nothing. But I think we know that already. And I think we will.

At Pope Francis’s funeral Europe, the church, and the people spoke without words. Donald Trump walked in to silence.

When the dignitaries and people saw President Zelensky enter the proceedings they broke out into spontaneous applause. Because they know who is fighting not just for his country but for peace in Europe.

But as we remember VE day, as we commemorate the bravery it took to achieve such victory let us not forget who are the good guys and who are the bad.

Do I want war? Absolutely not. Do I want peace at all costs? Emphatically no. Do I believe diplomacy can win. In the end it has to. And yes we need America on our side.

And may I remind the President that we in Britain fought wars in their defence, and ours, after the 911 terrorist attack, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

President Putin has announced a ceasefire to commemorate VE day in his war with Ukraine. He announced one over Easter and look what happened then. Nothing. The bombing continued.

A ceasefire is not what Ukraine and Europe and every right thinking person on the planet is seeking. It is an end to the hostilities. Our parents and our grandparents never gave up in World War II.

They suffered emotionally and economically and still they continued to the victory we celebrate this week.

Without a victory for Ukraine I dare to suggest they will be turning in their graves and demanding that we do the same.

Let us remember their fight is now our fight.

And the legacy of a generation who sacrificed so much so they could dance in the streets and say “We did it”.