Grandfather’s Farewell to England

By Martyn Walker
Published in Letters from a Nation in Decline

Come, sit with me a while.
There’s something I need to say—before we go.

You see that hill? I played there once,
Chased kites and kicked a ball until the light gave out.
Down that lane was your great-grandmother’s cottage,
With roses round the door and jam jars cooling on the sill.
It was a good life, not rich, but honest.
We belonged here, then.

But now…
Now the country I gave my youth to,
The one we sang for in school halls and stood for at Remembrance—
She’s gone and signed herself away.
Again. Quietly. Like a servant handing over keys.

They’ll call it progress. Integration.
But I know surrender when I see it.
We’ve lost something, lad. Something we may never get back.

So we’re leaving. All of us.
Not because we stopped loving England—
But because she stopped being England.

I’ll not come back. Not even for the spring bluebells in the woods,
Or the sound of the choir practising on a Thursday evening.
Even the things I love most would hurt to see again.
Because they’ll still look the same…
But they won’t be the same.

And one day, when you’re older,
You might ask why I speak of her the way I do—like an old friend lost.
And I’ll tell you:
She was kind. She was proud. She was ours.
And we let her slip through our fingers.

So goodbye, my England.
You were the last of something gentle in a world growing hard.
I leave with nothing but my memories,
And a tear I never thought I’d shed.