{"id":139872,"date":"2025-05-28T22:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-28T22:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/139872\/"},"modified":"2025-05-28T22:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T22:51:09","slug":"britains-bonfire-of-the-atrocities-british-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/139872\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s bonfire of the atrocities | British empire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\">Angela Blazy-O\u2019Reilly reports that the war service of her mother was not recognised for extra pension rights, as \u201cno records were available for [the Women\u2019s Royal Army Corps] in India\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/may\/11\/the-multicultural-effort-to-defeat-fascism\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Letters, 11 May<\/a>). I wonder if this was due to <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/operation-legacy-how-britain-covered-up-its-colonial-crimes-225330\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Operation Legacy<\/a>, which mandated the destruction or hiding of colonial documents before Britain\u2019s withdrawal from colonised countries. A sort of imperial \u201cbonfire of the atrocities\u201d, such as records of the\u00a0Bengal famine in 1943.<br \/><strong>Denis Jackson<\/strong><br \/>Glasgow<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\"> My son, like me, has several Sheffield United shirts, which he wears with pride. The other day he asked me to buy him a French national shirt with \u201cMbapp\u00e9 10\u201d printed on the back (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2025\/may\/07\/i-wear-football-shirts-of-all-the-players-i-like-not-just-of-my-team\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Letters, 7 May<\/a>). Putting the cost (about \u00a3100) to one side for a moment, I\u2019m\u00a0genuinely unsure of what to do. Get him the shirt for Christmas, or send him to an orphanage?<br \/><strong>Mark Redhead<\/strong><br \/>Oxford<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\"> \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2025\/may\/12\/can-watching-sport-really-improve-your-wellbeing-the-science-suggests-it-can\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Can watching sport really improve your wellbeing? The science suggests it can<\/a>\u201d says your headline (12 May). Did the researchers have any Sheffield Wednesday fans in their sample size?<br \/><strong>Mike Elliott<\/strong><br \/>Emeritus professor, and Wednesday fan since 1962, Leven, East Yorkshire<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\"> While still digesting the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2025\/may\/11\/children-eat-more-after-seeing-just-five-minutes-of-junk-food-ads-study-finds\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">report about childhood eating patterns and junk food adverts<\/a> in your print edition (Children eat more after five minutes of junk food ads \u2013 study, 12 May), I turned the page and saw a full-page ad for Burger King and Uber Eats.<br \/><strong>Jude Carr<\/strong><br \/>London<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-16w5gq9\"><strong> Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/may\/13\/mailto:guardian.letters@theguardian.com?body=Please%20include%20your%20name,%20full%20postal%20address%20and%20phone%20number%20with%20your%20letter%20below.%20Letters%20are%20usually%20published%20with%20the%20author%27s%20name%20and%20city\/town\/village.%20The%20rest%20of%20the%20information%20is%20for%20verification%20only%20and%20to%20contact%20you%20where%20necessary.\" data-link-name=\"in body link \" https:=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>email<\/strong><\/a><strong> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tone\/letters\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>letters<\/strong><\/a><strong> section.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Angela Blazy-O\u2019Reilly reports that the war service of her mother was not recognised for extra pension rights, as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-139872","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114587912370014615","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}