Congratulations to Sue Dubois for her timely and brilliant letter.

During the Second World War the Forest of Dean was full of foreign soldiers, mainly American, who had been transported over thousands of miles to bolster our sacrifices in wiping Nazism off the face of the earth. Without them we would never have succeeded.

The Forest hid huge ammunition and equipment storage facilities that were used to supply the troops as they fought their way through Europe towards victory over the ultimate tyranny.

Also, when I was a young secondary school teacher in Corsham, Wiltshire in the late 1960s, which then was still surrounded by armed forces bases; among my pupils were the sons of Polish and Eastern European men and women who had escaped to Britain during the war, to actively carry on the fight against Hitler's armies of fanatics who had invaded their countries, but couldn't return to their homeland because they had been taken over by Joseph Stalin's twisted version of communism.

These people had huge reputations of 'earned respect' locally, because of their war records of outstanding bravery. We in this country have never had to undergo the shattering experience of a successful invasion by an armed, fanatical foe for almost a 1,000 years; but nevertheless, it should never diminish our gratitude to those who came from all over the world to risk their lives to ensure that Britain was spared that particular hell between the war years of 1939 and 1945.

– John Belcher, Joyford.