In ten months the names of Cornwall and England will disappear forever. I mean, it's not as though the population haven't been warned and informed as to what has been happening since the last war with Germany. It's just that the majority of people have just not listened to or thought about the things that are said and done.

Let me just point out a few of the signposts that stick in my memory: 1. Prime Minister Edward Heath took us into the Common Market. Story - we will flood Europe with British made goods. Fact - Coal mines (where I worked) were all closed down. Steel industry closed down. Ship building closed down and much, much more. Goods flooded into Britain from Europe.

2. Then there was money. Pounds, shillings and pence had to go. Brussels said we must be decimalised. The day it happened, a cup of tea in a café that had cost sixpence in old money, which was two and a half pence in new money, rocketed up to five new pence, or a shilling in old money. That was a 100% increase and it happened on the vast majority of things. My wife told me that a tin of salmon that had cost seven shillings and sixpence now cost 75p or 15 shillings. Talk about daylight robbery!

3. I am finding this really depressing, so I'll just generalise: Our so-called government have for many, many years been told what to do by Brussels, but to do it without telling the British people.

Now let me come into the present. I recently wrote to Mayor Varney suggesting that, as Mr Brown will not give us a referendum, he should hold one for Falmouth on whether we, and the rest of Cornwall, should be in or out of Europe. I guess it won't happen, but at least I tried to do something for Cornwall, if not England.

As we all know, there is talk of Scotland breaking away from Britain, but have you asked yourselves why? And will it have happened before England and Cornwall are absorbed into Europe next summer?

Could it be that the canny Scots will tell Europe where to go and stay free. If so, I think I'll join my in-laws in the north. I may be an Englishman living in Cornwall (the two countries that I love), but I will never be a European!

Wouldn't it be funny if Cornwall had a referendum and voted to stay out of Europe, or even break away from England. The mind boggles!

G Hunter Smith (address supplied)