“There’ll always be an England,” Dave Ashton would say whenever we discussed tradition and the monarchy during my stay at Max Rayne House in London.
At 21 years old, I was unaware of the origin of the expression, connecting it in my mind with the crumbling of the British Empire and the desire to hold onto what remained. I didn’t know that it came from a World War II song made popular by Vera Lynn as the country faced its biggest threat, from Nazi Germany, and like her other big hit, “We’ll Meet Again,” had served as an inspiration to the soldiers going away to war.
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