The worst form of NIMBY-ism

Societies often have trouble assimilating those who return from war. Half a century before Vietnam, Wilfred Owen wrote of the survivors of World War One:

“A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,May creep back, silent, to still village wellsUp half-known roads.”

But there is something distinctively modern and distinctively shameful about the story which has just reached a conclusion in Surrey over the Headley Court rehabilitation centre for servicemen near Epsom. Mole Valley District Council has finally rejected a petition from local residents to stop a house in nearby Ashtead being used by relatives of injured service personnel. Amazingly, 86 residents signed a petition objecting to the conversion of the house – which will now, thank goodness, go ahead, enabling our wounded soldiers to see their families much more often. Having just returned from America, where servicemen are cherished and honoured, I find this incident all the more disgraceful and baffling.