My God, we need a hero - they used to walk among us and knew the cruelty of war - Michael Booker

You see, they looked so normal, the men with hair greying around the temples, partial to wearing well-used, but clean and comfy flannel trousers, the women a blue rinse and a cardy.

In my memory, they liked smoking, toffee and knitting.

They were everywhere.

They looked like you and me, sounded like you and me, but they were better than you and me.

The thing is they never would have dreamed of thinking that.

That’s because they didn’t know it themselves

Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was lucky to grow up among heroes.

The generation that fought and lived through the Second World War were still going pretty strong by the time I was born in the late 1970s.

But now they are few.

Just this week the last of ‘The Few,’ Battle of Britain Hurricane ace Group Captain John Hemingway, DFC, passed away.

He was the last of the pilots who protected the skies above Britain in the nation’s darkest hour.

Racing toward his Hurricane after being scrambled in late 1939, the then 20-year-old knew, with wisdom beyond his years, that life, his and that of everyone else, had changed forever.

He later reflected: “In those few moments I realised that I must now shrug off sentimentality of all sorts and henceforth cope at all levels entirely on my own, no matter what the circumstances.”

Now, with his passing, symbolically, his generation has passed away too.

A generation full of kind, calm, common sense as well as bravery that saw them through the hardships and horror of combat in a war that began in 1939 and ended 80 years ago this year.

A generation where many fought the battle on the home front, a battle that could be every bit as brutal as life on the frontline.

A battle both to survive Hitler’s bombs and to preserve a country and way of life that would be worth coming home to for their loved ones fighting in foreign towns, cities, seas, rivers and fields.

They were a generation that most of all realised the cruel reality of war.

They were a generation that would never let one happen again.

Now they’ve all but gone, and a void is left.

The danger grows as the warning voices have fallen silent.

Growing up they were still all around us.

Most families had at least one or two.

My grandad Michael Corcoran, who served in North Africa, was one of the many everyday heroes still pottering around when I was little.

God only knows what he witnessed as a medic in that wartime desert.

Whatever it was I’m sure he would do everything he could to avoid me or his other grandkids bearing witness to anything so terrifying.

People like him could be found at every level of society.

From our crop fields to the Cabinet, our WW2 heroes were there, wary of ever plunging the country into World War again.

But now they are gone and here we are.

I thought about how desperately we miss their wisdom as the Prime Minister fired up his Mac computer in Downing Street for a Zoom call with 25 world leaders last Saturday.

Sat with his notes on his mini lectern emblazoned with the slogan ‘Securing Our Future’ they discussed the next stages of the ‘peace’ process between Russia and Ukraine.

When he later announced plans for an ‘operational phase’ with military bigwigs meeting to discuss ‘boots on the ground’ I feared the worst.

Were they now the coalition of the willing to put our soldiers’ lives at risk on the frozen frontline?

Will boots on the ground soon become bodies on the ground?

I sincerely hope not.

We’re told the world is a ‘much safer place’ thanks to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s phone call.

I’m sure we can rely on them…

So goodbye Mr Hemingway and thanks for what you and your generation have done, both in war and in peace.

What we’d give for a hero like you right now.