Ordinary Brits have long led far more ‘diverse’ lives than the elites who scorn them.
I was raised in a socially conservative, patriotic and very traditional household, of which my grandparents were the heads. They instilled in me what they would have called ‘British values’, and these have guided me through much of my life.
I grew up during the 1960s and 1970s in the knowledge that I was a ‘half-caste’ lad, born into a working-class family in Devon, an almost entirely white area. It slowly dawned on my child’s mind that, due to the reactions of some adults, having a parent from another country – especially one that was populated by brown people – marked me out as being unusual, perhaps very different. I did not feel different, but I became aware that others might see me as such.
This clarification, while reassuring, highlights a troubling trend that a holiday with religious origins is being challenged as racist and discriminatory at all. This matter isn’t rooted in the holiday’s current essence or practice, but stems from the mere acknowledgment of Christmas as a national holiday at all. It’s a concerning fate for a holiday that for most Canadians is secular in all but its 
