Thank you Robert Maughan for highlighting the facts.

It’s hero Christopher Jones we should be celebrating.

Without his exceptional seamanship, the pilgrim fathers would never have made the crossing.

Jones is an entirely understated hero and first son of Harwich where he indisputably grew up and learned his seamanship.

Why on earth do we not have a statue of him and a town square dedicated to him?

Every other town celebrates their hero sons in such a way.

I say ‘first son’ the other contender should be similarly celebrated, him being Admiral Christopher Newport.

This one handed incredible military adventurer and son of Harwich also established America having grown up here in Harwich and learned his skills here.

Again this cannot be disputed as can the origin of the ship Mayflower and of course from whence it set sail.

The focus has been wrong and we are stuck with a branding process which needs a level of sanitising.

Harwich Society Books by historians Len Weaver (The Harwich Papers) and David Male (on Jones and Newport) are excellent and accurate readable accounts.

The daring deeds of Newport include losing his arm in battle, lost Spanish treasure and shipwreck.

The stuff of blockbusters - indeed his shipwreck is a Shakespeare blockbuster in the play The Tempest.

Jones’ heroics are accounted in David Males book, but still understated.

What he achieved in a cargo coaster should be the substance of a magnitude of acclaim. These two men are no less than the founding Fathers of America.

Let us proclaim them and that our town is the very root of America through these two heroes.

They certainly showed us how to successfully Brexit.

Tony Francis

High Street, Harwich