‘It’s simply a treasury of all things English’

It was, as he says, "Bomb Alley" during the war, as it was only a few miles from Biggin Hill. He remembers the night during the Blitz when 11 churches were bombed in one night.

He says: "That experience helped form part of my patriotic leanings. I have always been proud of the way that during the war, we used to walk to school past bombed shops, and there was the shopkeeper, boarding up the windows, sweeping up the glass, and putting up a sign saying Business as usual'. I was thrilled to see that very same spirit in London in July after the recent bombings. People aren't going to let the terrorists get the better of them.

After leaving school at 14, Hanson joined the air force and completed his national service. He then trained as an actor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, "but out of consideration for the general public" decided not to pursue a career treading the boards.

He then went into commercial world. He built up a successful business with his wife, before moving to Buckinghamshire, where he is now retired. Since retiring, he has completed a degree in European History, and incidentally, broke the world record for reading from the Bible non-stop for 25 hours.

Now Hanson has put together an anthology celebrating England, the proceeds of which will go to charity. He is staunchly patriotic, but stresses that this is not a political exercise.

He says: "There is no politics in it whatsoever. It is simply a treasury of all things English."

The inspiration was largely charitable. He says: "I belong to the St George's Day Club, which not only celebrates our patron saint, but it also raises money for various charities, so that was the idea behind it, to raise a bit of money, while keeping me out of mischief."

Even though all the profits are going to a good cause, his wife, to whom the book is dedicated, was less than enamoured with the time it took to complete.

He says: "It is the first book I have written, and if my wife has anything to do with it it will be the last. She says for the last 18 months she might as well have been a widow."

The book contains many of the country's best known poets, playwrights, authors and speakers. Hanson says the hardest thing was editing the tome.

He says: "The hardest thing was what not to put in. I tried to get a balance. I wanted Red, White, and Blue stirring poems, from Kipling and Chesterton and Shakespeare. But I also wanted a good deal of humour, and I was lucky enough to get introductions to John Mortimer and Alan Coren, and Ian Hislop."

Hislop in fact contributed a serious piece, written about a visit to his child's school Remembrance Day, but others have donated more humourous pieces, some written for this book.

Hanson says: "I also wrote to Bill Deedes, and asked if he had written anything I could use. He wrote back in his own handwriting, over modestly I am sure, and said that he had not written anything that would be suitable, but that he liked the idea of the book, and that I must use Stanley Baldwin's speech to the Royal Society of St George in 1924. He said if I didn't have a copy of it he would send me one, and true to his word, he did, so I put it in. It is a very good speech."

Hanson wants the English to be more openly proud of their achievements. He says: "We have so much to be proud of. I wish people would stop denigrating the country, and especially the youth.

"Ninety per cent of the country's youth are good. It is the ten per cent who are not, who get far more coverage and get the rest a bad name. We are scared of patriotism. The Irish, Scots and the Welsh and very proud of their history and celebrating it, but we are very shy of doing it."

England My England by Gerry Hanson, £9.99, is available from Ottakar's High Wycombe, and Horizons books shops all over Bucks. ISBN 1861058934. All proceeds from the sale of the book go to charity.