THE British Government has just decided to take in a few hundred refugees from the war in Syria and seems to be congratulating itself on the extent of this offer.

It must be a good time to remind ourselves that just a century ago, at the start of the First World War, the town of Milford, with a population approximately one-five-thousandth part of the present UK, took in 700 refugees from Belgium.

At the end of their “temporary residence” of over four years, the people of Ostend erected the granite memorial at the top of Front Street.

One Milford midwife said that during their stay she had delivered over a hundred Belgian babies.

ROBERT NISBET

Haverfordwest