UNCLE Norman's death came abruptly without warning one grey, cold Friday afternoon a year last February.

He was in his late 70s, yet it still came as a shock. My Auntie Lena found him collapsed on the kitchen floor -- she'd just popped out for some groceries and had been gone for only 20 minutes.

But in that short, cruel interlude, her husband of more than 50 years had slipped away. No last farewells. No deathbed flourishes.

That night, the immediate family hugged and wept together as they tried to come to terms with what had happened.

No doubt Lena's thoughts turned to that far-off day at the end of the war when she'd married the fit young chap with a Far East suntan, standing so proud and handsome in his demob suit.

There were other memories, too. For Uncle Norman had been only 23 years old when, in 1945, he'd witnessed the living skeletons staggering out of Changi prison. He never forgot those awful scenes. Never.

This was why, years later, he would write to a national newspaper editor to explain why he had decided to cancel his subscriptions to this gentleman's journal.

The paper had carried a forgive-and-forget piece just before a state visit by Emperor Hirohito. The writer seemed to have forgotten about those who had actually served in the steaming hellholes of Malaya and Burma. Others, of course, could never forget.

Yet for all that, Uncle Norman had a generous nature, able to see good in most people, and was forever optimistic about humanity.

And these were my last thoughts of him as the coffin slipped through the curtain and a comrade from the Royal British Legion dipped the standard in salute to one of their own.

I hadn't seen him for some time and his death left me with mixed feelings of sadness and guilt. Why hadn't I visited him more often... you know the kind of thing.

I remembered the last time we had spoken. There wasn't the same spark and cheery feel to him. In fact, he appeared quite down during that last meeting.

He'd been reviewing his life and reflecting on the Britain he'd known as a young man and comparing it to the country as he saw it today.

There was a sadness in his voice as he lamented what had happened to his country over the last half-century.

Britain had lost its way, he said. Yes, he reaffirmed, as if tasting the words in his mouth once more... Britain had most certainly lost its way...

There are many people like my late Uncle Norman, thousands and thousands out there. They are the lost generation, this silent majority now in the twilight of their lives.

And, as many of us know, they are now routinely ignored by this new breed of politicians.

If still of working age, these senior citizens are denied jobs because of the new fascism that is ageism. If they are retired, they are paid the meanest pension in Europe, any rise being quickly swallowed by stealth taxation.

These are the people who make up the older generation and now comprise the most despised, discriminated-against grouping that exists in this country today.

They are the individuals who built and fought for Britain, paid their taxes, asking only that the nation that they had forged would keep them when they were no longer fit for the yoke.

Now they live in exile in their own land. Government and media have no concern whatsoever for their interests, hopes or aspirations.

How difficult it must be coming to terms with a country that would have happily spent billions of pounds bombing Serbia indefinitely, yet puts pensioners' worth at 75p rise per head.

They are bewildered when they see British institutions over-ruled by faceless quangos in Brussels. They are hurt beyond belief when a mindless, illiterate scum defaces national monuments.

When Tony Blair is hammered at the General Election next May - my guess is that he'll cut and run after Gordon "Incapability" Brown gives out a few sweeties in the March Budget - he will wonder where it all went wrong. He won't have that far to look.

For there will be a number of factors to blame, not least of which will be his party's haughty indifference to the older generation.

Yet they will have been ignored at his peril. For this will soon be the largest section - and therefore most powerful pressure group - in this country.

Regardless of which party wakes up and sees the writing on the wall, it is glaringly obvious to me that the party that wins the next Election will be the one that earns the Grey Vote.

However, it will not matter that much for Tony Blair. My view has always been that for him, Britain is merely a stepping stone to greater European ambitions.

No, we have to look to the time when the present Prime Minister is a resident of Brussels and someone else is putting out the milk bottles at Number 10 every night.

And despite the odds, there is the possibility that the Tories - sunk in a cesspool of corruption and sleaze the last time around - could just turn the tide at some stage in the near future if they became user-friendly to that growing army of retired people.

The message is hardly that complex. We're talking about the people who want a square deal with pensions, punitive action on street crime and humane but sane policies over economic migration.

They're the folk who want to live out their days in a Britain that isn't ashamed of its own culture, a country that reaffirms its faith in itself and guarantees a system of self-government free from the stench of Euro corruption and bureaucracy.

They want a country defined by its own time-tested currency. Pushing wheelbarrows full of worthless euros is not their idea of fiscal paradise.

These are the people who want to be freed from the nightly curfew imposed by the criminal underclass. Where the vandal is punished and the burglar goes about his vile calling with dread in his heart.

Uncle Norman was a liberal-minded man most of his life, but the last time I saw him, much of the old optimism had gone. He appeared tired and at a loss to understand what had happened to the country whose call he'd answered all those years ago.

It seemed to him that Britain, once the envy of the world, was now a land of noise, junk food, aggression, brutality and thuggery, where the distinctions between lout and footballer were invariably blurred. A country of irrevocable, relentless decline...

So this is how it seems to me. The political party that can harness this kind of resentment just might be on to a winner. A vote-winner.

Now. Are there any ambitious, national politicians out there who are prepared to listen - and learn something for a change?

Any takers?