What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

As summer begins to slowly row its way towards autumn, I don’t feel relaxed or at ease because the times we live in feel too much like the years I remember before the Second World War.

Then, like now, right-wing populist politics infected society and Europe was beset by a refugee crisis as Jews fled Nazi Germany searching for sanctuary in countries that were unwelcoming because conservative politicians used the politics of fear to turn decent people into rabid racists, much like Boris Johnson has done through his tirades against the burka.

Having lived through so much history, I cannot escape the dismal reality that we live in the most dangerous of times because of Brexit and US President Donald Trump, as well as the growth of fascism thanks to the normalising of heinous thugs like Tommy Robinson by powerful media conglomerates.

(Image: Getty Images North America)

I can’t sit by and watch the ugly past that my generation experienced during the Great Depression and the Second World War roll over my grandchildren’s generation like a tsunami of hate.

It’s why I decided while recovering from pneumonia in my 96th year that I would make my last stand a multi-year odyssey to visit the refugee hot spots of the world and document the struggle that tens of millions of ordinary human beings must take to live a life that isn’t under the thumb of tyranny or on the gibbet of extreme poverty.

I know I’ve reached the terminal stage of old age and the innings left to me are short before my voice is snuffed out like a candle flame.

It’s why I’ve been on the road this summer investigating the plight of refugees in Canada and America. On my travels, I’ve met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ­Principal Secretary and was able to discuss among other things my memories of the last great refugee crisis that occurred after Adolf Hitler was defeated, and how Britain and her allies were able to solve that crisis through compassion and pragmatism.

(Image: PA)

But, more importantly, on my rambles I’ve had the good fortune to break bread with many refugees from all parts of our troubled globe and hear their personal tales of perseverance.

Right now, I am preparing to cross into the US and connect with refugees misplaced from their homelands in central America and who are now being harassed and oppressed in a so-called land of the free grown feral from the politics of Donald Trump and the spiteful propaganda of Fox News.

But come this autumn, I will be following the trails of refugees in Europe as they make perilous ­journeys from Libya to Italy in search of something we all want – a life worth living.

I know my journeys across the scarred landscapes of refugee camps won’t end this crisis but I hope the fact that I am willing to use what’s left of my life in this pursuit shames politicians into action.