The two countries have been been at odds over the centuries. But could there a better symbol of our link than this engineering coup?
The first passenger train from England to France carried Queen Elizabeth II to Calais on 6 May 1994. Trains carrying less exalted passengers would not set off until November of that year, and the more arresting image of English and French engineers shaking hands beneath the sea had come four years earlier. Officially, though, today is the day: the Channel tunnel is 30. It is almost too old to be going to nightclubs, and is starting to worry about its back.
Its existence remains, by any sensible standard, astonishing: a physical link between Europe and its largest island, the first since the drowning of Doggerland around 6500BCE. It wasn’t just an engineering achievement, either, but a political one, the realisation of an idea discussed for nearly two centuries, and the moment that Britain would stop pissing about and accept it was a part of Europe. This feels, nearly eight years after the Brexit vote, both a lot funnier and a lot sadder than it did at the time.
Jonn Elledge’s new book is A History of the World in 47 Borders
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