THIS time of year, it always seems to me, has more than its fair share of unpleasant anniversaries.

In September it’s been 85 years since Nazi Germany introduced the Nuremberg Laws, depriving Jews of citizenship, and, 81 years since the outbreak of World War Two – quite the barrel of laughs.

It’s. 23 years since Princess Diana’s death and 19 years since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. It’s also 49 years since my birth. None of these are exactly causes for celebration, only for commemoration. But there’s another anniversary which is celebrated every September, and this year’s is a nice round number. On Wednesday it was exactly 400 years since the Pilgrim Fathers left England for North America. When they set sail from Plymouth on September 16 1620 they were leaving behind a repressive country in which they were being persecuted – rather like those refugees who try to reach Britain today.

Attending Church of England services was compulsory and those who didn’t turn up could be fined. But members of other churches could also be imprisoned, tortured or even executed.

Conditions aboard their small ship, The Mayflower, were very cramped, and it took them 66 days to get across the Atlantic in it. Conditions during their first few months in the New World weren’t much better, and during their first winter 45 of the 102 passengers died. But they persevered, built their houses, grew crops and established good relations with the native American tribes in the area. Some of those native Americans joined the Pilgrims’ first thanksgiving feast – which became a national holiday in the US. The anniversary is important because it holds a special place in the American imagination. People as varied as Marilyn Monroe, Clint Eastwood and Hugh Hefner all claimed descent from the Pilgrim Fathers. It wasn’t the first English settlement in North America but it’s a foundation story Americans prefer to that of the earlier colony in Jamestown, Virginia. There the settlers were mostly aristocrats and soldiers, rather than people being persecuted for their beliefs. They had violent relations with local tribes and used slaves to grow tobacco. Americans would rather remember the Pilgrims’ principles of courage, self-reliance, religious freedom and political independence. So if they were alive today they’d be in complete despair. The nation they helped to found is a place of obscene poverty next to obscene wealth, where guns are on sale in supermarkets and violent deaths are everyday occurrences.

It’s where racial hatred is endemic and TV evangelists are allowed to ask vulnerable people for money. It’s where a president who is not just incompetent but dangerous dismantles the basic health service of his predecessor, continues to deny climate change is happening and recommends injections of bleach to avert coronavirus – and is probably going to get re-elected in November.

The USA gave the world “snuff movies”, the “war on terror” and the obesity epidemic. And it calls itself the greatest nation on earth.

It makes me glad to be European. Given all the problems, objections, controversies and complications involved in leaving the European Union, I can’t be the only person who thinks life would be far simpler if we just stayed in the world’s largest trading block. I suspect no-one’s going to feel they’ve “taken back control” over any part of their lives as a result of Brexit. But we are where we are. Yet whether we’re in or out of the EU we’re still in the continent of Europe. The UK can’t be towed away into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, however much some Brexiteers might wish it could.

And our Europeanness should be celebrated. For a comparatively small space it is extremely diverse and varied. Each country has its own unique flavour and you can never go very far in Europe without encountering different languages, architecture, cuisine, history, music and culture generally.

The 1985 film European Vacation was nowhere near as funny as the movie it was the sequel to, American Vacation, but it does show just how much more rich, diverse and interesting Europe is. The accident-prone Griswold family travel through Britain, France, Germany and Italy, and take in Stonehenge, the Eiffel Tower, a tunnel through the Alps and the Colosseum among other sites. Travel a similar distance in America and it all looks pretty much the same. These days the Pilgrims probably wouldn’t be allowed into the USA. They probably wouldn’t want in either.

It may be boastful but Europe has a claim as the earth's greatest continent.