Patriotic pensioner branded disrespectful with Union Jack mistake

A patriotic pensioner was stunned when a cowardly poison pen letter writer branded her highly disrespectful for accidentally hanging her Union Jack flag upside down.

Susan Creaser was stunned to receive the snooty missive pushed through the door of her home in the leafy East Riding of Yorkshire village of Eastrington, from someone claiming to be ex-military earlier this month. The 78-year-old regularly flies a Union flag and Yorkshire flag in her front garden to show support for brave servicemen and women and her home country. But when the red, white and blue emblem was most recently hoisted up the flagpole in her garden it was accidentally hung upside down. The rude note writer declared it was highly disrespectful as they were a former member of the military and demanded she rectify the error forthwith.

The Flag Institute, a UK-based membership charity devoted to the study and promotion of flags and flag flying, says it is most improper to fly the flag upside down. To some it signals a distress call and can even be considered an insult. According to the institute, in the half of the flag nearest the flagpole, the wider diagonal white stripe must be above the red diagonal stripe. This is because Scotland's St Andrew's Cross takes precedence over Ireland's St. Patrick's Cross. Once the issue was pointed out to the retired business owner, her son swiftly turned it the correct way up and re-hung it later that day. The gran-of-five blasted the “cheeky monkey” note writer, remarking “it's a pity they didn't come and help turn it round”.

Susan said: “I received the letter two weeks ago. It was pushed through my postbox and said ‘to the occupier’. When I read the letter I thought ‘cheeky monkey’. I was annoyed they posted this through my letterbox. Why on earth didn't they knock on the door and say? They didn't sign off their name, they didn't want to be known did they? If you're going to do this at least have the decency to put your name to it. My son came round and changed the flag for me, I've not heard anything else since. To say that they'd been in the services you think they'd have more manners than that wouldn't you? It's a pity they didn't come and help turn it round the other way.”

The letter reads: “Hi there, just to let you know that your Union flag is being flown upside down. As a former member of HM services, this is highly disrespectful to those of us who fought for this country. I would ask that you rectify this error forthwith.”

Café owner Su Clyne, 58, who lived next door to Susan for 30 years, was furious at the cowardly letter and shared it on Facebook on January 12. Su, from Hatfield, South Yorkshire, said: “Susan's been like a mum to me all my life. She's a lovely neighbour and I can't understand why anyone would do that to her. She respects what our service men and women do. She changes it now and then sometimes she'll fly the Yorkshire flag and other times she'll put the Union Jack up.

“It's totally unacceptable. What gives them the right to actually do that and post a letter through someone's door and tell them to change it forthwith? That in itself is so, so rude. He or she is such a rude person because we don't even know whether it's male or female. They're cowards. If they fought for our country then I feel sorry for our country if we've got people like that fighting for us. My message to whoever wrote it is show yourself. Don't judge somebody when you don't know them. She didn't know it was the wrong way round.”

Su shared the note on Facebook, where many posted support for Susan. One wrote: “What a pompous note. Surely flying a flag at all shows respect!”

Another commented: “I can't believe someone has time to firstly notice this, secondly return home to write a disrespectful note, and thirdly go out again to post this letter. Get a life. There's wars going on, fires raging, and all u can think of is an upside down Union Jack. What a pity this person had nothing better to do.”