Remembrance Sunday

In the same way as bonfire night is celebrated over a six-week span, people (particularly TV presenters) start wearing poppies in mid-October nowadays. But, despite all my moaning, it is still a very important occasion and the Royal Albert Hall commemoration was particularly well done. The BBC have found in Chris Stewart a wonderfully solemn voice for the big occasion. How extraordinary to see Harry Patch (the last surviving Tommy from the First War’s Western Front) wheeled out – aged 109.

In my odd way I found myself on Remembrance Sunday, at the 11th hour on the 11th day, in a lay-by off the main Dover-Folkestone road as I hurried in pursuit of a ferry. Other cars had stopped for the two minutes silence including (slightly to my surprise) a French motorist.


Once in France I marked the day by stopping for rather more than two minutes at the Etaples Commonwealth Military Cemetery which has 12,000 graves of Commonwealth soldiers, mostly from the First War, and the almost inevitable Lutyens memorial. A few years back the cemetery was vandalised by yobs with paint spray canisters, but now it looks immaculate. The French were treating the day with just as much respect as the British and the locals had laid wreaths alongside those from Britain and the Commonwealth. Sad though that our troops are still involved in active warfare. Peace on earth would be a very good idea.