Monday 14th November

I am back in England and visited Mum and Dad on Saturday.  We watched the Remembrance Festival from the Royal Albert Hall, and then yesterday the laying of the wreaths at the Cenotaph.  Of late I have tended to miss these TV programmes; they tend to have a same-ness about them, obviously – and I suppose in a busy life it is easier to miss them than to carve out a bit of time to watch.

It goes without saying that we must never forget.  But although we remember the dead; buying poppies, laying wreaths and of course in these Centenary years since the Great War (though there was nothing great about it) it seems particularly poignant.  But how strange that interspersed with a few days of Remembrance news we have new reports of villages around Mosul that have been captured, despite fierce opposition (which is shorthand for a lot of killing).  We hear little of the bombing raids on Syria, but they are still continuing while Donald Trump insists that Nato members must increase their Defence Spending, and mostly unreported, the increase in numbers of rough sleepers, many of them ex-soldiers.

On the one hand we almost celebrate death, and I don’t mean to demean any individual grief which must be all too real.  But the long grey coats peppered with medals worn by Generals, old and stiff in their demeanour are almost glorying in the show of militarism.  And worst of all the Politicians, ritually laying wreaths when maybe one day they will be committing young men to new deaths.  I just wish as much effort would be put into ending and preventing further bloodshed as it is in commemorating those who have already died.

I am an unashamed Pacifist.  Unless every single one of the enemy is killed you will have to sit down with them and start talking; why not cut out the middle man, War, and talk to our ‘enemies’ before we send in the bombers and the troops?