Remember

Attending the Remembrance Service in the village this morning it was impressive to see the crowd three deep on all sides of the square around the war memorial.  A few berets marked out the veterans, but the rest were just, well, villagers, attending to show their respects.  Quite a few had children with them, the odd one perched on their dad’s shoulders and, in years and decades to come, no doubt these grown up children will in turn attend with their children.

Around about this time of year there’s normally a mild media prod at the convention of poppies and some liberal handwringing, but, with recent conflicts very much in our minds and images of war in the Middle East a daily diet on the news, any challenge to Remembrance Sunday and the wearing of the red poppy is, at best, a limp effort.  Warfare and loss can be commemorated without being celebrated.

After the wreath laying and an immaculately observed two minutes silence, there was a poem and prayers and then the church choir struck up the first verse of the National Anthem.  Having been at Twickenham last weekend to watch the Bar Bars play the All Blacks, I was part of the capacity crowd belting out ‘God Save the Queen’.

If you want the national anthem sung properly, can I suggest that a stadium full of 70,000 odd Englishmen who have had a beer or two each is pretty much unbeatable.