Dear Philippa,

 

Yesterday I attended the Remembrance Sunday service at our local church. Pretty good turnout, and a moving event as it always is. Old men sporting campaign medals, and no doubt other sorts of medals, polished for the day, who we have to remind ourselves were young once, looked danger in the face and knew fear. Now they are grey, out of shape many of them, but still to attention. Few of my age now know what they know, but twenty years ago there would have been many more, the men who won the war.

 

The format of the service was familiar: Roll-call of the Fallen, a surprisingly long list for so small a place, Laying of Wreaths, The Last Post, The silence, and Reveille. The final bit was the singing of the National Anthem from which was omitted my favourite verse, seldom if ever sung these days, except on the quiet. Let me remind you of it:

 

 

Few now remember who Marshal Wade was but his assignment is still dear to many. This verse was quietly dropped when the Scots got a bit upset.

 

It struck me, looking round the church, which is almost nine hundred years old, that the service assumes that history began in 1914, or that the centuries before that date enjoyed uninterrupted peace. Not a bit of it – since that building was raised we have had Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt and Trafalgar. Why don’t they get a mention, lest we forget? 

 

An interesting vignette. My clever economist friend turned out in a strange, brown tweed suit whose cut was slightly off – it had the whiff of a Far Eastern sweatshop about it. I assumed that he was going ratting after church and wouldn’t have time to change, but he arrived, still wearing it, at the excellent curry lunch generously cooked and provided by a retired colonel. No-one referred to the suit, but I could see them looking.

 

 

Best wishes,

 

Howard