Remembering

The last few days have been a cause for remembering different things with grateful thanks to different people. First of all my mother reached the grand age of 92 having flirted with death several times in the last 12 months but now in the words of her grand-daughter seeing the birthday photos "she looks as well as she did 10 years ago". Many thanks to the staff at her care home for the TLC they lavish on her day after day.
Yesterday marked 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. I remember not quite believing my eyes and ears when it happened, waiting for the catch and being a bit stunned when it didn't happen. Then the following summer my daughter was part of a group of Guides at a large camp in (West) Germany. She was told roundly and firmly by her hosts not to refer to it as West Germany any more "We're all one country now". How strange it sounded to us who'd grown up with two halves all our lives to have teenagers telling us that it was all one. How difficult it was to get used to saying it and writing it on envelopes at Christmas. Now of course there's a whole generation who don't know what the fuss is about and that brings problems of its own - how to remember enough to make sure it doesn't happen again while looking forward and building for the future.
That same difficulty arises every November as we approach Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day. How do we ensure that the sacrifices made by people 90 years ago aren't forgotten or, even worse, minimised by the knowledge and understanding we now have of wrong decisions taken by commanders or the fact that politicians didn't learn the lessons. We can look now at the world and see many of the same kind of mistakes being made but it doesn't take away from the heroism on the spot of the people doing their job under incredibly dangerous circumstances. But how do we as politicians ask the awkward policy questions, ensure that the strategies are correct and based on proper evidence and decision making without it sounding as though we're denigrating the work of the armed forces? Nick Clegg tried it yesterday but journalists want instant sound bite answers and despite his efforts they were reducing it to one line at the end.
The arguments around the wearing of poppies seems to be even more dippy this year. Why do some people think that they're being bullied into wearing one? Surely what's important is that in some way each and every one of us makes an effort to ensure that those who've suffered in the armed forces are properly looked after no matter what we think of the politics which sent them into the war in the first place? Whether we do that by donating to the poppy appeal is irrelevant as is whether we wear the poppy having made the donation. Even less relevant is whether we wear the poppy in the "right" way for heaven's sake. If we ever reach the point where there's so little conflict in the world that we've got time to worry about whether the poppy leaf is up, down or sideways I'll be the first to rejoice.

Remembrance Sunday

This year, for the first time for a lot of years, a wreath was laid at Preston war memorial on behalf of the Borough and it was my privilege as a ward councillor to lay it. It was the first time I'd been to the service there as my more usual venue for remembrance is at Egglescliffe or representing the Liberal Democrat Group in Stockton centre.
During the church service leading up to the Act of Remembrance a serving officer spoke of his experience in Iraq in recent times and of the comfort and support given to members of the forces by their padres. But the words which struck me most strongly were those with which he started: "Until a few years ago Remembrance Sunday was about history. Now it's about the present. Almost everyone knows someone who's been affected by the recent conflicts". How right he is. So many people now knows someone who's serving in one of the conflict zones of the world, or has met a refugee from a conflict zone. It does help us to see something of the reality of war.
Only a handful of survivors of the fighting in 1914-18 are here to see the 90th anniversary of the end of that war. It was "the war to end all wars", and yet there hasn't really been peace since it ended. Human mistrust, greed, fear, pride, hunger - all contribute to ongoing conflicts. We fight over ownership of the world's resources instead of learning to share them. We fight because we're frightened that the other person will strike first. We fight because we perceive the other as wronging us or our friend. Turning the other cheek and loving our neighbours seem very remote concepts. Yet if we don't learn to do that we're going to fight ourselves to destruction sooner or later.

Some years ago on holiday in France we stopped for a break on our route and realised that we were in the region of the Somme, scene of so much bloodshed in 1916. I looked out over low lying marshy ground and the horror of trying to fight there with the equipment and clothing available then hit me. Several years later on another holiday we stumbled across a war cemetery - row upon row of gravestones for French and German soldiers. Countless hundreds of graves - one of the most moving sights ever for me. And then further along the road, small plots - half a dozen Canadian airmen here, a handful of another nationality there - all carefully tended, some by local people others by their own countrymen, but all immaculate. Small acts of Remembrance taking place every week as grass was cut, shrubs were trimmed, headstones were cleaned.
Those brave men and women who gave their lives in the great wars of the last century, many of whom lie buried in "foreign fields", will have died in vain if we don't do something more positive about living in peace. There's a hymn chorus which says "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me". Maybe that's the kind of action that should flow from the Act of Remembrance. A decision to work towards peace, at whatever level we function - at home, at work or in national government.
On Tuesday, the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day, we have the chance to stand together in silence and ponder just what we have done with the legacy of that war and what we should do in the future to make a fitting tribute to the fallen. Or do Laurence Binyon's famous words only apply at 11am on November 11th each year?

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.