Time to remember….

 11am Sunday in a little town in the north west part of Surrey that used to be known as Middlesex . Hundreds of people of all ages huddled around our local war memorial. Maybe it’s me but there seem to be many more people there than last year. All gathered in silence to remember those who gave their lives in the service of their country.

To my shame I never used to make that short trip up to the high street. Oh I would buy my annual poppy and pay lip service to Remembrance Sunday but that was it. It took the involvement of my daughters in the Remembrance Day parades, through their guiding activities, to finally get me to show proper respect. The irony of the next generation leading me to this rather than the previous generation is not lost on me.

Maybe it was because as a sixties child I was the last generation that was still living in the shadow of the Second World War. We all had grandparents who had fought in it and parents who had experienced it through bombing raids, evacuation and rationing. War films were commonplace on TV. Our Action Men fought the Germans. We enjoyed living off of our victories in 1945 (and 1966).We even laughed when Basil Fawlty told us not to mention “it”. It was still real to us even if we hadn’t experienced it directly. We were constantly being pushed to remember “the War”, and as a result that day in November was perhaps not special enough.

Then we had our first real experience of our own war through the Falklands conflict. It may have happened on the other side of the world and not really affected us at all, but it was a reminder to us that we had an army that could be sent off to fight (as opposed to their deployment on home soil in Northern Ireland). Subsequent involvement in Kuwait, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan has shown us that sadly our soldiers continue to die on active service.

65 years after the last truly global conflict the importance of remembering is probably stronger than ever. My daughter is currently part of a project to ensure the horrors of Auschwitz are not forgotten. Every new generation needs to take on board the lessons of the past so that they do not end up experiencing it for themselves.

I am not going to make any fatuous attempt to draw any parallels with Enterprise Britain. Sometimes we all have to put aside our daily challenges, problems and grumbles and just take some time to remember. For their tomorrows, if not today….