Rememberance
I can’t quite work out whether in recent years –perhaps because we’ve been involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, or perhaps because there are fewer and fewer left of those who served in the World Wars– we’ve made more of 
Rememberance Sunday, or whether I’ve just become more sensitive to it with the passing of time.
It always makes the weekend of my birthday oddly poignant, but I thought it’s important that we at least mark the sacrifice of the men and women who have sacrificed their lives for what they believe is right. Even a couple of minutes’ worth of silence is only one-thirtieth of an hour, less than one seven-hundredth of a day.
If you have a chance to listen to Eddie Butler’s eulogy to Sir Tasker Watkins, the former president of the Welsh Rugby Union, do so. It almost literally takes the breath away. I can’t imagine how terrifying the experiences in that Normandy cornfield must have been.
I think Afghanistan and Iraq certainly has the effect, because we are more constantly aware of our soldiers dying. Though of course in Britain at least World Wars have never been just history, at least not yet. It may change in 20-40 years when people who were affected by it or their direct descendants who got first-hand stories are no longer here.
But I do feel that two minutes silence of respect is the least we can do. I am not the one for picking up many causes, but valuing our soldiers is right there on top. I went to Belgium when I was 19, and the affect of seeing rows and rows of graves of boys who were no older than me was tremendous, and it brought the war closer to me than any history class could ever have done.