Accepting the common touch

Subject: Accepting the common touch

Our memories are so fleeting so irreverent of time passing. It’s Remembrance  Day today, the day we remember the dead in war. It’s always such a fitting memorial with the young guardsmen standing to attention remembering their fallen comrades in arms who gave their lives on the command, take that ridge, surround that village, charge that energy line. Lives were lost men, went down never to rise

The King stands remembering I’m sure his mother who for years had been the focus of this day of remembrance now sadly missing evidence of time passing.

The extent of the sacrifice is evident by the scope and breadth of the political  and diplomatic influence who patiently wait to lay a wreath, a measure of the influence we once had. The senior politicians, the PM and the ex PMs, once a revered group now with politics in such dire straights questioned about their part in our public life.

Then come the veterans. Long lines of them stretching all the way down Whitehall as they shuffle slowly forward with their wreath in hand, an effort for some, possibly in some cases, their last, but an effort they wouldn’t renege upon on this day of Remembrance.  

The bands strike up and we do what we do best, we put on a show.  Not the massed military show reminiscent of the Kremlin's Red Square parade or the precision of the Chinese in Tiananman Square but a simple rag tag salute from ex soldiers with long memories. It’s a measure of our democracy when measured against totalitarian states that we accept the common touch.