Lest we forget.

Lest we forget.

Lest we should ever forget. This weekend should be indelibly etched on all our minds for ever more. It is a weekend heavy with sombreness, mourning, grief and loss. It is the one time of the year when we set aside our concerns for the world around us, quietly remember the two World Wars and pray for lasting peace. It is not too much to ask of a world that still seems hell bent on a path of self destruction. At times it almost feels as if we have not only ignored the lessons of the past but are determined to overlook the present day and, quite certainly, the future.

This morning we were treated to the frivolities that have always accompanied the London Lord Mayor's Show, the annual street pageant that has wound its way splendidly around the City of London every year since the days when Dick Whittington was a lad. The children have lined the streets year after year, patriotic Union Jacks always fluttering and families have travelled down to London from all points of the compass. By now you have to be familiar with the whole pomp and ceremony of it all. It is England basking in its deeply rooted traditions.

And yet tonight at the Royal Albert Hall in London, thoughts will turn solemnly to the soldiers, those brave and heroic men and women who sacrificed their lives so that we could be here to witness the present day. The bloodshed, suffering and torment can still be seen, heard and felt 75 years later because the memories still hurt, the images are seared into our consciousness and the red poppies still securely pinned to our coats. It is a feeling that may never ever go away, a sense of numbness, speechlessness, horror and helpless shock.

So it is that our marvellous soldiers with their seemingly endless row of  medals will stand to attention tonight and tomorrow morning for Remembrance Sunday. Tomorrow they will march proudly along Whitehall and the Cenotaph where they will promptly doff their berets and caps, acutely aware of the gravity and momentousness of the occasion. The yellowing leaves will fall reverentially to the ground and the whole of both London and the world will stop what it's doing and bow its head.

There will be the most poignantly painful of silences as well there should be because at 11.00 tomorrow morning the trumpets and trombones will play those funereal pieces of classical music, the Last Post, a tragic and heartbreaking dirge that has always sounded utterly appropriate for this most grave of all occasions. Then the cymbals will clash resoundingly and those wonderful men and women wearing thick, long black coats will wipe away a private flood of tears because this is the one weekend of the year that should always be acknowledged.

Then they will march along Whitehall, arms swinging obediently, stride lengthening and heads now raised high on a crisp and evocative morning in London. They will keep marching for as long as it takes them to remind us of the senseless futility of war, all wars. It will be too much for some, if not all, for those gathered because the emotion of it all may prove too overwhelming for words.

But deep within us is that inner resilience, that strength of character that allows us just to think and reflect and then hope that any world war never darkens our corridor again. We come from the generation of grandsons and grand-daughters who were Holocaust survivors. They were the fathers, mothers, aunties, uncles and cousins who fought remarkably in the Battle of Britain, who traipsed across blood stained lands, ran through forests and who were evacuated to the country because they knew they had to escape from Adolf Hitler and his barbarically murderous henchmen.

Tomorrow morning though both the government of the day, the shadow cabinet, the Royal Family and every conceivable dignitary from both the Commonwealth and the world will lay their poppy festooned wreaths on the Cenotaph. They will step back for a moment or two very thoughtfully because we'll never know what's going through their minds. They will kneel very briefly, bow their heads and try to make sense of the whole day. This is a very outward expression of national goodwill, a demonstration of utter dignity and deference at its most impressive.

The Remembrance service is held every year and for all time. Because the problem is that although 75 years seems an inordinately long passage of time, the chances are that the Second World War may well become lost in the mists of time. Of course we should never forget and of course we should always cherish our parents and grandparents, grateful for the people who provided us with our ultimate salvation. Let us please take just a couple of minutes, maybe an afternoon, to just sit for a while and think of those who put their lives on the line for us. We should never ever forget.