A famous passage in the Book of Ecclesiastes was adapted into a song entitled “Turn! Turn! Turn!” in 1959, and later became a US number one in 1965 for a band called The Byrds. My favourite version of this song has to be the Seekers recording. You can hear it on YouTube (see link).

The biblical passage, and hence the song proclaims that there is a time and a place for everything: war and peace, laughter and sorrow... So what is tomorrow for?

Remembrance Day is a time for us all to reflect on the past atrocities and the men and women who fought for our freedom. It falls on the 11th November every year, marking that momentous occasion ninety-one years on the 11th November 1918 when the armistice was signed. It was a pivotal moment when the Great War, the war they said would be over by Christmas 1914 saw an end.

The First World War saw the death of more than fifteen million people. We hoped it would be the “war to end all wars”; unfortunately that was not the case. The twentieth century has been a century of turmoil- two world wars, uneasy anxiety in the Cold War, the Falklands, the Suez War... I took a look at the following articles on Wikipedia: ‘List of wars 1900–1944’ and ‘List of wars 1945–1989’. I was truly shocked to discover the number of wars that took place in just eighty-nine years.

This year’s Remembrance Sunday will be the first with no surviving veterans of the First World War. It is a cruel reminder that time is passing; soon enough the centenary of the outbreak of WWI will be upon us. It was the 28th June 1914.

So let us remember them- all the people who have sacrificed something for us over the past few centuries. I leave you with the final two lines of the Ode of Remembrance:

“...At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them”

VI © MMIX