My father was in the army. As a teenager he lied about his age and went into the army when he was actually too young to do so. He wasn't alive during World War 1 but he served in World War 2. He was in the Royal Engineers and it was from him that I learned about Bailey bridges. Being brought up in an army family the Remembrance Day parades and services were a very important part of my life. My father died in 2000 and thinking about him last night and thinking about my mother, who supported him so well in his army career, I recited and uploaded to my YouTube channel the famous war poem "For the Fallen" written by Robert Laurence Binyon and from which the "Ode of Remembrance" is taken. Although this poem was written in 1914 and honoured the World War I British war dead of that time I was thinking of my father and I was thinking of all of those who have died and suffered as a result of war, in all of those conflicts past and present in whatever part of the world. May we have no more wars.

This Siegried Sassoon poem is a sad reminder of those who could not cope with the horrors of war and for whom more understanding is needed.

Suicide in the Trenches

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

For my father and mother