11/11/11

The murkiness and dismal weather was entirely appropriate for today- 11/11/11-Remembrance Day when in 1918 the guns fell silent on the Western Front marking the end of World War 1.

I don't suppose there are many families in Britain who have not cause to remember relatives lost during the 4 years of that 'war to end all wars'.
His Lordship and I both lost uncles who died before we were born and whom we only know through family tales.

We know now that the 1914-18 war was not the 'war to end all wars' and we have cause to remember the fallen in many more wars, some of which continue to this day.
It's a sad affair that the peoples in the world seem impossible to live in peace; there are always men and nations who want more dominance and power than the next, and will stop at nothing short of war.

And so we stood in silence along with other shoppers for 2 minutes at 11 o'clock this morning on this the eleventh month remembering the dead of all the recent wars, and particularly our relations who died before they were out of their teens, and wondering what kind of men they would have become had they had the chance of life.

This is His Lordship in suitably contemplative mood.