The John Griff Column: At the going down of the sun, will we learn by remembering them?

Remembrance Sunday this year precedes Armistice Day. All over the world there will be acts of remembrance taking place to honour the memory and sacrifice of those who went before - on all sides. It will also honour those who serve in the armed forces today. Ceremonial uniforms will be pulled from wardrobes, boots cleaned and at 11.00, briefly, silence will fall. Just as it should.

As a child I recall Remembrance Sunday being marked, albeit on TV. My father, who saw service in the army during World War 2, would always stand at certain points in the service and particularly during the playing of the Last Post. I don’t recall tears, but he often seemed lost in his thoughts then. We didn’t talk about it much – I was too young to appreciate the sense of loss and of sacrifice which he so clearly did. After dad’s death in 1997, the very first person I reached out to tell was a fellow comrade who had gone through basic training in Airborne Forces with him. The war years taught young men and women to live their lives to the maximum with scant thought about longevity because there was no guarantee that they would ever reach it. I sometimes wonder if their joie de vivre is something we lack – there are so many lessons we should have learned from war in our ‘civilised’ societies – apparently we still need to. There are many positive people who get it and get on, working to create a better world for those around them. And yet there are so many atrocities and such terrible negativity which sets mankind back, rather than catapulting it forward. Was all that sacrifice really worth it?

Recently I dug out my dad’s war medals - in truth I’d ignored them for a long time. The brown vinyl bag into which they’d been sealed decades ago had gone largely untouched in a cupboard. In it I again found not only the full-size medals but also their corresponding miniatures and a War Office letter advising him of what he had been awarded for services to the state. I picked up one of the rails of miniatures - and was amazed to see embossed marks stating that they’d been mounted by Montague Jeffery on St Giles Street. Now, a family heirloom sprang to life, representing peaceful life away from the front line and back here in the town not only of my birth, but my dad’s as well. The medals told the story of where dad had spent time during the war – something I knew (and still know) very little of. It was the way of ex-forces personnel – loose lips and all that.

The little medals had become a somewhat tarnished with age and although wanting to clean them up I didn’t want to damage their ribbons. So, I went to the very same shop my father had visited in his day, in search of wisdom. There, I learned that it’s not really the done thing to clean medals too much – leaving them to tarnish is instead its own nod of respect to earlier, more troubled times. A light buff with a jeweller’s cloth might bring back some of the shine though. So buff, I did. I’m so glad the shop remains – it is a tangible link to that time and, perhaps, to some human values which have been eroded or lost altogether to the pace and aggression of modern life.

Armistice Day this year falls next Monday. At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month a small party will process to the cenotaph behind All Saints Church to lay wreaths to the fallen of both World Wars. Like Whitehall’s, Wood Hill’s cenotaph was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Many will ignore it but on Sunday and Monday it will provide an important focus. I have a role in that small party, laying a wreath on behalf of the Lord Lieutenant, himself the representative of The King. Being the next-of-kin to a former member of forces personnel entitles me to wear my father’s miniature medals in his memory. I will do that too – with pride.

The lessons of service for the greater good are still there being taught. Maybe at 11.00 we can all learn something – by pausing for a couple of minutes. It might let a little peace in.

Lest we forget.