‘We will remember them.’ Those words will be uttered this weekend by hundreds of thousands of people, young and old, throughout the United Kingdom and further afield, as Britain and the Commonwealth nations remember our war dead. They are taken from a poem written by Lancaster man Laurence Binyon in the early stages of the First World War, which was supposed to be the “war to end war”.

Some hope that turned out to be! Even though the war against Germany ended on 11th November 1918, hostilities continued elsewhere, as our Navy suffered casualties conveying supplies to the “White Russians” in their unsuccessful struggle against the new “Red Russian” government.

Subsequently, leaving aside lesser conflicts, we are conscious of the outbreak, in 1939, of the Second World War, even more destructive than the first. Since then, British forces have suffered death and injury in such far flung places as Korea, Malaysia, Suez, Cyprus, Aden, Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Today, although British forces are not currently involved, there is war and destruction in the Holy Land, Lebanon, Syria, Ukraine, Sudan and other parts of Africa, and elsewhere, to say nothing of internal oppression in many countries.

Why is the human race so prone to violence, and will things ever change? As, this weekend, you remember the casualties of war, and honour those who defend us today, resolve not to be violent in action, word, or thought, and pray that, sooner rather than later, war may be only a memory.

Written by Fr Anthony Keefe, Chaplain to the Monastery of Our Lady of Hyning.

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