The Sunday Reflection #67 - Remembrance Sunday 2025

 What a difference a year makes. Reading through the blog I posted for Remembrance Suday 2024, it is amazing how much and how little has changed. Normally, I write this feature after I get back from 8.30am Mass on a Sunday. This week, I am writing it at 10.30pm. There are several reasons. The main one being that I recently became chairman of the Mill Hill Services club and had to lay a wreath on behalf of the club at the memorial service on the Ridgeway at 11am, then lead a short service at the club. I ended up staying at the club until 3pm, when I returned to watch Manchester City vs Liverpool.

I felt the weight of responsibility heavily on my shoulders, my Dad was a veteran, a bomber pilot and I think he'd be proud of me becoming chairman of the club and laying the wreath. I hope I did him proud. The Sun shone on us this morning, so I know he was looking down affectionately.

There are several observations I made this year. Less people than ever seem to be wearing poppies. I find this crushingly sad. We should remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. I also note that our national flags seem to have taken on a different meaning for many people over the last year. It seems some people see the flag as a source of division and some people see it as something to express political viewpoints. I believe it should be neither, it should be something that we reserve for national celebrations and commemorations, where we can all get behind it, be it sporting events or Remembrance Sunday. I am proud to fly the flag on such occasions. If we are truly proud of our flag, do we really want to tape cheap ones to lamp posts, where they get dirty and end up looking a bit forlorn. I believe in freedom of speech and freedom of expression, so I wouldn't band anyone from flying flags or painting them on their shed etc, but when they start looking grubby after shix months, does that really express national pride?

Remembrance Sunday is not a triumphal celebration, it is a solemn reflection, where we remember people who were better and braver than us. People who willingly made the ultimate sacrifice. I think it is worth remembering that they have built a better UK. At the end of the second world war, we had no universal health service. Homes did not have central heating, fridges, washing machines, televisions, etc. Many people lived in slums, suffering damp conditions. No one's children are killed or maimed by smallpox, polio or diptheria. Huge steps have been taken to address child poverty. Only the most wealthy had cars, took holidays abroad and could afford to put the heating on in their homes. Most people would wake up with ice on their windows in winter and warm was from coal fires. The average life expectancy in 1946 was 69, it is now 82. Why do I mention this. Well I was thinking of my Mum today, and I recall her berating one of my friends when they moaned about how much tougher things are for people today and how much simpler it was when she had kids.

Usually when I write about Remembrance Sunday, I talk about my Dad, but for some reason today, I was thinking more about my Mum. She wouldn't have been allowed to attend the Mill Hill Services club ceremony after the war in 1946. They had a men only rule. Whilst her brothers were in the army and thankfully returned, she stayed in London and witnessed the blitz. Her Dad was a WW1 veteran who was scarred physically and mentally by the war. His lungs were ruined by mustard gas and he died aged 66 when they packed up. Her Mum died of TB in 1960, she had not been innoculated. Whilst my Mum suffered the blitz, she also had food rationing, things like make up, when she was a teenager (the term didn't really exist then), were in very short supply, usually as gifts from American soldiers. She recieved a telegram in June 1944, which informed her my Dad had been shot down and was presumed dead (he wasn't, he was a prisoner of war). She worked at a clothes shop in Regent Street (I believe) that was bombed to the ground on her day off. Many of her colleagues were killed.  She then got a job at Barclays bank head office and worked throughout the war, until she was married and had children in 1945. She told me of the blown up buses she saw etc.

So, this year, I dedicate this blog to my Mum and all the women who went through the Blitz in London, and built this City where we sit in our centrally heated homes, drinking chilled beer from the fridge and moan about how bad things are.

The last picture of my Mum and Dad together in 1987,
with my nephew on holiday in Florida
LEST WE FORGET