On the eve of this Remembrance Sunday - commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Armistice, it seems appropriate for me to turn to the last words he penned on a conflict he managed to survive from 

my father, who served with the 1st Btn. Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, 5th Division..

"11/11/18 - Marched into Le Quesnoy about mid-day & took over the military barracks from the New Zealanders."

 And there you have it.  No more than a couple of lines to mark the passing of that awful generation-

decimating war from a young man who was still a teen-ager when it ended.  His kind may have

struggled unsuccessfully against any repeat as WW2 loomed on the horizon but they were perhaps the

best equipped to deal with its inevitability.  It is this that must be borne in mind, even while we regret

the fighting and its ghastly cost, especially to my father's generation in both their early and middle lives,

their best years beset by the need to resist tyranny from the same sort of aggrandizement..

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