For ever and ever

An early morning walk - which a wrong turning turned from a stroll into a hike. In the small graveyard in Bowness-on-Windermere, the sun was catching this cross.

It is erected in thanksgiving for victory in the South African Wars - 1903 - and in memory of those who "laid down their lives for Sovereign and Empire".

In such a beautiful setting the words somehow seem brutal. Just a few years after this cross was erected, Wilfred Owen was describing "the old lie" - Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. (It is sweet and pleasant to die for one's native land..)

100 years on and not much changes. The phrase "lions led by donkeys" dates back to the Crimea. To the extent that in a political democracy we - in some degree - are the leaders, we desperately need better ways to face the world without slaughtering brave young people.