Remembrance Day

We are not a particularly religious family, although my mum is actually a church minister. As Hannah was visiting my parents this weekend, she went along to church this morning to hear Mum preach. 

Hannah reported back later just how impressed and moved she'd been as my mum told the story of a family who, in the early years of the twentieth century, walked from the East End of London to a village called New Malden in order to start a new life.

They had nothing planned in advance, and once they arrived, the father simply knocked on doors until they found a place to rent. 

Later, the three older sons from the family went off to fight in the First World War. Two died, one at the Somme and one at Ypres. When the third came home on leave he naturally didn't want to go back, but he had no choice and he was killed, too. 

Those three men were my mum's uncles, whom she never met.