Wear Your Poppy With Pride

Its 11.11.13. Remembrance Day, a day set apart to honour those who sacrificed their all for the freedom we enjoy today.

As a child from a Military family, brought up in Malaya during the communist insurgency, we were ever reminded of how fragile a world we lived in. Travelling through that beautiful country meant convoys and armoured plated cars, six weekly intervals spent waiting for dad to return from jungle manoeuvres with the tubes of sweetened milk from his ration packs.....wondering if one day our wait would be in vain. Peace had been declared 7 years before but some areas of the world were still awaiting its advent.

When November came around we would often accompany him to the Armistice Day services, where, as Bugle Major he would sound 'Last Post' and 'Reveille', and we would listen in awe as the notes he made richocheted off the surrounding hillsides and echoed down through the valleys.

Standing in immaculately laid out cemetries our eyes fixed on rows upon rows of whitewashed crosses each one bearing the name of a brave young soldier who never questioned his duty to his country or its allies, or even the cost to himself. Every identical stark white cross was decorated with a blood red poppy....a poignant reminder of his sacrifice and the uncompromising promise of hope, of a future when wars would one day cease.

Amidst these very earliest memories we never needed to be reminded as children to 'Wear our poppy with Pride.'

So today as we remember all who served and gave their lives so courageously, let us also remember those still faithfully serving in the many restless areas around the world, to ensure lasting peace for us all and for the generations yet to come.

A day to remember......Lest we forget.