81 days to go

Armed Forces Day, but also the hundredth anniversary of the assassination of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the "pistol shot" that started the First World War.

I have had those words in my head all day and eventually remembered where they had come from - Lawrence Durrell's very fine poem about Sarajevo, written in 1951 when visiting it was an exotic thing to do and when it had not forced itself into our consciences as a result of the more recent Balkan War.

This picture is a still from a documentary I made for BBC Scotland in 1998 for the 80th anniversary of the end of the First World War. It is from a piece of archive film showing the Seaforth Highlanders marching to Bedford Barracks in August 1914. It was used to illustrated another poem - Cha Till Maccruimein by Ewart Alan Mackintosh who was in the Seaforths and who was killed at Cambrai in 1917. His biography was written by former MSP and friend Colin Campbell.

The film - When will the War be by ? - is up on my Vimeo Channel to which , eventually, I will post some more of the things I made when I worked in TV (if I ever get time).