When the lamps go out

Although the vigils will be held tomorrow - the 100th anniversary of Britain's entry into WW1, it was the evening before that foreign secretary Edward Grey said "The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

I'm almost at the end of reading All Quiet on the Western Front, looks like my timing is perfect and I shall finish it tomorrow. I have regular momentary lapses where I have forgotten the young men are German not English, they're just boys really sent to fight for something they didn't understand.

For all the horror of conflict, I find Grey's words too bleak. In twenty years of visiting, working and living in war zones I feel that whilst I've seen the worst of human nature, I've also seen some of the best too. The lamps never completely go out….