Artificial flower

Despite what the media would have you believe Scotland didn't fall silent at 11 today. In our little office I was finishing off a meeting about Christmas and the rest of the team were working. D was at an appointment at the REH.

It was a networking day - coffee with E at the Storytelling Centre, lunch with G at 'La Garrigue' and an evening drink with Y (tea) to talk about Housing and health. I'm talked out.

I'm poppied out too. I wish with all this focus on the remembering about WW1 there was more accuracy about why it was fought. It saddened me to hear a woman on the tv news say that the almost 900,000 who died and are remembered by the amazing Rivers of Blood died to give us our freedom. Unfortunately they died or were maimed or psychologically scarred for nothing quite so important. They died because of alliances and treaties made to secure Imperial power and trade.

That makes it all the worse. But that knowledge seems to have got lost in the sea of sonerous tv voiceovers. We remember WW1 because so many died , because almost every family in the country was touched, and because we can - we have the photos and the newsreel footage in a way we didn't for previous wars,and because it took place so close to home.

I grew up 50 years ago learning about WW1 from 'The Great War', which over 26 weeks talked about the causes and the effects and had the powerful voices of survivors. It wasn't a just war (is any war just?). It was a stupid war.and it may not have given us our freedom but it changed lives, forever.