As the few become fewer, we must always remember

‘Lockdowns do not compare with the privations of daily 1940s life’

- Ross Clark

AMID A pandemic, when we are dealing with a more immediate cause of loss, it would be very easy for us to allow remembrance of those who died in wars to slip from our collective consciousness. Indeed, many people have remarked on how poppies seem to be a lot less visible this year.

It is perhaps inevitable that the suffering of war seems a lot less raw than it used to do. The wartime generation is rapidly passing now, so fewer and fewer of us have elderly relatives who can recount their experiences of the Second World War. You have to be at least 94 to have served in that conflict.

Moreover, with our troops now home from Afghanistan, and with Islamic State defeated in Syria and Iraq, we may individually feel less connection with the Armed Forces. Reports of British service personnel dying in combat are, thankfully, not often in the news as they were a decade ago.

Yet for all this we should make sure that we continue to mark Remembrance Sunday as we have always done: as a solemn reminder of the horrors of war as well as an occasion to mark our gratitude towards those who have served – especially to those who lost their lives. Not only that, we should take care to continue our annual act of remembrance even when there is no one left to recount personal experiences of either of the world wars.