St Cennydd’s Church, Llangennith

I took this photo of the war memorial at this wonderful 12th Century church on the Gower a couple of weeks ago. I found it quite moving. Tomorrow is Remembrance Day. At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, we will remember the hundreds of thousands of young men who were sent to die in the trenches during the First World War. As a school child in the 1960’s, I learnt of the horrors of this war through the poetry of Wilfred Owen and was taught about the poppies growing in the fields of Flanders. Even at that young age, I found it hard to comprehend how this horror could be followed so closely by the Second World War. And yet, here we are, a hundred years on, with war in the Middle East and war in Europe. Is there something in our fundamental nature that makes fighting and killing inevitable? I really hope not and I really hope we will learn to cooperate with one another. One thing I do know is that ordinary people the world over want no part of this. Shortly after the gulf war, Janet and I were travelling in Jordan, never more than a few miles from Iraq, with soldiers at every checkpoint. Yet all the people we met wanted nothing more than to get on with their lives. I’m sure this is true everywhere. Nobody wants war except those in power who are, let’s be honest, only there for one purpose: to keep us all safe. So what’s the answer? Perhaps anyone who starts or votes for a war should be required to fight in the front line like the three young Beynon men whose names are on this memorial.