A foreign field

The poppies in the approach flight path to the bee hives are still flowering busily and lots of buds waiting to burst open. In Germany, the Remembrance Day is on the Sunday closest to 16th and remembers all those who died in armed conflicts or as the victims of violent oppression.

The time and date of the signing of the Armistice is also the start of the carnival season for some, the reason though going back centuries and connected with today's St Martins Day, the end of the agricultural year with a feast followed by 40 days of fasting before Christmas. The few events that take place today are usually in the big cities with a "storming" of the town hall. One won't see any further carnival activity until the new year. In these parts the kindergarten children do an evening candle /lamp procession in memory of St Martin, a conscript soldier and a true European.

My thoughts are always with the UK "version". A day to remember and hopefully to learn from the past. I don't have any knowledge of any of my ancestors on either Mother's (German) or Father's (English) side in WW1.

I personally have a big problem with WWI. Seems every Head of State of every European country had been spending years preparing to have a really good fight over who was to take the lion's share of the rest of the world. A whole generation of men & women paid the price of this slaughter, a mixture of medieval brutality and modern day clinical annihilation. Greed by a handful of "leaders" many blood relatives.

Not only was WWI fought at unimaginable cost to lives but the Treaty of Versailles with highly punitive costs to the losers and assisted by the world financial collapse of 1929, provided a perfect breeding ground for spreading fear and resulted in the rise of Nazism and Fascism from Sweden to Spain and Greece to Britain. So doubly an "expensive" war.

I don't need to write a word on WWII. My German Grandfather died just before war broke out. Before he died, my Grandmother flew from Dortmund to Berlin for a meeting with Göring to plead for her husband to be freed from having lost his Dr (gynaecologist) licence when he was prosecuted for carrying out an abortion, just one of an incredible number of prohibitions the Nazis placed on women. Many parallels to the practices in several parts of the world today.

My English grandfather died in 1935, like his German counterpart from ill health and I suspect mental pressure. My father was 26, single and wanted to flee his employer, joining up straight away and after basic training in northern England and in Northern Ireland was sent out to India where he was put in the Indian Army, serving there and in Burma.

He didn't talk about his experiennces. All I know his mother was informed that he was missing, presumed dead in Burma. Luckily he escaped from behind enemy lines. I found his service medals after he died and still have these. They were never shown to me as a child. I think the only personal thing he took as a positive out of the experience was the lifelong friendship with another Norfolk "boy", Sam Hinde.

I salute all women and men who have served and especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom and security and that includes those unknowingly projected in to defending what turned out to be less than desirable causes and those that worked & fought without a uniform.

I pray to whichever holy beings will isten, to never ever allow us to let these events be repeated on "European" soil again and to give us the strength in the "free" world to assist as best we can to erradicate wars from our planet. Until we all and especially our leaders push for a fairer world, this prayer is likely to be unanswered.

On a personal note the pink poppy is especially for "Poppy", a co-inhabitant of our planet who passed away on 28th October this year. Another hero who did her duty and brought joy to many.

No disrespect to the wonderful poppy appeal organisation, even if I would very much welcome the "appeal's" financial side having to close down for lack of anything to do.