This was originally published as an essay on Nigel Farage’s Substack. Read and subscribe here.
“To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.”
The First World War was just three years gone when the first poppies were sold in Britain. Field Marshal Douglas Haig had retired from service, and devoted himself to working for the betterment of ex-servicemen struggling to adapt to civilian life. As part of this work, he had helped to establish the Royal British Legion, and alongside it a fund to support veterans with housing and work. The poppies were sold to raise money for this fund: red silk, with the letters “H.F.” stamped in the centre.
Today, 105 years on, the British forces in the trenches of the First World War have passed beyond living memory. The battles of the Somme and of Passchendaele are now our history, rather than something carried by those who fought there. And it is this distance that makes Remembrance Sunday more important with each passing year.
John McCrae composed “In Flanders Fields” while working at a dressing station near Ypres. It is from this work that we take the poppy as a symbol of remembrance, and it is in this work that we find the clearest explanation of why we do so: “To you from failing hands we throw / The torch; be yours to hold it high”.
The sacrifices of the young men who fought and died for Britain deserve to be remembered. We owe them a debt not just of gratitude and remembrance, but of service. We must ensure that the country they fought for continues, and that it remains a country that they could take pride in.
On Sunday morning, I stood on Whitehall holding a wreath of poppies, and listened as Big Ben tolled the hour, and the two-minute silence began. It’s an eerie, otherworldly thing. You are there, in the centre of the capital, in the midst of an enormous crowd of people. You might as well be on a solitary mountain peak.
There is an old homily for Holy Saturday which describes the world between the death and resurrection of Christ: “a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness”. I can think of no better way to express the two minutes between the bells striking eleven and the shattering of the silence by the salute and the last post. The world is still, and the wreath weighs more.
The wreaths were laid as the massed band played the funeral march. I thought, as I laid mine, of those young men. Of the sacrifice they made, and our duty to honour it. Of those who fought for Britain in the wars that came afterwards. While time moves onwards, the foundations of our country were secured by their heroism.
To do my part in remembering them was a great honour.
Three weeks ago, I went to France and Belgium with a small group of friends and colleagues. I have been visiting the battlefield sites of the First World War since the 1980s, but this year was different. It was, as always, deeply moving.
At Vimy Ridge, you can visit the preserved trenches, and see the shell-pocked ground. Even now, 109 years on, you can almost see what the ground would have looked like then. The cold, the mud, and the fear, remain almost impossible to imagine.
So is what the families of the sons, brothers and fathers would have felt upon receiving the news of the death of their loved ones. A family who lost a soldier received a memorial plaque – a “dead man’s penny”. The thought of that grief is devastating to me, and I found it physically hard to continue explaining the practice to our group, particularly when you start to think of the scale of loss. Across this great country, there were just over 50 villages where every man who left to do his duty in the First World War returned alive.
Towards the end of our tour, we visited a site just outside of Ypres. There, medical staff performed vital, life-saving work under horrendous conditions. One of those stationed there was John McCrae, who would die of illness and overwork before the end of the war.
The torch has been passed, and we owe these men better than to allow the war to drift into the background of our national story. Remembrance is a collective endeavour. Through the sacrifices of British and Commonwealth troops, side by side, it connects and unifies us. It has never been more important.
Together with my colleagues, I have put together a short film for Remembrance Sunday, visiting the war graves in France and doing my small part in this effort.
We will remember them.
“To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.”
The First World War was just three years gone when the first poppies were sold in Britain. Field Marshal Douglas Haig had retired from service, and devoted himself to working for the betterment of ex-servicemen struggling to adapt to civilian life. As part of this work, he had helped to establish the Royal British Legion, and alongside it a fund to support veterans with housing and work. The poppies were sold to raise money for this fund: red silk, with the letters “H.F.” stamped in the centre.
Today, 105 years on, the British forces in the trenches of the First World War have passed beyond living memory. The battles of the Somme and of Passchendaele are now our history, rather than something carried by those who fought there. And it is this distance that makes Remembrance Sunday more important with each passing year.
John McCrae composed “In Flanders Fields” while working at a dressing station near Ypres. It is from this work that we take the poppy as a symbol of remembrance, and it is in this work that we find the clearest explanation of why we do so: “To you from failing hands we throw / The torch; be yours to hold it high”.
The sacrifices of the young men who fought and died for Britain deserve to be remembered. We owe them a debt not just of gratitude and remembrance, but of service. We must ensure that the country they fought for continues, and that it remains a country that they could take pride in.
On Sunday morning, I stood on Whitehall holding a wreath of poppies, and listened as Big Ben tolled the hour, and the two-minute silence began. It’s an eerie, otherworldly thing. You are there, in the centre of the capital, in the midst of an enormous crowd of people. You might as well be on a solitary mountain peak.
There is an old homily for Holy Saturday which describes the world between the death and resurrection of Christ: “a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness”. I can think of no better way to express the two minutes between the bells striking eleven and the shattering of the silence by the salute and the last post. The world is still, and the wreath weighs more.
The wreaths were laid as the massed band played the funeral march. I thought, as I laid mine, of those young men. Of the sacrifice they made, and our duty to honour it. Of those who fought for Britain in the wars that came afterwards. While time moves onwards, the foundations of our country were secured by their heroism.
To do my part in remembering them was a great honour.
Three weeks ago, I went to France and Belgium with a small group of friends and colleagues. I have been visiting the battlefield sites of the First World War since the 1980s, but this year was different. It was, as always, deeply moving.
At Vimy Ridge, you can visit the preserved trenches, and see the shell-pocked ground. Even now, 109 years on, you can almost see what the ground would have looked like then. The cold, the mud, and the fear, remain almost impossible to imagine.
So is what the families of the sons, brothers and fathers would have felt upon receiving the news of the death of their loved ones. A family who lost a soldier received a memorial plaque – a “dead man’s penny”. The thought of that grief is devastating to me, and I found it physically hard to continue explaining the practice to our group, particularly when you start to think of the scale of loss. Across this great country, there were just over 50 villages where every man who left to do his duty in the First World War returned alive.
Towards the end of our tour, we visited a site just outside of Ypres. There, medical staff performed vital, life-saving work under horrendous conditions. One of those stationed there was John McCrae, who would die of illness and overwork before the end of the war.
The torch has been passed, and we owe these men better than to allow the war to drift into the background of our national story. Remembrance is a collective endeavour. Through the sacrifices of British and Commonwealth troops, side by side, it connects and unifies us. It has never been more important.
Together with my colleagues, I have put together a short film for Remembrance Sunday, visiting the war graves in France and doing my small part in this effort.
We will remember them.
