Lest we forget

Remembrance day is with us again.

I have written on the subject of Remembrance Day itself more than once before in these musings and feel no need to add to those thoughts here.

I have been aware this year, however… or maybe actually for the past few years… of a seemingly increasing number of anniversaries that demand reflection and which give us pause for thought.

Now – to my way of thinking these febrile times mean that  ‘pause for thought’ is no bad thing and I have indeed myself been taking the opportunity to reflect on a variety of past events and occurrences which – for many reasons – merit our attention.

Last year brought to an end the four year cycle of commemorations of the centenaries of the many momentous events from the Great War on which we rightly reflect. 2018 also marked the fiftieth anniversary of the happenings of that most startling of post-war years – 1968.

2019 – however – boasts its own share of dramatic commemorations. It is fifty years since the moon landings – and who of my generation can forget that extraordinary accomplishment. It is the fiftieth anniversary of Woodstock and – yet to come – of Altamont, as well as of the start of the troubles in Northern Ireland. It is also the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Lord Louis Mountbatten. I have written in these pages several times of the urgency of remembering these latter events and of how they came about… in the urgent interests of preventing them from so doing again.

The development at this juncture in the calendar that we perhaps remember as having the greatest emotional impact on those of my generation occurred thirty years ago. I still find it difficult to ruminate upon that extraordinary period in which the Berlin Wall came down and the communist empire that was the USSR dissolved before our disbelieving eyes without finding myself once again moved to tears and I know from the testimony of others that I am far from alone in this reaction.

When I was growing up – turning slowly and belatedly from a callow teenage youth to a young man – there were a number of situations around the world for which we just could not see any hope of resolution. There was the cold war – apartheid – the Arab/Israeli imbroglio – Northern Ireland. These situations we had grown up with and we were resigned to their perpetual continuation.

The fall of the wall thus came as an unexpected and joyful shock that moved grown and hard-bitten men to tears. That it should be followed in the subsequent decades by the ending of apartheid and the (hopefully) permanent resolution of the Troubles in Ireland were more than we could rightly hope for. The middle east? Some things are sadly just too intractable for such hope of success.

One of the many reasons that I could never agree with the frankly ignorant critics who would carelessly destroy the beleaguered BBC is the continuing and excellent quality and relevance of their many documentary strands, the which have enabled me and many others like me to come to understand more fully the essence of these events, as well as to remember and to commemorate them in our own ways in the light of that greatly needed and massively appreciated knowledge.

In memoriam…