Remembering and commemorating, telling the stories which mingle to bring out some truth; of going off as if for a carnival, the excitement of a trip abroad and then the appalling truth of war. It was not over by Christmas, the horror of blowing up, shooting, cutting up other men even after a Christmas truce, sharing seasonal greetings, a football match – where was that good Lord? Then ordered back to gas, to maim, to kill. It’s much recorded, written up as fact and fiction, trawled through, tactics admired, deplored, wept over, yet nothing learned. What would Wilfred Owen say if he were here, or Edward Thomas, or Siegfried Sassoon? And I must find the man, Harry Patch, the last survivor who said so trenchantly; ‘It was hell on earth.’ And what for? A treaty at Versailles so appalling that it caused WWII.