There has been a lot of talk this year about red and white poppies.

I am a life-long pacifist and erstwhile CND member, as well as being a Christian, and I wear my poppy with pride. I may believe that no war should ever be allowed to happen, but it does not alter the sacrifice made by two generations, and I see no glorification of war in the wearing of a red poppy - that symbol of new and bright life growing in the shattered and blood-soaked fields of Flanders.

The Turner family is fortunate - nobody closer than a third cousin of my grandfather's has ever been killed in any conflict (unless you count a nazi uncle by marriage being disappeared by the Russians in his native Czechoslovakia); my mother's parents, on the other hand, each lost a brother in the Great War. It is too distant a loss for personal mourning, but not too distant to acknowledge.

The Chairman of our Parish Council is a Quaker who invariably attends the Remembrance Sunday service at the War Memorial in the village on which are inscribed just three names (it is a very small village where the majority of the men were farmworkers and thus in a reserved occupation) -

Lieutenant CECIL WALTER HENRY ASKEY
8th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment
Who died in the Great War, aged 19 on 5th April 1918
The son of the Rev’d A.H.Askey and Mrs. Askey

Gunner WALTER DAY (821200)
"B" Battery. 155th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery
Who died in the Great War on 25th September 1918
The husband of Charlotte Day and father of Cyril Walter Day

Stoker KERDON WILKIN (297698)
H.M.S. "Coquette."
Who died in the Great War aged 33 on 7th March 1916
Born 1883, the son of Thomas William and Sarah Wilkin

There were 24 people at the Remembrance Service this morning in an age range of 14 to 88, plus a small dog tied to the churchyard railings waiting for his master. I don't know about the dog, but the vast majority of the humans are committed Christians of various denominations who, like me, think it right to wear a red poppy at this time of the year as a sign of remembrance and to support the excellent work of the British Legion.