Eleventh
How dank and still the air has been these past few days. A few autumn leaves hang on without a whiff of wind to disturb them. It was like that on the morning of November 11th 1918 when George Allison was shot dead by a German sniper at Mons. He was the last British soldier to be killed on the battlefield in The Great War. What was so "great" about it I wonder? All accounts suggest that it was truly awful - not great. As I usually do, I walked up to the simple war memorial next to All Saints Church and stood there in quiet remembrance as the bells chimed eleven times. There were two people from the cafe and about twenty small children from the church playgroup with their leaders. Those children stayed remarkably quiet . I put a beach stone on the plinth. I had written "Thank You" on it with a permanent black marker and a single poppy too. Normally, when I am standing there, my thoughts wander to my Uncle Jack and all the other young men who never came home. What a te...