‘We must always remember’

THIS month we remember and give thanks.

Remembrance calls us to pay respect to the brave men, women and children – living and dead, who have fought to preserve the nation. But in doing so we are compelled to count the cost of our heritage in terms of the lives lost and forever changed. Every November, we say ‘thank you’ to all those who have placed their lives in jeopardy for us, and to acknowledge and say thank you to their families whose lives have also been forever changed.

The Rev George MacLeod, the Gorbals minister who organised the rebuilding of the abbey on Iona, gave an account of a regimental boxing match during the Second World War. Between rounds, a soldier who had been wounded and had lost his memory entered the ring holding a large piece of cardboard carrying the question, “Can anybody tell me who I am?” Having lost his memory, he had no identity. He had no name, no past, no roots, no history, and little sense of himself. To have found a memory would have been to recover a person – not only a past but a present and a future.

It is right and proper that we respond to the call to remember every year; if we didn’t we would lose our past, our roots, our history. Without the memories of our past, part of who we are would be missing.

He had no name, no past, no roots, no history, and little sense of himself.

For many of my generation and younger, our minds are to a large extent educated on historical events by the movies. There are some old favourites like The Great Escape, The Bridge over the River Kwai, The Dambusters, Sink the Bismark, to name but a few… and there is an inherent problem.

Many of the war films tell a tale with a bit of poetic licence and stretching of what actually happened. As the tale unfolds, the allies are victorious and in the main (admittedly with a few exceptions) they end with a sense of being victorious and ‘they all lived happily ever after.’

Yet, for those who experienced war and conflict there could be, and can be, no ‘and they all lived happily ever after’ such was the effect of their experiences.

We must always remember. We owe it to those who suffered and died, and to those who suffered and lived – lived a life with the physical and mental consequences of what they endured. As we remember we pray for a day when nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. This world of ours needs to learn from the past and it needs to learn to love one another.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.

The Rt Rev Dr Shaw Paterson is Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 2024/25 and minister of Strathaven: Trinity.