Lest We Forget

Folkestone Remembrance beach poppy, 2019

Lest we forget how our hearts, courage, and decency, our love, are turned against us by those in power. 

Lest we forget that our military recruitment services deliberately target schools in deprived areas, turning a broken society to their own advantage & attracting condemnation from the UN. 

Lest we forget that, although even we don't allow those under 18 to fight in war, when they do children recruited at 16 are twice as likely to die. 

Lest we forget, as we honour the dead in the 'Pages of the Sea' that many WWI soldiers drowned in their own trenches. 

Lest we forget veteran of the conflict in Northern Ireland, David Clapson, who died alone in a diabetic coma after the Government's Austerity measures deprived him of food and the electricity needed to keep his insulin cold. 

Folkestone Remembrance beach poppies, 2019

Lest we forget the victims of Yemen, those who die in refugee boats fleeing wars not of their own making.

Lest we forget that our media is more interested in Jeremy Corbyn's coat and the size of his poppy than that our last Prime Minister was married to an arms dealer and sold weapons to oppressive regimes on our behalf.

Lest we forget that we are the second largest arms dealer in the world & that our current Prime Minister pushed for arms sales to Saudi Arabia even whilst they were using them to murder Yemeni civilians, including 140 people who were attending a funeral. 

Lest we forget that the Church of England, who speak out against war, continue to rent buildings to military conferences and have historically benefitted from investment in the arms trade. 

Lest we forget that the Royal British Legion accepts sponsorship from the UK's biggest arms company, BAE Systems, who before they merged were Armstrong & Vickers who sold arms to the Ottoman Empire. The very weapons which were turned against British soldiers in WWI. 

Lest we forget the words of Harry Patch, the last surviving WWI veteran, who died in 2009; "Politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organising nothing better than legalised mass murder."

Folkestone Remembrance beach poppies (detail) 2019

Never be fooled into thinking that war is anything more than the business of the rich and powerful with the poor as collateral. There is no such thing as the 'Glorious' Dead. 

At the rising of the sun and its going down, we WILL remember them. 

Folkestone war memorial, November 2019