On Thursday we will celebrate Guy Fawkes night. This will be a little harder this year with the fields dug up and very muddy. However we are still going ahead and we hope you will join us again.
As we all enjoy the fireworks and fun it is worth spending some time considering the history behind the event. It harks back to a time of religious intolerance, persecution and the resulting threat to our democracy. The threat grew from the persecution, an injustice, but became a threat that undermined the very nature of this country. The Mother of Parliaments, no matter what its flaws are, is looked at around the world as a model to be emulated.
If we look at events in the Middle East with Israel still standing alone as the only true democracy in its area, ISL enforcing religious intolerance and military threat, instability in Syria, Iraq and Egypt it is clear that there is still a lot to be learned from our own history. It is clear the need for the freedom and democracy is still a distant dream for some people.
This Sunday is Remembrance Sunday. We will mark Remembrance day on the 11th at school. This history is closer than Guy Fawkes night and therefore more poignant. One hundred years ago this country and all of Europe was being ripped asunder by war. The scars this war left paved the way for the atrocities of the second world war.
As we stop and reflect, whilst remembering our own troops past and present, please also give some thought to those now caught in amongst the fighting in their home countries, looking to strong democracies like ours to give them some hope.
Finally, to show the modern face of the Poppy Appeal, I was able to see part of the launch of this year's appeal inside Kings Cross station. Surrounded by groups of uniformed servicemen and service women collecting for the appeal was this band from the Army Air Service. Reminiscent of the first appeal for servicemen (survivors from the Crimean War) at the start of the 20th century, through a dinner.
GIVE GENEROUSLY
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