We take a moment today to reflect on the events of 100 years ago at The Somme.

Many of us will have lost family there, in my own case a great uncle who died a teenager and whose name is included in a list of those who gave their lives on a memorial at Manchester’s Victoria Station.

As a father of 5, I cannot imagine the emotions of a parent sending a child to war – and to those who have and do, I extend my respect.

Today, of all days, cherish your children, your own comforts and retain the correct perspective on whatever problems and challenges you may be facing.

A Soldier’s Cemetery

by John William Streets (killed and missing in action on 1^st July 1916 aged 31)

Behind that long and lonely trenched line
To which men come and go, where brave men die,
There is a yet unmarked and unknown shrine,
A broken plot, a soldier’s cemetery.

There lie the flower of youth, the men who scorn’d
To live (so died) when languished Liberty:
Across their graves flowerless and unadorned
Still scream the shells of each artillery.

When war shall cease this lonely unknown spot
Of many a pilgrimage will be the end,
And flowers will shine in this now barren plot
And fame upon it through the years descend:
But many a heart upon each simple cross
Will hang the grief, the memory of its loss.