I remember vividly my visit to the American cemetery at Normandy, not far from the D-Day beaches. As I wandered among the endless rows of white markers, I noticed a pair of young children darting between the graves, playing tag. At first, their laughter felt jarring—disrespectful, even. But then it struck me: this was the very legacy of the sacrifice buried beneath their feet. The freedom to play without fear, to live unburdened—that was the inheritance granted by the young men who now rested there.
Inside the museum that day, I came across a recording of a D-Day veteran—an elderly man in his nineties, his voice trembling with age and memory. He spoke of the beach, of the chaos, of the slaughtered waves of Americans mowed down by German fire. I can no longer recall his exact words, but the weight of them has stayed with me ever since. Your piece brought that memory back with startling clarity.
Now, as the last of those veterans pass into silence, I find one of my darker theories about the human condition stirring uncomfortably in my mind. It has been too long since the world has known true war. Real war—bloody, brutal, unsanitized. We live in an age of ease, swaddled in convenience, where conflict is often romanticized by those who have never felt its heat. I fear that this detachment from the visceral horror of war is not peace—but prelude. The closer we drift toward forgetting, the nearer we come to repeating.
Thank you for this beautiful piece again.
I remember vividly my visit to the American cemetery at Normandy, not far from the D-Day beaches. As I wandered among the endless rows of white markers, I noticed a pair of young children darting between the graves, playing tag. At first, their laughter felt jarring—disrespectful, even. But then it struck me: this was the very legacy of the sacrifice buried beneath their feet. The freedom to play without fear, to live unburdened—that was the inheritance granted by the young men who now rested there.
Inside the museum that day, I came across a recording of a D-Day veteran—an elderly man in his nineties, his voice trembling with age and memory. He spoke of the beach, of the chaos, of the slaughtered waves of Americans mowed down by German fire. I can no longer recall his exact words, but the weight of them has stayed with me ever since. Your piece brought that memory back with startling clarity.
Now, as the last of those veterans pass into silence, I find one of my darker theories about the human condition stirring uncomfortably in my mind. It has been too long since the world has known true war. Real war—bloody, brutal, unsanitized. We live in an age of ease, swaddled in convenience, where conflict is often romanticized by those who have never felt its heat. I fear that this detachment from the visceral horror of war is not peace—but prelude. The closer we drift toward forgetting, the nearer we come to repeating.
Nicely written and meaningful as usual.
I assume you are wearing one of your 10 Lancaster bomber shirts on this tour?
Thanks Nigel, beautiful piece, great characterization of the dementors reaching even such places of tranquility and remembrance.
Poignant. As ever.