We sat together at the table for yesterday’s two minute silence. We held hands. I closed my eyes, he kept his open, watching me some of the time, he told me afterwards. I asked him what he had thought about and it turned out we’d both thought of the First World War soldiers in the trenches. We can only re-image those scratchy newsreels and faded photographs, we weren’t there. They are borrowed memories. But they are nonetheless potent. What must it have been like, a form of hell, surely? The mud, the chaos, the gore and the fear. Bless them. And some so so young. Have we learnt anything?
