War is some fine madness,

A tale of vanity's woe;

But from that great insanity

Can a greater sanity grow -

As successive waves of humanity

In their tides ebb to and fro? 

Is the cruel price of each sacrifice

The cost of what we must know?

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War is madness,

War is sadness;

Its consolation -

Freedom's gladness.

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Each November we are reminded, watching poppies fall...

Each represents a life surrendered answering duty's call.

And later, in the weeks that follow, when snowflakes fill the sky,

The mind is filled with thoughts of those whose lives had soon passed by.

Each fleeting flake a forfeited future deprived of its true worth -

And like the poppies - sent to fall and fade back in the earth...

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On the beach at Arromanches then

Young men saw friends die;

Pacing the sands of Arromanches now

Old men softly sigh.

There by the sea at Arromanches

They cheer a much-loved Queen

But the Arromanches that their Sovereign knows

Is not the place they've seen

And the Arromanches where their Sovereign goes

Is not the place they've been.

On the beach at Arromanche...

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My father survived the Western Front and the Italian Front in the Great War, promoted from the ranks to

2nd lieutenant, 1st Battalion, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, attached to the 5th Division.  He was in

uniform again for WW2 and died aged 50 of TB when I was five.  I have a book about the 5th Division left

by him, containing some handwritten recollections of that terrible conflict...

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I was visiting a memorial to my late father's first cousin killed in Ireland nearly a century ago.  

Next to it was a headstone that told a desperately sad tale of another's loss. 

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Hear...

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The Queen attended the 50th anniversary of D-Day and took the salute at the march past.

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On the beach at Arromanches then,

Young men saw friends die;

Bracing the sands of Arromanches now,

Old men softly cry.

There, by the sea ...

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In 1944, in a night-time rehearsal for D-Day off the Devon coast - code named "Exercise Tiger" - U.S. forces were attacked and suffered more casualties than on Utah Beach.

This poem is in memory of those lives, the loss of which was kept secret for four decades. 

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Sunset slowly trims its lamp

Beyond the Start Bay Light

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