The 11th November 2018 marked 100 years since the cessation of the First World War. At 11am, the time that the guns finally fell silent in 1918, people across the UK also fell silent for two minutes of quiet reflection and remembrance. Every community in the country was broken apart by the two World Wars and this anniversary was an opportunity to commemorate the unimaginable sacrifices that so many people made to defend our freedom and our country.
I marked the centenary in Evesham in a moving and wonderfully observed service. Military personnel were joined by young cubs, brownies and scouts in marking this poignant day. It was a humbling experience and one that made me thankful for the freedoms I enjoy in this country thanks to the sacrifice of those who came before me. It is almost beyond the realms of our imagination today to think of what the young men in the trenches of the Western Front experienced between 1914 and 1918, such was the brutality of the conflict and the relentlessness of the conditions they faced. But we will always remember them.
In the evening of Remembrance Sunday I watched a brilliant production of Journey's End at the Norbury Theatre in Droitwich. It was an emotional end to a moving day in which respects were paid so thoughtfully across the country.