One Minute's Silence

Today was July 3rd 2015.  At 12 noon, everyone stopped what they were doing and stood for one minute, to remember the fallen from last Friday's massacre in Sousse, Tenerife.

So, why did we bother?

Over the past century, as a nation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has been getting better at valuing life.  It began after The First World War; instead of dumping into mass graves the carcasses of soldiers slaughtered in battle, each was afforded his own individual plot and headstone. Fabian Ware and Neville Macready, after pointing out the blatant class distinction, when fallen officers were repatriated yet other ranks were buried unceremoniously in unmarked graves, founded the War Graves Commission.  For the first time, each life lost was counted, documented and respectfully buried.  At the end of the war, the Unknown Warrior was repatriated to represent all those fallen who could not be identified, and a day was set aside, each year, to remember them.

And so it continued, right up until the Falklands War in the early 1970s; British soldiers killed abroad were buried in military cemeteries, often created for the event.

Maybe it was the Northern Ireland conflict that changed this habit; soldiers were close enough to home to be repatriated.  Whatever the reason, at major conflicts thereafter, those killed were repatriated, their deaths medically and forensically investigated, and their military graves began to appear in the churchyards of The United Kingdom, not on "some corner of a foreign field".

The loss off life became personal and public when, because a runway was being resurfaced, the fallen from the conflicts of the 21st century began to be repatriated through a little Wiltshire town called Wootton Bassett.  Percy Miles, a British Legion member, was chatting with friends on the High Street when they noticed one of the first of these hearses pass by.  They stopped their conversation, turned and stood in respectful silence as the hearse passed; and they decided then and there that they wanted to do more.

It could have been anywhere, but this small town, without a bypass to anonymise the repatriations, became a byword for honour and respect.  Its name spread worldwide, and when the airbase at Lyneham closed in 2012, sending the repatriated coffins on a different route, the town was renamed by letters patent: Royal Wootton Bassett.

A later development has been the appeal from funeral directors for attendees at the funerals of old soldiers who have died with few or no known relatives to attend their funerals.  Hundreds now turn out for these send-offs.  Why, you might ask?  Because those still living, whose lives are similarly adrift from all they once knew and loved, know that their kind are respected and honoured.

A belated, yet heartfelt review of other tragedies follows. Those whose lives were lost in a stadium, where careless neglect or ignorance of risk ended the lives of many and who were denied full closure, because of the fears of those responsible for their own well-being.  We are learning, slowly but surely, that every life has incalculable worth, and where they are put at risk, or lost, answers must be given.

And now, to those who chose to go and fight, we add the hapless victims of conflict: targets, mown down on the beach where they were enjoying a much looked forward to holiday. Their families are changed forever. Their futures have been stolen; but the ripples of their existence will continue to touch lives for many years to come.  Every single one is precious; and the World knows that we care.

And this is why, at 12 noon today, everyone stopped what they were doing and stood silently for one minute; because we will never be able to calculate the loss of these lives, to families, to communities and to the world.