As we commemorate Remembrance Day this Sunday, it's 100 years since the outbreak of world war one. It's reflected with an amazing display at the Tower of London.
This is a repost of my visit to a particular battle ground in North East India. The poem is haunting in its simplicity.
Over the last three weeks, I have had the immense privilege of working with some of the most wonderful people in the world. I'm sure there will be more stories to follow, but this seems appropriate with Remembrance Day around the corner.
During my time in Nagaland, an extreme North-East State in India, I was able to drive to Kohima. Here there is one of the best kept war cemeteries I have seen, a memorial to all those who gave their lives in what was the turning point in the Indian war against the Japanese in 1944. Amongst the thousands of graves, each one recording a British or Indian soldier, usually in their early twenties, there is a poem, called the Kohima Epitaph, and copied by many other war memorials. This is what it says:
When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For your Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today.
Simple and poignant. Still as true today. Let's not forget. [November 2011]
