Today wasn't just any Sunday - Remembrance Sunday is the closest Sunday to November 11th, a date when countries pay homage to the citizens they have lost in armed conflicts. The date was made official by King George V in 1919, to mark the end of World War I. Each week in the Observer Magazine, there is a one page Q&A called This Much I Know. The subject normally imparts a bit of the wisdom they've picked up along their life's path and a few observations on mankind are normally chucked in for good measure. Today's subject was Henry Allingham, a veteran of World War I, now aged 112. I read his thoughts, observations and memories and was so touched by his basic decency and humility that it made me get tearful in the bloody café (according to this whole blog, I blub at the drop of a hat, it would seem).
Once I'd finished reading this article, I sighed a huge sigh and turned the page to the next article...about Russell Brand. I closed my mag. After Henry's piece, any glib bit of shite about what a nightmare Russell's life has become since Manuelgate and how he's had to run away to LA to escape the misery might have left me standing screaming and shredding my mag to pieces in front of Crouch End café society.
I watched a top documentary about Wilfred Owen, presented by Jeremy Paxman. It traced his entire history, and gave some insight into his friendship with Siegfried Sassoon, which began when they met at Craiglockhart Military Hospital in Edinburgh. Sassoon helped him with language and worked with him on his technique. As a result of this friendship, Owen's poetry took flight, becoming perhaps the most important from the First World War, if not the most important war poetry of all time. As a kid, I remember reading the following poem by Siegfried Sassoon, and although it's not the most well-known poem of that era, it must have affected me deeply at the time:
Does it matter?—losing your legs?...
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When the others come in after hunting
To gobble their muffins and eggs.
Does it matter ?—losing your sight?...
There's such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.
Do they matter?—those dreams from the pit?...
You can drink and forget and be glad,
And people won't say that you're mad;
For they'll know you've fought for your country
And no one will worry a bit.
