With Remembrance Day just around the corner perhaps it is appropriate to remind ourselves what it is all about.

"The Few" who flew from such airfields as Biggin Hill, Hawkinge and Tangmere in the very skies above us turned back the advancing tide of evil.

We should remember the dauntless crews of Bomber Command who, night after devastating night, set out from our island fortress to destroy the insidious Nazi war machine.

We should remember the men of the Royal and Merchant Navies who, for six long, hazardous years, fought the relentless Battle of the Atlantic.

Without their indomitable courage and tenacity in keeping vital supply lines open, this nation would have starved and been brought to its knees.

Let us remember Dunkirk, Dieppe, El Alamein, the Eighth Army and the western desert, the so-called "forgotten army" in Burma, those who stormed the beaches in Normandy and drove tyranny and oppression from the face of Europe and those who suffered indescribable horrors at the hands of the Japanese in the Far East.

We should remember some of the unsung heroes and heroines of those far off days.

The women of the Land Army who toiled long and arduous hours to produce and replenish our often diminishing food stocks.

The countless "Bevin Boys" who, plucked from all walks of life, found themselves grovelling in the bowels of the earth digging coal to keep the nation's industries running.

The men and women of the Civil Defence Services, air raid wardens, ambulance drivers, police, AFS/NFS, WVS, FANY, ack-ack defence, balloon barrage operators, the bus, tram and train drivers who kept the wheels of the nation's transport turning and those who somehow managed to maintain the gas, water and electricity services under almost impossible conditions, and the tear-stained faces of bewildered evacuees and those who received them warmly into their homes.

Let's remember, too, the housewives who emerged from their air raid shelters after a night of bombing or returned from a night shift at a munitions factory to find their homes a pile of rubble and the mothers who, from minuscule rations, managed to produce meals to feed their ever-hungry families and who were, from time to time, the recipients of the dreaded telegram informing them that a husband, brother or son (sometimes a daughter) was missing.

We must forgive, but we must never, ever forget.

-A Cyril EW Wood (ex-RAF), Shoreham