It is that time of year when many of us trumpet and cornet players ready ourselves to do one of the loneliest jobs in music; playing the Last Post and Reveille at a service of remembrance. The last time I did this was at a civic gathering the night before Her Majesty’s funeral in Thirsk Market Place, tomorrow I get to play again three times between 10 and 11 am in Linton on Ouse and Newton on Ouse. There are two war memorials to attend and then a church service.

Growing up in the 1960’s I remember the idea of “poppy day”, but back then it seemed somehow anachronistic and historical, at least in my childish head. Today it is much more present and even relevant. I am not entirely surprised by this. The war to end wars turned out to be nothing of the sort and today we remember not just those who perished in the two World Wars, but also those who died in Korea, Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention countless other conflicts around the globe.

It is almost exactly 40 years since I first entered that upstairs club room in the Thirsk and District Royal British Legion and began the process of forming a brass band precisely for these occasions. It was meeting those veterans, those ordinary blokes who I saw in the streets, in the pubs, at concerts, at church services and in the shops, that taught me what Remembrance Sunday is all about. The quiet bravery, the modesty, the silent grief for fallen comrades. It was those men who very occasionally let me into their memories and shared some of the horrors they went through, and told stories you simply could not make up! For all of the pomp and pageantry of a parade let us not forget this is a solemn affair that does not glorify war. We are there to REMEMBER the price paid for our freedom and to learn to be responsible for preserving the legacy they have left us … Lest we forget!