Remembrance Day in The Netherlands

At the going down of the sun

And in the morning

We will remember them.

From Laurence Binyon's poem 'For the Fallen'.

Is was sung - music by Douglas Guest, 1971 - by the choir Fluent, under the direction of Maarten Smit, at the remembrance ceremony on May 4 at Rozenoord, where resistants were executed during WWII.

These same lines are also engraved on the tomb of our friend Clarence Haggitt, who died as an RAF pilot in September 1941. His plane was shot down above the North Sea; he was later buried at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at Nieuwe Oosterbegraafplaats in Amsterdam. His widow Margaret remained a good friend of my mother's all their lives, I became a good friend of their daughter Anne and her husband Terry. And now Jane, third generation, is continuing the relationship with my niece Andrea.

So bad things - a war, someone's death - may eventually lead to good things - like lifelong friendship.

Press Freedom Day

Let's at least think of our colleagues who were killed, imprisoned, tortured, intimidated or otherwise hampered in  doing their work. And let's support them where possible.
To the memory of Marie Colvin, killed in Homs - and all the others.