REMEMBRANCE is part of our lives, and the remembrance of those who paid the ultimate price in service of their country is everywhere we look.
It's in the plaque on the wall of the Taylor Institute Hall, in Low Row, where I held my MP advice surgery last week.
It's in the roadside war memorials we see dotted around our towns and villages like Longtown and Cumwhinton.
And it's in the rows of neatly kept commonwealth war grave headstones in Carlisle and Stanwix cemeteries, and on former battlefields across the globe, from the Falkland Islands to Singapore.
We are also fortunate here in Carlisle to have access to some of the best small museums dedicated to remembrance and telling our communities’ war stories.
If you've not yet visited the Devil's Porridge in Gretna, the Cumbria Museum of Military Life at Carlisle Castle, or the Solway Aviation museum at the airport, I strongly recommend you do so.
This weekend I will join others up and down the country in laying wreaths in tribute to those who served our country.
As I do, I will remember the members of my family whose lives were affected by the first and second world wars in particular: my dad, who served in North Africa and Italy; my uncle, who crewed Lord Mountbatten's plane; my Great Aunt Li, who worked in what was Europe's largest munitions factory in Gretna; and finally my great grandfather, who was a stretcher bearer on the western front during the first world war.
As a child I would often hear adults describing the veterans of both world wars as the fortunate ones - the ones who survived and came home.
But I don't think anyone who experiences war is fortunate. That's why the Labour Government's pledge to end homelessness amongst our veterans, and why accepting the veteran's card as voter ID, are just two ways in which we put meaning into our remembrance.
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