They make easy targets for class warriors but on days of military commemoration, like today VE Day, the British Royal Family are entitled to raise their heads high.
Prince Philip was first lieutenant (second-in-command) on board the HMS Wallace during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1942.
When the Luftwafffe began their bombardment of the waters.
Yeoman Harry Hargreaves revealed back in 2003 how Philip duped the enemy and saved the ship and all on it.
By persuading his captain to drop a raft overboard, set it alight, and deceive them into bombing that instead.
And so as Prince Charles, whose own military career is distinguished, laid a wreath today at Balmoral to the Fallen, and the Queen spoke to the Nation…
It is well to remember that we wer all in the same fight in World War II. And now.
What we all do after we get out of this we’ll have to wait and see, and there will be a clamour for sun and sand.
My friends in the Caribbean take note.
While some will seek remote holidays, others adventure, while still others walking holidays.
And all are on my list.
But I will, as I’ve always done, continue to visit the places and commemorate those who fell in war around the world.
Like I did when I was invited to lay the wreath at the daily Last Post commemoration at the Menin Gate in Ieper (Ypres).
Where my Great Uncle Willie lies in a graveyard of identically-sized crosses (no hierarchy in death).
And where I was the first of his relatives to see him, plant a wooden cross and say The Lord’s Prayer.
His brother Patrick has his name inscribed among the tens of thousands of missing on the arch at Thiepval.
I have been fortunate enough to trot the globe but I have never felt as moved.
Or deeply grateful than when I knelt before Great Uncle Willie’s grave.
And though I never knew him, or those he fought with or against, I commend them and those who care for their last resting places.
And not just today but every day of every year.
I visited the World War I battlefields, Ieper and The Somme with GTI, the Group Travel Specialists https://gtitravel.ie and In Flanders fields.
And also visit www.visitflanders.com and https://www.visit-somme.com/great-war
