It is hard to believe that the year is drawing towards Remembrance Sunday as we leave the activities of Hallowe’en behind.

The Royal British Legion have launched their poppy appeal to support veterans of conflict, and many of us are getting ready to go to church or the local war memorial to pay our respects to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice to keep us free from oppression.

The Poppy Appeal each year reminds us of those who lost their lives on active service in all conflicts, from the beginning of the First World war right up to the present day.

It also allows us to acknowledge all those who have served our country.

We look back and are thankful for service and sacrifice in an era when sometimes it appears there is little service and sacrifice about.

The focal point of the war memorial in Enniskillen is always very sombre, because as well as remembering the war dead we are, inevitably, drawn back to 1987, and the Poppy Day massacre which took place that year.

Each year as I attend Remembrance Sunday, I am always drawn to the extremes in age – those for whom it may be their last Remembrance, and those who are very young in their school or Brownie/Cub Scout uniform.

Why, you might ask? For different reasons, of course.

For the older veterans, wearing their medals and sometimes their regimental berets, it is poignant because they served; many of them saw the horror of war and loss of life.

Conflicts

There are very few veterans now alive from the world wars, but there are many from other conflicts, as regrettably war is always with us, as we are now painfully witnessing in the Middle East.

For the young people who come out to services and wreath-laying on Remembrance Sunday, it is the opportunity for them to learn about what happened years ago, but also to learn why it is still relevant today.

For me, it is so important that children are involved in remembrance services, and if my friend Bill Eames was still with us, he would say the same.

Bill was the ultimate gentleman veteran who carried his service lightly, but was always willing to share his memories of the war.

A D-Day airman, Flight Lieutenant Bill Eames passed away in 2020, aged 97 years old, but right up to the end he was still serving by continuing to work with the RAF association in Fermanagh, where he was the President.

He was also Vice-President of the Ulster Flying Club, where he was an instructor until the age of 80!

That model of service and giving of your time is one that also needs to be remembered, and more than that, acted upon: our young people need to understand that.

Bill Eames always had an interest in people. Not in a gossipy way – quite the opposite.

He wanted to be supportive and encouraging, and I will never forget that during some difficult times when I was First Minister, he sent me the poem ‘If’, by Kipling, and underlined the following lines.

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools.

He never knew just what a timely intervention that poem and those lines were.

The poem is now framed and sits on my desk in my home. I often look at it and think of his service.

Many now see service and duty as outdated concepts, but for me they are at the heart of making a solid society – the glue that keeps a community together.

I have been told that even before the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of people volunteering had fallen.

People are not coming forward to help in Brownies, Scouts, charity groups, bands, churches in the number that they used to.

Many of these organisations cannot operate without volunteers, and when you do volunteer, often you get more out of it yourself than the people you are helping.

After my father was shot and injured by the IRA, we moved to Lisnaskea in 1979, and I joined the local Brownies – being taught the value of service and community is something I will be forever grateful for.

My Brown Owl, Eileen Armstrong, and my Guide leader, Miss Gray – a quiet teacher from Lisnaskea High School who I would later succeed as Guide leader in 1st Lisnaskea Guide Unit – were women who gave their time so young women and girls could have as normal a life as possible whilst The Troubles were going on around us.

They volunteered to make a difference, and they certainly made a difference to the quiet, timid country girl catapulted into living in the town – yes, I’m talking about me!

Resilience

Hard to believe, I know, but the self-esteem and resilience I built up was in no small part due to being at the Brownies and Guides in Lisnaskea, and the leadership of those two ladies.

Duty and service to community takes many forms. There are still many who serve in our armed forces, and we should be eternally grateful for that, but there are many who also serve locally in our community because of the freedoms we have been granted.

This Remembrance Sunday, I will be thinking of the service of my father, Bill Eames, and the many other brave members of the armed forces – but I will also be thinking generally of service, loyalty and duty and how those ideals can be put into practice locally as well.

Volunteer in your local organisation which needs you. Believe me, you will not regret it.