Around the world this week, descendants of people who lost loved ones in a war campaign so that we are free to enjoy our lives, will gather at memorials large and small.
A lot of thoughts get packed into that one or two minutes of oh so brief silence.
There are too many stories to recount about life being torn apart by conflict, but at this time of year, I always stop to think for a while about the heart rending story of Rudyard Kipling and the search for his son Jack, who died in the battle of Loos, aged just eighteen.
Kiplings story is so typical of families from around the world who had no say in the death of a child during war and, like many other mothers and fathers, never got the chance to say goodbye.
I am highlighting Kipling because he was the one who got to tell his tale to the world, and how so much of his sadness reflects that of others and I suppose, when reading his story, one may feel ever so slightly closer to the grief that others shared.
Kipling's poem - Have You News of my Boy Jack always reminds me of fragility of life and the sadness and pain associated with loss.
Kipling was a major force in the creation of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Many gardeners went to war, like ants on the march while the Queen's stayed tightly garden in their nests.
There are famous examples of how big estates, like that of Heligan, lost an entire community which eventually led to the gardens being lost; when I think of Heligan now, I don't just think of it as a fabulous treasure that was rediscovered, but a memorial to gardeners everywhere who gave their all.
If you visit Heligan, consider the irony, men and women gave their lives so you can indulge your passion.
Take a look at the motto on the toilet wall and stop and think for a moment "Don’t come here to sleep or slumber" with the names of those who worked there signed under the date - August 1914.
Kipling also wrote a short story called The Gardener - from the Heritage of the Great War site.
Here are the first two paragraphs of the story:
"All these details were public property, for Helen was as open as the day, and held that scandals are only increased by hushing then up. She admitted that George had always been rather a black sheep, but things might have been much worse if the mother had insisted on her right to keep the boy.
Luckily, it seemed that people of that class would do almost anything for money, and, as George had always turned to her in his scrapes, she felt herself justified - her friends agreed with her - in cutting the whole non-commissioned officer connection, and giving the child every advantage.
A christening, by the Rector, under the name of Michael, was the first step. So far as she knew herself, she was not, she said, a child-lover, but, for all her faults, she had been very fond of George, and she pointed out that little Michael had his father's mouth to a line; which made something to build upon.
As a matter of fact, it was the Turrell forehead, broad, low, and well-shaped, with the widely spaces eyes beneath it, that Michael had most faithfully reproduced. His mouth was somewhat better cut than the family type. But Helen, who would concede nothing good to his mother's side, vowed he was a Turrell all over, and, there being no one to contradict, the likeness was established."
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