Old and young unite as Britain honours victims of war (News Feature)

By Anna Tomforde Nov 10, 2008, 15:09 GMT

London - At the packed Remembrance Day service in the chapel of the Royal Hospital Chelsea for War Pensioners in London, 8-year-old Emily squeezed her grandmother's hand as rousing hymns were sung and the Last Post was rendered for the victims of war.

It may be 90 years since the guns fell silent in the 'war to end all wars,' but this year's anniversary of the end of World War I has brought Britons of all ages and generations together like never before to commemorate past and present conflicts.

Tours to the World War I frontline of the Western Front in Belgium and France have been sold out through 2009, and more young people than ever were seen in Britain this year wearing the red 'poppy' flower symbolizing the blood-drenched battlefields of Flanders.

Two factors have combined to highlight the special significance of this year's commemorations, experts believe.

The fact that only a handful of British veterans of the Great War are still alive - and unlikely to live to the 100th anniversary - and the fact that Britain is again today involved in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The loss each year of veterans to a point where just three remained had persuaded people that soon the horror of the trenches would be lost to living memory, according to a commentary by Britain's Press Association.

'No conflict quite inspires the younger generation like the First World War with its emotional mix of horror, hubris and honour,' it said.

Anthony Roberts, who runs Holts Tours, a company specializing in trips to the battlefields, said his tours are sold out through 2009.

By far the favourite is a four to five-day trip called All Quiet on the Western Front, which takes participants to the battlefields of the Somme in northern France.

'We are finding that these trips are popular with a wide range of people. We get a lot of youngsters coming with their grandparents to see the battlefields,' said Roberts.

'After both world wars, people who fought in them wanted to remember and then they just wanted to get on with the rest of their lives,' said David Parker, a spokesman for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

However, this had now changed, he said. 'The various more recent conflicts in the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan have prompted people to honour the fallen,' said Parker.

As Emily joined in the tributes, prayers and hymns, services were held in Basra in southern Iraq and in Kandahar, Britain's largest military base in Afghanistan.

'It is the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I, supposedly the war to end all wars, and yet, here we are today and conflicts are still ongoing,' said Stuart Gendall, of the Royal British Legion, at Britain's central Remembrance Day Service, led by Queen Elizabeth II, at the Cenotaph in London Sunday.

British involvement in the conflicts during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, and the British army's 38-year military involvement in Northern Ireland, were also remembered this year.

'Another year, and 39 more join roll-call of the fallen,' said the Daily Telegraph Monday in a reference to the 39 British servicemen and women who have died in Afghanistan over the past year, taking the total of British victims in the conflict to 122.

Figures released earlier this month by the Ministry of Defence showed that almost 4,000 cases of mental illness were diagnosed among Britain's armed forces last year.

Of them, nearly 700 were diagnosed in the last three months of 2007 alone, with women affected at a rate of eight per 1,000, and men at a rate of four per 1,000, the figures showed.

'I have met a lot of very sad people here today,' said Kitty, a war widow, as she left Sunday's Remembrance Service at the Royal Hospital.