Lest We Forget

We commemorate Armistice Day on the 11th of November each year, known now as Remembrance Day – lest we forget. On the 11th hour of this day in 1918, fighting in the First World War ceased, and we mark it (and subsequent wars) with a two-minute silence. An opportunity to consider not only the loss of life, but all the loss and sacrifice that so many experienced as a result of war.

The value placed on remembering that loss and sacrifice is huge, the strapline “Lest we forget” feels doom-heavy, like a warning. There’s a weight and severity behind it, because if we forget what people gave up during that first awful world war, the horror that they endured, not only is it to disrespect and disregard what they suffered and why they did so (for the freedom and security of future generations), but also because of the risk of it happening again.

Except it did.

Obviously World War II began a mere 21 years later – arguably and ironically in response to the very peace agreement reached at the end of WWI. But, the wars that have been waged since have also resulted in staggering loss, displacement, alienation, trauma and destruction.

So much great children’s literature exists around the first world war – to help us understand, empathise and remember (War Horse, Archie’s War, The Skylarks’ War, Where the Poppies Now Grow to name but a few), but perhaps this commemoration also provides an opportunity to explore other experiences of conflicts. Wars continue to tear children’s lives apart, and the concept of loss in this context is broad. Losing a parent, siblings, a home, a country, cultural acceptance, comfort, security, a sense of belonging.

There are a wealth of contemporary books which variously explore how these concepts are experienced by children (for example, The Journey, The Arrival, The Boy at the Back of the Class, Welcome to Nowhere, No Ballet Shoes in Syria, What You Need to Be Warm, The Crossing, Boy Everywhere). They provide engaging and relevant ways to think about how conflict impacts children today, what those feelings of instability, foreignness, uncertainty, grief and trauma might feel like. Because helping children to empathise with these experiences, and understand how they might manifest within their own peer group is just as valuable as it is in relation to world wars of the past – perhaps more so.

“Lest we forget” is a concept we should hold dear – yes in relation to the horror of World War I, but also to ensure we don’t forget what so many children are continuing to live through. It is a warning – weighty and serious, to think hard about that experience, the sacrifices and losses that those children experiences and how it changes their lives. Because, if we’re lucky enough not to have been directly affected by conflict, we should spend November remembering and considering those that have.

In fact, Armistice Day can be an opportunity to explore the idea of conflict much more broadly. Battles are waged in many different forms and guises far beyond the front line of war. Everyone has some experience of it, whether it’s separating parents, friendship breakdowns, complicated family dynamics – it’s a concept that most children will be able to relate to on some level. It makes it’s mark however it touches our lives, so helping children understand and cope with it, share experiences of it and build resilience so as to be able to manage it – is of immeasurable value. The resonance of conflict is not finite, it’s something that many children are confronting and trying to overcome all the time…

Lest we forget.