Remembering those who gave their Today for our Tomorrow

This year's Festival of Remembrance has added poignancy for me. I have been researching my late father's family tree and discovered that his dad, Charles Edward Tyler, was a driver in the RFA who saw action on the Somme and two other battlefields. He received three medals and was badly gassed. I will remember this brave little man - he was only 5'5 - whom I never met - when the poppies fall softly, so quietly, from the ceiling of the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday.

In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.