On a pine-clad hill with views of the rolling Nottinghamshire countryside near where we live, you come across the Polish Cross Memorial, a memorial to the first men of the Masovian Squadron who were killed, returning from a flight in 1940.
Sitting in the quiet wood, I felt very connected to my parents' and grandparents' generations. In youth and middle age, across the whole of Europe and across the world, their life was disrupted by separation from loved ones and by being sent to do things they did not want to do, maybe did not agree with. In living and dying, they depended on others, often strangers.
They shaped for us a future which was more peaceful than anything they had known, not perfect but better. Less war, better health care, basic pensions and welfare available to many.
