When Disaster Strikes ...

 I was thinking the other day about the diverse range of my interests.  Unlike some folks, I'm not the sort of person who delights in absolutely everything about one particular topic ... to the exclusion of all else; rather I have developed many specific interests within a number of broad and quite diverse spheres.  One interest, amidst a general liking for history, is war.  As you might imagine from the foregoing, that's not an interest in just any or every war but, specifically, the two World Wars of the last century.

I venture to suggest that this is for two main reasons.  Firstly, I'm old enough to have gone to school when, it was said, 'History ended in 1914', leaving a big gap between that point and the present day, which I've tried to fill since the end of formal education.  The second reason is that, as my increased awareness of my wider family has developed in more recent years, I've discovered more and more uncles and distant cousins whose young lives were cut short by one or other of these conflicts.

I'll give you a multiple example of this interest.  Prominent in a park in my present home town, is a particular oak tree, beside which is this grey plaque, recording that it was a gift 'in grateful recognition of the generous hospitality received by by Belgians during the Great War'.  The plaque was re-positioned in a refurbishment about ten years ago.

When making a delivery to Milford Haven three years earlier, I had taken a picture of the only other memorial I've seen in the same cause.  This obelisk, prominently situated at a road junction in the town centre, is 'erected by Steam Trawler Owners and People of Ostend who were resident in this town during the Great War'.

The reasons why wars happen are many, varied and complex and an analysis of these would demand more than the few paragraphs this blog affords ... and a greater intellectual prowess than mine to do them justice.  Two of the most likely, however, are greed and fear.  If one country sees that a neighbour is sitting on a rich vein of mineral deposits, for example, and is neither exploiting these for commercial use and the good of all, nor strong enough to prevent others doing so for their own benefit, then an invasion might ensue.  Fear can involve threats of many kinds, either real or implied: oppression, invasion, denial of individual or commercial rights, or restrictions to the free passage of essential services such as oil, gas or electricity.

Once war has erupted, it's usually the civilian population who suffers most.  Of course, the deepest suffering is death but, for those who survive, the lives they were living before conflict came will have been severely disrupted, if not totally impossible.  For these, there are two choices.  Either they can hunker down and make the best of the awful situation they find themselves in - sometimes the only option available - or they can gather together what remains of their former lives and escape to another land ... in other words, become refugees.

We have seen many such unfortunates on our screens in recent years, and thousands have perished while trying to find that place of safety.  In past ages, many found respite on our shores - witness those memorials and, in later times, the Kindertransport operation - and the fact that this has also been the case more recently was brought to my attention last weekend when I learned that a radio presenter to whose programme I listen to every week, Beverley Humphreys, has been awarded the MBE partly for her services to 'Community Cohesion', i.e. work that she has been involved in with Syrian refugees.

What a shame we have a Home Secretary now, whose policies seem to be the direct opposite of that humanitarian welcome to refugees that has been a national characteristic of this country for centuries.