Friday, March 29Royal Holloway's offical student publication, est. 1986

Remember Remembrance Day?

At the beginning of November, reminders of Remembrance Day were everywhere. But what do you remember a couple of weeks on?

Maybe it’s the winter’s newest accessory trend, the poppy. Pinned onto woolly coats and jacket collars, everyone had one.

You might remember the poppies at the Tower of London. The sight of 888,246 blood red poppies pouring from the window and surrounding the castle was an impressive and powerful sight – as were the crowds gathered around it.

Perhaps you think of the Royal Family at the Remembrance Sunday service. It’s always nice when the Queen pops out, as well as seeing Kate’s most recent fashion choice. Heck, they even managed to get David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband in one place together!

It may remind you of the nightly news stories and television programmes, dramatically detailing the heroic sacrifices made by British servicemen 100 years ago, as well as today.

By no means do I mean to disrespect any of these methods of remembrance. I personally enjoy this aspect of our national culture, and am humbled when I am reminded of the sacrifices that others make in combat. But are we remembering them in the right way?

Over 1 million members of the British Empire were killed during World War I, and there were over 37 million casualties worldwide. Isn’t there a better way of remembering them, rather than; pinning some paper on our jacket, watching the weeks’ most popular news bulletin, or staying silent for two minutes on 11th November?

I think that these people should be honoured more than every November, by immediately implementing the lesson learnt from World War I. Having lost their lives in an arguably pointless conflict, what would they think about the state of society today? How would they view global conflict, such as the situation in the Middle East, as well as Britain itself? Those killed deserve more than a pinned on poppy every year which, to be honest, you probably hadn’t thought about since 11th November.