Diary – 8 November 2018

How on earth should one do it? How should the centenary of the end of a war be marked? Not just any war — the Great War. A war which involved almost every country and resulted in millions of deaths. As we approach the 100th eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the answer is that we will mark its end in many different ways. This year 11 November falls on a Sunday, so the main remembrance events must all happen on one day. A gentleman’s agreement in Europe had been that each nation would mark it in their own way on their own soil. However President Macron has invited his fellow leaders to join him in Paris. Awkward. Does one snub one’s own country or the French? No doubt elegant solutions will be found.

In 1918 two American troopships sank off the Scottish island of Islay, the second in October, almost within sight of the Armistice.