On Remembrance Day we remember members of the armed forces who gave their lives and often their health for their country.
From the horrors of the First World War trenches, where the poppy first became a symbol of their sacrifice, through all the wars that we have been involved in since then.
We thank the Royal British Legion for the excellent work they do for servicemen in need

I once visited the British war cemetery in Berlin, walking in the beautifully kept gardens and along the lines of headstones it is striking to read the names and ages of those who had given their lives, many many young men, often only in their early twenties, too young to have had any of the life experiences that we take for granted growing up.

For a long time the men of the Merchant Navy were forgotten. The Merchant Navy that, without it as an island, we would not have survived. The country needed the Merchant Navy as much as it needed the armed forces; we needed the old cargo ships, we needed the rusty oil tankers and the fishing boats and the crew that sailed in them.
With the largest merchant fleet in the world, we needed them all. Venerable shipping companies with names like Ellerman City Lines, Anglo Saxon Petroleum and the beautiful ships of Alfred Holt, the Blue Funnel line, that were all named after classical Greek legends. All were requisitioned by the government along with their crews.

Sometimes, sailing alone, a torpedo took a ship to the bottom, and those that survived the blast or sinking faced an uncertain fortune in a lifeboat miles from shore or help.
In a convoy they had the protection of the Royal Navy, but even then the torpedoes still occasionally got through, and with their ship gone were sometimes left to die because of the dangers of stopping to pick them up. The other ships were often under orders to keep going.
Imagine being in the sea following a sinking and seeing the convoy sail away over the horizon.

The thought of being sunk in the freezing and stormy seas of the Arctic Ocean en route to Murmansk, where survival in the sea counted in minutes, or in the sea surrounded by blazing oil from the tanker that was sunk from underneath you.
That was the reality for the men of the Merchant Navy.

The photograph shows two of those men, two who had the fortune to survive and I am sure have a real story to tell, a story that may have included seeing their friends die.
These two are Jack and Derek.
We owe a great deal to them and their colleagues of the Merchant Navy.