At our Kelvin Choir last year (2014) we performed “The Armed Man- a Mass for Peace”, to mark 100 Years since the start of WW1.

And yet we still have wars!

I was honoured to be asked to read aloud a poem, a war poem. This poem was written in the trenches, and to my mind tended to glorify the Great Sacrifice.

This prompted me to write this piece, in memory of my Grandfather, William Bonthron.

Obviously he returned, thankfully almost physically unscathed.

Grandpa Wullie Bonthron was a quiet, ordinary man with only a basic education, like most working-class men of his time. But he could read and write and in the aftermath of WW1 he became, like many who had suffered and survived, an extreme Socialist, perhaps a Communist.

His experience made him determined never to allow any of his children to fight in another war.

In WW2 aged 18, my father was conscripted, to the Submarine Service. Dad survived, but he was damaged, suffering Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, a problem which dogged him all of his long life.

I hope both of them would agree with the sentiments of this poem.