Thought for the Week

Whatever your politics are, whatever your beliefs are, whatever your thoughts are, this is an historic day.

Today the UK leaves the European Union and it is a significant date.

I never use the privilege of this column to make a political point, and I never will.

However, it is worth stopping to reflect on what we have done and what our hopes are for the future.

This date also coincides with the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which also gives us pause for reflection.

I have been to the Holocaust memorial museum at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and nothing could have prepared me for that.

One enters a dark filled room where a list of the names of those killed by the Nazis is read continuously and each is represented by a candle – the symbol of hope.

What totally broke me was the list of children who suffered and died in that awful genocide. We emerged with not a word, for there were no words, only tears.

I cannot imagine the horrors of the concentration camps, the suffering, the degradation, the hopelessness.

Yet in the midst of all the horror, cruelty and suffering, there was hope and kindness and faith.

So today, on the brink of a new future, whether we voted for this or not, let us make of it what we can.

Let us make us a nation of people who will never inflict cruelty on other human beings, regardless of their beliefs, or colour, or creed, or sexuality, or religion, or any other factor.

This is an historic day and one we might fear and one we might rail against, but it is here. Let us be the voice of hope.