Day to remember

SIR – When I was 10, my family moved to the industrial North. On Remembrance Day, the factory whistle blew and everyone climbed down ladders, crawled out of machinery and hurried to the huge factory yard.

The steam coal and coke train chuffed to a halt as every man took off his hat and every woman checked that hers sat right. Smoke still billowed from the chimneys, but apart from the slightly hissing train there was total silence. The machines were turned off.

My parents touched hands briefly. People caught each other’s eyes and nodded their recognition, for everyone in that yard that day had known war. Our father was in all the big convoys, and many friends went down with HMS Hood. Three uncles fought and two never returned (one in Burma, one in France). My mother was in MI5 and her parents at the War Office, refugees from occupied Jersey. Like everyone, they never talked about it, and that’s why the starkness of the day was so moving.

Jacqueline King

Castle Cary, Somerset