Remembrance Day

Baroness Fookes Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fookes]

My Lords, my noble friend has spoken very eloquently of the plight of widows worldwide. My own focus, I confess, has been much narrower, as president of the War Widows’ Association of Great Britain, a post I am very proud and privileged to occupy.

This morning, I went to the opening of the Field of Remembrance outside Westminster Abbey. That brought home the poignancy of loss. All those plots organised by different organisations, with little crosses stuck in—each representing one lost life. I planted two crosses on behalf of two of my organisation’s members, too frail now in their 80s to come and do this themselves. It was a humbling experience.

During my time as president, I have heard innumerable stories of the difficulties that have faced the widows, who are very often extremely young with young children. They suffer all the emotional havoc that comes from losing a husband or a partner and all the difficulties of bringing up children on one’s own, probably with very little money. That was certainly the experience of many of the women in the Second World War to whom I have spoken.

We have to look long term. I agree that we cannot simply have a November remembrance service and then forget it the rest of the time. It is like those who go to church on Sunday then behave abominably for the next six days. We need to get away from that syndrome completely.

I served on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for 10 years. Like others have mentioned, the sight of all those rows of graves is very intimidating, although they are beautifully kept. One of the great joys of serving on the Commission was seeing how it kept the standards going under all kinds of difficulties, such as modern wars, the encroachment of cities into the former countryside, earthquakes, floods—you name it, all kinds of things which would interfere with the good upkeep of this as a remembrance. The Commission does a wonderful job and it was a wonderful post which I greatly enjoyed occupying.

I thoroughly applaud one of the things it did during my time there. It started to put up plaques showing the historical context in which one was viewing the graves. That was important, as it explains to succeeding generations, for whom this is history, what the graves are doing there. To have some context, I think, is extremely important and fits in with all the other ways in which we can teach young people in succeeding generations about what occurred and how important it is to remember. So I applaud all those who try to make it alive and real for youngsters. I hope very much that the various bodies who are involved in charitable work in any way whatever try to take the message into schools, where people will perhaps understand more readily what is involved in war.

There are also those who are not of the armed services as such, but whom I think we ought to remember. I think of the merchant seamen who often risked their lives in the most appalling conditions to help save this country from starvation and to bring us munitions. Think of the nurses who were operating in terrible conditions with awful wounds to see to, and who themselves were under pressure. This very morning I was standing next to a lady representing nurses and midwives. It suddenly came home to me very much that we owe a great debt to all those who are not from the armed services as such, but whose work is absolutely invaluable in dealing with the whole war effort.

We of course have an immense responsibility, as others have indicated already, towards those who survive war but with great difficulty. I think particularly of those whose minds are shattered by war as well as their limbs. I believe that organisations such as Combat Stress do a great deal of work. We are also much more aware of the long-term difficulties that can be experienced. This is something that I hope the Government will take on board because the symptoms very often do not show themselves immediately. Therefore we need to look long term, as we do for physical injuries. Many people now survive who simply would not have done so but for very advanced medical techniques. I suspect this is a worry that we are going to have for 50 years and more. It is very easy to forget about once the main dangers are over so we need to have a long-term commitment, I think that this is extremely important.

For the last part of my contribution, I should like to consider a rather sore point, touched upon by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Walker—the issue of the chief coroner. My noble friend the Minister will recall that when we were in opposition, we worked together in order to ensure that such a post existed. There is a certain irony, shall we say, in the present position. I want to believe that we can manage without him and that the kind of work that we expected him to do can be done by other people. But I have a very real worry that if his duties are distributed among others, then it will be nobody’s job. We need a person in this role. If we cannot have a chief coroner, which I would still like, then we need at least a person of repute and sufficient seniority to carry weight. I think that is extremely important and I urge that upon my noble friend. He will recall that one of the reasons why I and those involved in the services wanted this measure, was that military inquests are of a different order from normal inquests. They require a degree of sophistication and an understanding of military facts and ethos. That was developed slowly and painfully for the families of those who had died, but then we had a few coroners with that expertise. I did not want to see that lost, and that was the view of many others involved. Therefore it was felt essential to have a chief coroner with direct responsibility for the training of all coroners, particularly those needing expertise in military inquests.

I continue to think that that is the case. I am hoping for a crumb or two of comfort from my noble friend on this issue. I live in hopes. I think I see a shaking of the head in front of me. Oh, it is a nodding. I will wait eagerly to see what my noble friend says at the conclusion of this debate. I also thank my noble friend Lord Selkirk for giving us this wonderful opportunity to pay tribute, on behalf of the nation, for the wonderful service rendered by our Armed Forces.