Chris, a very touching post, I hope this isn’t a one off visit to the forum and that, even under so horrible a set of circumstances, you will stay and become a contributor yourself if you have an interest in avaition. Welcome to the forum!

Steve

I never met Steve but I remember fondly the posts that Snapper mentions about the Rapide and his son, Haydn.

Very sad news, my thoughts are with his family and also with the friends he made on here who must find this particularly hard.

What’s to compare anyway? Those killed on the 7th are just as dead as those killed during the Blitz. Or does it only warrant Rememberance when the death toll is much higher?

Kev, I agree, what is to compare? But that is what I have heard quite often since. Of course I believe it warrants rememberance, I do not advocate forgetting such events, it’s just that tragic events similar to these happen regularly around the world and unless it is something on the scale of the recent Tsunami then we go on regardless. It takes something to happen to OUR nation for us to care, nobody seems to care less about the victims of suicide bombers in Bagdad or elsewhere. I concur with Steve-O on the point that a nation can manage a two minutes show of rememberance yet some can’t show any sort of compassion in their daily lives. Several days after bombings, a flag at a local Gurdwara was set on fire here in Bradford. Lets remember that tragically lives have been lost in London and also remember that this kind of thing goes on too.

During the Blitz, and throughout the Second World War, I can imagine there wouldn’t have been many people untouched by the war. Almost everyone would have either lost someone or knew someone who had. Everyone would have had to spend years without the comforts we take for granted and for some time live in real fear that a way of life was at serious risk. I too see comparisons as pointless but the media wishes to do so.

Andrewman, I’m sorry you feel this is an arguement. I’m taking part in the spirit of conversation/debate. We all, I’m sure, have the common feeling of sadness/disgust at what happened in London almost two weeks ago.

best regards, steve

The idea of a silence in rememberance after such events has always struck me as strange. On the one hand I find it a moving gesture for events like this, rememberance day etc but then we see no similiar gesture offered for innocent people who are killed at the hands of suicide bombers everyweek in Iraq or other countries worldwide. In the Independent today it was remarked that 31 suicide bombers have killed 238 people in Iraq since the London bombings. Yet, we as a nation, are not asked or do not willingly hold silences for these people and their families who have suffered.

I personally did not hold a silence in a thought out manner, i was out walking and as a resut was quite because of this. I feel that if I want to spare a thought for these people then I can do it in my own time and not have to be told to make a gesture.

This idea of a ‘blitz’ spirit is nonsense, it’s the human spirit. One bomb in London killing 55 people, tragic as that may be, is incomparable with thousands of civillians killed by Nazi bombers.

[QUOTE=Mark_pilkington]JDK,

I felt it was plausable simply because of the “buy UK” focus in the mid 1930’s within the Commonwealth trading block, and to be fair, assumed the US spelling for the state was “DAKODA”? (but thats where John Lennon was shot in New York etc).

Mark, the building where Lennon was shot is also Dakota and not Dakoda.

best regards, Steve