Remembrance Day: Armed Forces

Cameron Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

This Sunday past, remembrance ceremonies and parades were held in Winchcombe and Bishops Cleeve, joined by Scout groups, cadet forces, armed forces personnel, veterans and members of our various branches of the Royal British Legion. It makes me particularly proud to see so many children of all ages marching with our annual parades, just as I once marched, as a cub scout, to a service at St George’s Church at RAF Halton. For the second time as Tewkesbury’s Member of Parliament, I observed a typically moving service at the abbey, led by the great Reverend Nick Davies, before our small but proud town encircled the cross at the top of Church Street and paid its respects, as it always does with such poignance.

I am certain that the act of remembrance is important for those of us who recognise that most noble of traits: selflessness for the benefit of others. In the case of remembrance, we recognise immense courage, facing down one’s own mortality, to defend against tyranny. However, not everyone feels the same way. Three years ago, after attending a remembrance event in Tewkesbury, I joined the family of a close friend for a drink in a restaurant beside the cross. Three of the younger members of his family felt opposed to the act of remembrance, as I recall, owing to its increasing politicisation and the misconception that it was a celebration of conflict. My friend George Porter invited me to explain to them what it meant to me. I recall stating that remembrance is not a celebration of war; the opposite is true. I told them that when I stand before the cross in the centre of Tewkesbury, or the Cenotaph in Westminster, I will be thinking of seven-year-old Shirley Trenchard.

Shirley was born to Royal Navy Petty Officer (Supply) Charles William Staddon Trenchard in 1935. When war with Germany was declared in 1939, he sailed aboard HMS Illustrious. On 10 January 1941, Illustrious suffered sustained bombardment by German aircraft near Malta, and although she remained afloat, she suffered many casualties. My great-grandfather succumbed to his wounds two days later. I think of his service, and of his sacrifice. I try to imagine his war, and how he might have felt during the bombardment of Illustrious. Mostly, though, I imagine a child learning that her father was not coming home, and I reckon with the cost that that war continues to draw from my grandmother, 84 years later. I think of my own daughter, and I hope that we can spare her that torment.

Finally, let me say to this anyone who would heed the words of a washed-up veteran: try not to judge another person for the presence or absence of a poppy, much less for whether the leaf is turned to face 11 o’clock, or to judge a person for whether he or she wears a white poppy. It is the act of remembering itself that is so important. Lest we forget.