NOT unexpectedly, we again get the thoughts of Mr Pittock on what he feels to be the British public attitude to Remembrance Sunday.

Twice within a few lines he uses the word ‘sentimental (ised)’, then he goes on to call Remembrance Sunday ‘celebrations’ of war.

Mr Pittock’s constant, endless belittling of men who did lose their lives in battle is quite sickening.

This disdain is confined to the dead of his own country.

The mass-murdering Nazi, Japanese, Russian militaristic regimes are portrayed by him as the innocent victims of UK/US aggression and ‘murder’.

I do not think that my attitude to the sacrifices made by thousands of UK men and women in worldwide and other wars is very different from other people who take the trouble to attend Remembrance Sundays.

I moved from Birmingham at the height of the Nazi blitz to a small mining community in Westhoughton called Hart Common. I also happened to have grandparents already living there.

In the First World War, a lot of men, mostly miners, went from Hart Common to fight in France thinking that they were fighting to protect their families and communities.

There is a plaque on the wall of the former pit offices in Wigan Road, Hart Common, commemorating the loss of 17 miners from the local pit in that war. Many were wounded.

Also on the plaque is a list of men who won gallantry awards, several won military medals, one man won two military medals (remarkable bravery).

I have not researched why the medals were won but will be surprised if some were not for supporting wounded comrades.

As a former miner, I will at 11am on Remembrance Sunday, observe my two-minutes' silence at that plaque, then lay a poppy at the Pretoria Pit Disaster memorial, another poppy at the town war memorial for my dad who died after Dunkirk, a poppy on my grandfather's grave who survived the horrors of the First World War, and then to my dad's grave with a final poppy.

I may be at Hart Common on my own, or with a few other local people, maybe former miners. There will be no politicians, no religion, and no military parades, just a thoughtful and respectful silence. Any suggestion by Mr Pittock and his like of our ‘celebrating’ or ‘sentimentality’ about war is deeply offensive.

Ron Shambley

Clough Avenue

Westhoughton