Letter to the Unknown Soldier

Dear Unknown Soldier,

The other night my wife and I went to see ‘Oh What a lovely War’ at Stratford Theatre Royal. It was an extremely moving performance. In the spirit of your comrades who sang, ‘We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here’, I’d write to you to say, ‘I bet you wish you had never signed up!’ In a more intellectual frame of mind I would say,’the collective ego is a very bad thing.’ But thinking about what happened during WW1 and its impact on the 20th century, and my two grandfathers who fought, but unlike you, survived, I think your memorial is what unites human beings: ears, legs. arms, hair, loves, toes, hopes and foot ball on Xmas day, are huge wonderful and joyous and what divides human beings is small and mean.

Bob and Roberta Smith