SIR — After many, many years in which Remembrance Day was pushed to the sidelines, the general response to the restoration of the traditional two minutes silence in memory of the dead and injured of the two World Wars and other has been very gratifying and encouraging.

There was a time between the two World Wars when the silence was absolute — people stood motionless and deep in thought, all traffic stopped, drivers switched off their engines, and even the beasts and birds seemed to share the mood.

West Somerset has more often than not led the county in generous giving to the Poppy Appeal, and would not this, together with a perfect silence at 11 a.m. on Thursday 11th, be a fitting tribute and a poignant way to close the second millennium and start the third?

There are, however, a million other victims of war who have rarely received a special mention in these fifty and more years and yet they, in their different way, suffered as much as those who died in battle — some perhaps more.

And so, when we think of the Fallen, may we also give thought to the mothers who bore them, and the fathers who helped rear them for more fulfilling lives and more peaceful ends than choking on gas or drowning in a shell hole.

Death, even if agonising, closed the sufferings of the wounded, but the anguish of the mothers and fathers could never be fully healed.

Dr Glyn Court,

Chairman,

West Somerset Group,

The Royal British Legion.