LEST WE FORGET - by Dennis Hamley
Well, we've paid our respects, the Cenotaph is once again just a big stone in the middle of a busy road and our poppies are no longer in our buttonholes. But don't throw them away yet. They may be needed before next November. Because 2014 is the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, that act of gross stupidity which sentenced the world to seventy-five years of upheaval, dread and violent death. 'Wars are caused by the vanity of those who don't have to fight them.' Who said that? Read on to find out. Anyway, I have my own way of marking the centenary. Remembrance Day seems a good time to announce it. In 2006 my novel Ellen's People was published in the UK by Walker Books and in the USA by Candlewick Press under the title Without Warning. It, and its sequel, Divided Loyalties, didn't do as well as we hoped (how often have we heard that?) even though both were shortlisted for awards. I now h...