What's in a name? Quite soon it will be Remembrance Sunday. This year it actually falls on November 11th.

What does it mean to us as we move towards the end of the first decade of the 21st Century?

Although known as Bill, I am William George Taylor.

I never knew Billy Selkirk, my maternal grandad. He was a tram conductor in Edinburgh.

He died comparatively young, during the Second World War.

George Hogg (my Grandma's maiden name) Selkirk, was a marine (that's SELKIRK, George, Marine, PLY/X 1550) on HMS Spartan when it was bombed and sunk by Dorniers at around 6pm on Saturday, 29th January 1944 near the Anzio beachhead.

I never knew George either. I belong to the uncle-less baby boom generation.

I've learned all this from listening to my Mum and "Googling" George Hogg Selkirk and HMS Spartan.

His ship was the 6th Spartan, built in Barrow in 1942. The current Spartan is a nuclear sub. I could tell you more.

On our dining room wall is a 1920s sepia photo portrait of George.

On the rear of it, it says the frame was made at Lady Haig's Poppy Factory in Edinburgh by Scottish ex-servicemen.

We took my Mum up to Edinburgh (she'd never flown before) last year to celebrate her 80th birthday.

We took her to the tenement where she was brought up on Dalgety Avenue, the (no longer) tea warehouse of WP Melroses on Broughton Street where she used to pack tea.

Arthur's Seat, Princes St, the Royal Mile. We drove past the church where she was married and where (I recently found out) I had been baptised by Rev Archibald Russell in 1952.

The church hall was being rebuilt The scaffolding around the building quite worried my Mum.

Where's George's window?'. she asked. It had featured a stained glass window bearing the names of parishioners who had died for their Country.

I got on the case. Again courtesy of www and e mail, the Rev Phil Hair kindly and thoughtfully sent me some jpeg's of the new church hall, the window and close ups of George H Selkirk's name.

This delighted my mum. She sent a small "thank you" and card to the Rev Hair.

You may know that Blackburn was the first town in the World to make a "twin" just after the "Great" War - Peronne on the Somme.

Outside the little town, a little like Skipton, lies the British Military Cemetery.

Please have a mind's eye of what a First World War British Tommy Atkins would look like.

More than 500 British Servicemen lie there, around 350 of whom were called nothing like Atkins - their names include Khans, Singhs and Patels.

Buy a poppy please, wear it with pride.

William George Taylor intends to buy and wear one. Lest he forgets.