THERE’S been a sad ceremony this week as unnamed soldiers, who have lain for 90 long years in an unmarked grave since the Battle of Fromelles, were given a recognised resting place.

It makes you realise the utter futility of war.

It would be better if our soldiers were not in Afghanistan, for it will probably all have to be brought to a conclusion by head men talking — so let’s get talking before more lives are lost.

On a different topic, how we love nostalgia. When older people get together we all tend to look back and say that in ‘our day’ things were a lot better — but were they?

It’s very difficult to judge, for in those far off days I was a child and thought that things were the same for everyone.

My mum used to leave the insurance, the rent and the doctor’s money all tucked into the right books under the lid of the organ that had pride of place in the front room — not that anyone could play it.

On Friday evening the various collectors would open the front door, come in and shout ‘it’s only th’insurance man’ or whatever, pick up their money, sign the book and go.

That was in the days before we all got mobile, when people stayed in the one place for years.

Villages were close knit through necessity, because in those days not many people had any sort of transport, so work and entertainment had to be close at hand.

Young folk didn’t leave home to go to university. Adult children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles and grandma probably lived in the same street of terraced houses and those houses were most likely built by the owners of the factories where they worked.

I know our house was in East Street, Feniscowles. Nearly all the workers in the area were employed by either the Star or Sun paper mill or at the Eclipse, the local weaving shed.

By the sound of the names I think they must all have been built by the same firm, who most likely built the houses as well.

So, that’s the yesterday I think of so fondly; it was safe and secure because we knew everyone and everyone knew us.

Now we are living in a much more mobile and diverse world. Families no longer live in the same street, town or, in many cases, even the same country.

That doesn’t mean things are worse, but it certainly means they are different.