“The importance of today is to tell the youngsters what happened so that we stop it ever happening again”.

Those sentiments were articulated by Kathleen Clare, of Abingdon, but shared by the thousands of people who came out to pay their respects for the fallen across our region on Sunday.

You might expect that, as war becomes more about technology than people, as people become desensitised to violence through television and computers games, and as soldiers seem to be fighting wars in more and more remote places, public understanding and support for our troops would wane.

If anything, the opposite is true.

Wallingford mayor Bernard Stone said that over the past ten years he has seen more and more people take to the streets each Remembrance Day.

This year there was standing room only at many of the services.

Perhaps that is because, with Dalton and Vauxhall barracks in South Oxfordshire, the RAF base at Benson and with repatriations in Carterton, it is impossible to ignore the horror of war, even here in quiet, rural Oxfordshire.

Now, the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan has begun, and many troops from our local barracks have returned home for the last time.

Let’s hope that Mrs Clare is right.