Why I was young and foolish about those who lost their lives to war, says Christa Ackroyd

As a sixth former the works of the war poets seeped into my consciousness. The sheer futility of the Great War seemed to me to be summed up in Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est ... with its final bitter line repeating the ‘old lie’ that it is sweet and proper to die for one’s country.

But then with the stupid naivety of being a know it all teenager, I was easily persuaded that nothing was worth fighting for, certainly nothing was worth laying down your life for. And so I came home to my granny’s to tell of my newfound certainly that all war was wrong and so a waste of human endeavour.

I presumed, having lived through two World Wars, she would agree with me. Granny was a quiet soul who never had a bad word to say about anyone or anything. She lived just down the road from us and so I visited her several times a week. In her eyes I could do no wrong.

Only that day she told me I was very wrong indeed. And she proceeded to tell me the story of her brother, a man whom, despite his humble North Yorkshire origins, had the grandest name I ever heard. Granny lived in the middle of the North York Moors with her parents and 12, yes 12, brothers and sisters. Four of them were called upon to serve their country in World War 1, but only three came home.

And it was the baby of the bunch who like so many was lost at the battle of the Somme. He was just 19. It broke my granny’s heart and she said my great grandmother never got over it either, especially when his body could not be brought home, because I suspect they never recovered a body to bring home.

How he came to be given so grand a name in what was largely a rural farming community I will never know but then I suspect having named so many children before him it was meant to be a name to remember. That it took the arrogance of opinionated youth for me to hear it for the first time shames me still and so I share it with you today. Alonza Strickland.

Granny had never forgotten him and so neither do I. And so it was this week I sought his name alongside seven other fallen comrades from that same war and from that same tiny village, commemorated on a well polished brass plaque in the local church, open as it always is on Remembrance Day and indeed every day.

It’s strange isn’t it how we sign up to complex computerised ancestry sites to find more about ourselves and our roots but so often don’t make enough time in our busy lives to visit what is there right in front of us for real.

Here was my great uncle, Alonza commemorated in his local church in the tiny hamlet which bore and lost him. And it was worth a moment of reflection to not only remember him on Remembrance Day but to later dig out his photo from the family album. And also to reflect on why my granny was so annoyed with me all those years ago when I had dismissed his bravery and sacrifice as somehow not being worth it.

But then the very fact I can write this today in a column which can be about anything I choose proves it was. The mere fact I can express an opinion at all is because of people like him who fought.. and died.. to protect my right to do so.

Of course down the years war became not just a historical event but also a part of the present, from the Falklands War to combat twice in the Gulf and of course Afghanistan. During those years I covered them all and came to realise at what cost our brave men, and later women, paid then and still do, to defend us and our freedoms. I came to know some who served and survived and the families of those lost to them forever.

Yorkshire heroes Simon Brown and Ben Parkinson both overcame horrific injuries to campaign for better treatment of wounded veterans. Simon lost the sight in one eye and only has 20 per cent vision in the other, yet after surviving an attack in Iraq in 2006, continues to serve his former comrades and his home town of Morley as a councillor.

Ben Parkinson is the most injured servicemen ever to make it home from the war in Afghanistan and survive. He lost both his legs and suffered brain damage when the Landrover he was travelling in struck a land mine. This week, as he does every year, he joined the Royal British Legion to sell poppies down his local supermarket. It has been an honour to interview both of them down the years.

And then there is Liam Riley from South Yorkshire who was 21 when he was killed in Helmand province in 2010 and whose mum and aunty organise an annual fundraiser to ensure his name lives on. It is a privilege to count Monica Kershaw from Bradford as a friend. Her son Christopher was one of the six from the Yorkshire regiment killed in 2012 in Afghanistan when their vehicle ran over an unexploded bomb.

I was there in Warminster when their bodies were repatriated and got to know his mum when she wanted to pay tribute to her lad, described by his commanding officer as a soldier warrior.

And now there is Ukraine.That a nation so near and with such strong links with ourselves having seen so many from Ukraine settle here after the Second World War should remind us that freedoms we take for granted are also fragile. We must continue to support them with all our might until Putin is sent packing.

My own grandchildren are descendants of Ukrainians who escaped here after years of Russian domination to build a life in this country. So it could have been them hiding from the enemy without electricity or even food or water in bombed out cities while we debate whether Putin will use nuclear power to win a war which we, whether we like it or not are helping contain with the supply or weapons and equipment. And so we should. Or it could be us next.

So I hope you have worn your poppy with pride this week as we remember those who fought then and those who are always prepared to fight in our name in the future for the right to have a future.

As for my granny who scolded me when I blindly and stupidly announced war was wrong, of course it is, she said. But then freedom will always be worth fighting for. And so to my great Uncle Alonza, to those who survived and those who did not, thankyou. Lest we forget. I promise you we never will.