Letters - 4 February 2022
From Pity of war to Anonymous box
Pity of war
As the Russian troops gather on the borders of Ukraine, the western world is again facing invasion and war on its land. Meanwhile the world looks on with great anxiety.
It is at a time like this that the message which the Pity of War project seeks to share is so important. We hope fervently that the people whose troops are facing each other are aware of the devastation that could befall them. It is not just the military who face the impact of any conflict; experience shows that it is civilians who in fact suffer the most.
So the population of Russia need to know that when the guns start and the bombs drop they will be affected. They may have food shortages and will have a refugee problem as people flee the fighting. And when it is all over, however long it takes, military personnel will come home bearing the permanent scars of battle, both physical and psychological.
The Pity of War group wishes very much to share this awareness of the devastating impact of war. Artwork can sometimes carry this story better than words. The sculpture, which has been exhibited in many cathedrals in the UK and several abroad, tells this story. But we still do not have one at the War Memorial Arboretum near Lichfield for the ordinary people affected by war.
Look at www.pityofwar.org.
Barbara Mark
Vaccination
If an earlier generation of those speaking against vaccination had prevailed, smallpox would still be with us, killing nearly a third of those contracting it and leaving many scarred, disfigured or blind. It took worldwide vaccination to beat it. We don’t yet know whether a virulent Covid strain will break out but at present, thankfully, none is evident.
I can’t tell people what to do, but governments can. Sometimes it’s for our own good while at others it’s for their own benefit in one way or another. I think that the restrictions we’ve been under have been justified by the threat of the coronavirus we call Covid but the government has been thrown off balance by all the consequent pressures it has had to cope with, leaving us to find our own ways forward.
An invisible enemy is hard to engage our minds with, and the varied sources of information don’t help.
I’ve been reading Immune by Philipp Dettmer with feelings of awe and wonder at how beautifully elegant our inner landscape is. I was delighted to find, to my surprise, how very readable it was.
Michael Grendon
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