‘ARMA Pacis Fulcra’, ‘Arms are the Balance of Peace’ is the ancient motto of my own old Regiment, the Honourable Artillery Company, whose tie I wore with pride on Remembrance Sunday, together with my Royal British Legion Royal Wootton Bassett branch badge.

A complex of thoughts and emotions swirl around the annual Remembrancetide events, made all the more poignant by this year’s centenary of the 1918 Armistice at 11am on 11/11/18.

I joined the Speaker and Lord Speaker in laying wreaths at the newly-restored First World War memorial in Parliament’s Westminster Hall to members of both houses who gave their lives. And there is something very special always about the Remembrance Sunday service in Malmesbury Abbey. It was great to see the Rev Oliver Ross safely installed as their new vicar.

We remember those hundreds of thousands of young men and (in subsequent wars) women, who gave their lives, their physical or mental wellbeing, and so much else to fight for King and Country and for all of our freedoms and rights. They were following orders, and were as much fighting for their regiments, or units, and for their mates with whom they had trained and deployed. We remember their sacrifice with admiration and pride. And we think of their families and all they left behind when they went off to war.

But then I had the honour of taking the salute alongside Colonel Ed Heal at the 1,000-soldier march-past at the Remembrance event in Lyneham, and it occurred to me that this great event is not just about remembering the dead and wounded.

It’s also about those who currently serve – all 200,000 or so soldiers, sailors and airmen and women. We should be pleased and honoured in North Wiltshire to have the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and the Defence Technical Training School at Lyneham; IX Regiment, Royal Logistics Corps at Hullavington; 21 Signals Regiment at Colerne; 10 Signals Regiment and others at the MoD Communications Centre at Corsham, and a great many others all round Salisbury Plain. Wiltshire makes a huge contribution to the defence of the realm, and it is right and proper to remember that at this Remembrancetide.

There was something wonderfully moving and forward-looking about the simply lovely children’s Remembrance service which I attended in Calne on Friday. These young people may not have personal experience of war; but they most certainly understood the meaning of Remembrance. And most important of all, Remembrance Sunday teaches them about the awfulness of war and their crucial role in preventing it in the lifetimes which stretch ahead of them.

The HAC motto, Arma Pacis Fulcra says it all for me. Pacifism, and the self-regarding nonsense of the white poppy, achieves nothing. Recognising the service of our armed forces; recognising that they do what they do to avoid war rather than to cause it; remembering the awfulness of war, and paying tribute to those who made such great self-sacrifices. These are the emotions which will prevent war in the future.

And that is why Remembrance Sunday, so splendidly marked in this year of all years, is so very important.