On a cold, bright Sunday morning I stepped out to visit the local Remembrance Sunday service, held on the street close to the war memorial.

Let me be completely honest with you: I might not have made the effort but for the fact our son was taking part in the short parade up the street from the local church with his Scout group.

I probably had better things to do at 11am on a cold Sunday morning when the junior football had been cancelled. Like sitting around in my Captain America pyjamas, drinking coffee and pondering doing the ironing, or at least pondering ways to put off doing the ironing until it was too late.

But I thought it was the done thing to at least go and watch the boy, in his crisp Scout shirt and poppy, walk up the street with his mates and stand around for a quarter of an hour in the street. At least it wasn’t raining.

I was proud when I got there and saw him holding the Scout standard. My boy! Holding the flag! And then, while I was up and about and awake, I decided to take a bit of notice of what was going on.

Now look... let’s have this right. I’m not particularly one for organised religion. I’m not particularly one for organised anything, to be honest. I only lasted a few weeks at Cubs myself (it clashed with The Incredible Hulk on telly).

But I had to admit that the service gave me a bit of a kick up the backside. Remembrance Sundays have come and gone, but standing there listening to the local vicar reeling off the names of those who had died in conflict gave me proper pause to think.

It’ll be a century next year since the start of the Great War. I looked around, that crisp, clear morning, and wondered which of those gathered for the service would have been sent off to fight in foreign fields a hundred years ago, and how many of them would have returned.

And I looked at our boy, just ten, with his ironed green shirt and holding the standard, and I thought about the boys who in some cases were just a few years older than him who went off to war and never came back.

The vicar said a lot of things about God, which is understandable, given his job, but he also said a lot of things about peace, and how we all have to do our bit to maintain it.

Because peace is a fragile thing so easily broken and lost. And while I’m probably far too old to get conscripted (unless things got really desperate, or they needed some kind of Dad’s Army platoon in Bradford) I thought about my son and my daughter and their friends at school.

So yeah, let’s all do our bit for peace, eh? I’m not entirely sure what that involves, or how useful it will be, but it’s probably a good idea to start with not forgetting those who paid the ultimate sacrifice, and somehow making sure no-one has to do that ever again.