It was sad to stand at the Bromley Memorial to the fallen on Martin's Hill at 11 o'clock on the 11th day of the 11th month with just a sprinkling of people who had come to honour the dead and to remember their friends and relatives lost in conflict.

The hour came and went: no ceremony; no bugle; no wreaths of poppies.

Were it not for that small group of people from CND who paid their own tribute, then there would have been...nothing.

At other war memorials around the borough, people no doubt assembled, and certainly not half-a-mile away from Martin's Hill, the Shortlands cenotaph was a magnet for those in this area.

So why is Bromley's chief memorial treated differently; or am I wrong, and is this now common to all?

I understand that a march past takes place an hour later, after the service at the Parish Church has concluded, but this is hardly the same thing.

David Alston

Email address supplied

December 5, 2001 14:24