Reportage: Remembrance Sunday

The parade was smaller this year and, I noticed, lacking in air force types. I always seem to have a sensitivity to this, perhaps from being a cub scout whose pack met on an air force base.

I remember carrying the flag on similar Sundays, many years ago; it almost falling out of my hands. It was twice the height of me. I don't remember using the leather holster yesterday's carriers had; but I must have. There can't have been any other way that it would have stayed in my hands.

What struck me most was that you can never make the dogs stand still. Five of them were running round their play area in Kennington Park, even though their owners were ramrod stopped. One did eventually come and nestle by his master's leg. But even then, he faced away from the war memorial, preferring to look wistfully at his friends who hadn't stopped running.

As everyone, the gathered 200 or so, were leaving the park, they arranged themselves more loosely than they had when they marched in, like particles that had been released under a lower pressure.