Lincoln Jopp

May I start by joining others in wishing the Royal Marines a very happy 360th birthday today? It is a superb unit with a proud and distinguished history, albeit slightly shorter than my own regiment’s. They call us “Pongos” and we call them “Bootnecks” and it is an honour to share this House with so many distinguished Royal Marines—my hon. Friend the Member for Exmouth and Exeter East (David Reed) and the Minister for Veterans and People, the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) among their number. When I was 14 my English master, Mr Smale, gave us a poem to read and it annoyed me very much. It was written by Philip Larkin, and it ends like this: “Crowds, colourless and careworn Had made my taxi late, Yet not till I was airborne Did I recall the date— The day when Queen and Minister And Band of Guards and all Still act their solemn-sinister Wreath-rubbish in Whitehall. It used to make me throw up, These mawkish, nursery games: O When will England grow up? —But I out soar the Thames, And dwindle off down Auster To greet Professor Lal (He once met Morgan Forster), My contact and my pal.” I think what got to me then was the soaring, sneering cynicism of the persona that the poet had created of the travelling academic looking down both metaphorically and literally on the Cenotaph service here in Westminster. I think it offended my sense of fairness. Soldiers by and large have little choice in what they are called to do. Equally, they have little choice in the way in which the nation subsequently remembers them. They just do what they are called to do.