YESTERDAY evening (November 7) the panel on BBC Radio 4's The Moral Maze considered Remembrance. The debate focused on whether society has a moral responsibility to continue "to remember" – the suggestion being that, as the years pass and fewer people attending ceremonies know someone who died while engaged in military service, it might be better to stop. Neither panel, nor witnesses, considered the possibility that what we should always remember is the sense of duty of those who serve. Not just a memory of those who died.

My grandfather and two great-uncles held commissions in Scottish regiments throughout the Great War. Each was wounded, sometimes more than once; two suffered with shell shock. In the Second World War my father served in XIVth Army in Burma. His younger brother joined the RAF and flew Mosquitos and another survived the Arctic convoys. The eldest of my mother's cousins fought with 8th Army in Africa and Italy. In the 1950s his younger brother went ashore at Suez. Having participated in school Officer Training Corps, each of them were awarded commissions on volunteering straight from university or school. All, except the one whose name I share, survived.

When it comes to Remembrance I remember all of them. I honour a sense of duty which puts the future of family and country beyond safety of self; a sense of duty and volunteering which society must pass from generation to generation. If we fail to cultivate a care for others above self, we foster "winner takes all" which benefits few and damages society at large. A loss of moral compass is already evident when some individuals believe that it is quite appropriate for them to expect millions of pounds for doing a good job while seated at a desk. It is all those who take time to serve others, whether or not medals result, whom society should remember. Surely, it is not too much to ask that we do this for a few minutes each year on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

Ian HC Stein

8 Ochlochy Park, Dunblane.

NO individual life is a counsel of perfection. Every sojourn, regardless of success, is strewn with error and regret. The liberty to be who we are and what we do is enshrined in the ultimate sacrifice made by a multitude we will never know but whom we should never forget.

Dan Edgar,

Toward View, 31 Ardbeg Road, Rothesay, Isle of Bute.

I BELIEVE that your editorial judgment was faulty when you allowed Neil Cameron in his Final Say column ("Remembrance Sunday is not for attention seeking", Herald Sport, November 7) to have an anti-religion rant using simplistic and colourful language. I found these comments in the sports pages misplaced, insulting and objectionable. I read the sports pages in order to be informed about what has happened or is about to happen in the world of sport, not to read of a particular journalist's views on other extraneous matters towards which he clearly has a deep dislike.

His thoughts on the offensive misbehaviour of certain football fans at the time of Remembrance commemorations I broadly agree with, but his introductory paragraphs of what can only be regarded as anti-religion declamation were seriously out of place. He should ask The Herald to give him another space in its columns if he wishes to provide the readership with his opinions on non-sporting matters.

Ian W Thomson,

38 Kirkintilloch Road, Lenzie.

I HAVE to say that I agreed with the correspondence (Letters, November 8) regarding Neil Cameron's Final Say column. He is my favourite Herald sports writer, but this particular article was quite simply intemperate and inappropriate.

Roddy MacDonald,

1 Glenmount Place, Ayr.

I WOULD like to offer my congratulations to Neil Cameron for yet another superb column.

He hit on all the right points but halfway through I came upon a word that sums up the malaise of the day: "respect". it is something that seems to have skipped a generation, beginning in the early nineties.

Francis Deigman

12, Broomlands Way, Erskine.

REGARDING the coverage of the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, there is a piece of information that, to my surprise, is not very well known. Conscientious Objectors who were sent to Barlinnie had their ration books removed and their families had to supply food for them.

My lovely friend, Michael Harrison, was the victim of this. He ended up in charge of the library.

E Adair,

Flat 98, Crathes Court, Glasgow.

THIS week of November 2018 marks the historic centenary of the end of the First World War. There are, quite correctly, many worldwide commemorations to remind us today of the appalling events of this cataclysmic period.

“Lest we forget” is the continuing motto.

Most regrettably, the ending of the First World War gave rise to some very unwarranted legacies, many of which we have inherited to this day. Included was the rise of anti-Semitism and the progressive isolation of the Jews in a defeated Germany. Significantly, November 9, 2018 will also mark the 80th Anniversary of one of the most infamous pogroms, known as "Kristallnacht", or the Night of Broken Glass perpetrated against the German Jews. Some 30,000 Jewish men of all ages were rounded up by the SS & Gestapo and deported to German concentration camps including Dachau and Buchenwald. My father and his young friends were amongst those sent to the latter. He was 17 years of age. Virtually all were brutalised. At the age of 18, he, and his friends, were subsequently released with a chilling reminder by the SS that he had better leave “or else”. He very much took the hint and managed to escape, as a refugee, to the UK in early February 1939. Some of his friends, including my mother, followed. Those who didn’t were far less fortunate. They included my grandparents, uncles and aunts and cousins amongst the six million who eventually perished in the Holocaust.

The current rise of far-right fascist and anti-Semitic groups, at home and abroad, should not be the legacy of all those we remember. Their mourned deaths should not be in vain

Yet even today, well into the 21st century, the world is privy to the catastrophic proxy hostilities in Syria and Yemen with their well-documented atrocities. Couple that with the plight of the displaced Rohingya and the very recent disclosures of concentration camps for the Chinese Uighur population.

Plus ça change? Lest we forget?

Ian Fulton,

114 Hillview Drive, Clarkston, Glasgow.