Every year, we have a day to pause – just the one to reflect and remember, and look forward to the future as well. It is a day that some see as controversial, considering whether it still fits in with our modern perceptions and if, with current conflict around the world, there is any place for it now.

But this is the day that isn’t about what your political beliefs are. The importance of Remembrance Day does not focus on the decisions that current governments make. It isn’t about encouraging militarism or the glorification of war. Just for a small while, we have a time that doesn’t revolve around politicians and what they are or aren’t doing well enough. We have a time that, for a change, is all about ordinary people. It is about the calibre of the men and women, past and present, who have served their country unwavering. The decisions were nothing to do with them, but they were the ones to shoulder the burden and, without question, went to defend their nation in the best way they could. Looking to the past, we can see why it is important that we carry on the service with all the ceremony that it entails, and rightly deserves.

When we wear a poppy and observe the two-minute silence, we can be proud of the people who were brave enough to do their bit for their nation, even if they did not want to. We think about those who have served under our respective flags and try to comprehend, difficult though it is, the things they have seen and what they had to do to defend our interests, making sure that we have freedoms that were threatened in the past. We think about the people involved in recent conflicts and how the ramifications have impacted on their lives.

It has been 100 years since the Battle of the Somme; 100 years from the dread and the horrors endured in the trenches by the men who were a world away from their homes, jobs and families. We remember them by the peaceful monument to their sacrifice; through the silence observed in their memory.

Then all was endured again too soon after in the Second World War, where once more civilisation was turned on its head and there was everything to defend: our way of life; our peace. Though horrifying, there was glory under the banner of victory – for all those who suffered their way through the years, be it the men advancing in all sorts of climates to push back the enemy, the women at home doing their bit to keep the country going, and those who worked in codebreaking, farming or factories to support the war effort.

Ordinary people had to do things they would never have imagined doing in their lives. Bringing in a personal element, I would like to tell you about my hero, my great-grandfather Edward W.T. Holnes.

He had many interesting tales to tell about his time in the Royal Artillery during the Second World War, and everything those years entailed. He found a horse in a field in France and rode across the country to evacuate at Dunkirk. He fought in the Battle of Monte Cassino, breaking through the Axis powers to Rome. He was in the heat of the desert in North Africa, commanding a battery of field guns that were shelling the Germans to allow the infantry to push forward. He stayed with a police chief and his family in Greece and was given a revolver before he went on his way, and flew home from Berlin in a Lancaster Bomber. What adventures for a son of a fisherman in Kent, an ordinary man who achieved a mention in dispatches and had some tales to tell, though he witnessed much. Each of his medals tells a story with such gravitas that I could never hope to fully appreciate nor comprehend.

Poppies have a place on Britain's football fields

It is important to remember why this day is about unification and not division. Whatever decisions are made now and in the future, the past has happened and history has established itself. Even if we were never to see war again, sacrifices have already been made, and we should never forget that.

Remembrance Day is a reminder that people are capable of true bravery in the face of adversity, and that we could be a very different nation if not for the efforts of the people who defended us in the past. It is not a question of whether you agree with war or not, it is solely a time to think about the sacrifices that ordinary people have made. We can criticise governments on military decisions every day of the week, but this is the one time to soberly think about the efforts of people like my great-grandfather – just one of the many.

The world is never quiet. There is never a time of peace anywhere. War is not great, it is only ever a means to an end. But most of the time, at what cost? War is never agreeable, and that doesn’t need to be said. But whatever you think about it, the fact remains that there are always people who suffer in the name of it. They cannot change the situation they are placed in.

Remembrance Day is not political, for it has only ever been to make sure that these incredibly brave people are thought about and thanked. These are the people that Britain can forever be proud of. My great-grandfather always said he had a ‘good war’, but many were not so lucky. That should never be forgotten