Priestley would like to thank its Protective Services students and staff for organising a moving and poignant Remembrance Service. Thank you also to those who read, performed and provided technical assistance. Below is a shortened version of a reading by Tutor Paul Mackinnon.

Hope and fear, dark and light, are words we might all associate with war. Most fear comes from the dark, the unexpected, it can come from change and the unknown.

Even on British soil hundreds of miles from the frontline during times of war, light was a factor.

Bombers who travelled from Germany would try to identify cities by the lights emitted from the houses and factories, so the people stayed in darkness listening to the planes overhead. This is where the phrase the ‘Blitz Spirit’ came from.

If you have ever been out on a dark night you will know how far a tiny spec of light can travel, it can travel many miles, it breaks through the dark and can bring hope, warmth and safety.

What you should always remember is you are a light in someone’s life, whether you know it or not. Whether you believe it or not your presence in someone’s life is a light that brightens their day. You bring hope and where there is hope we can only dream of peace.

The two-minute silence that we have just observed is to remember all those people whose light still shines even though they are gone, their light still shines in memories and pictures, through the stories people tell of them and also through their families.

Let us all remember, there is no amount of darkness in the world that can extinguish our light.