So, on 11th November I scraped over the line and am now sixty years of age.

Many of us 1960s born children had a quiet belief that we would never make such old bones at all.

Thousands of nuclear weapons were pointed at every major city in the UK, and we had to watch a Central Office of Information film advising us that in the event of an imminent strike we close all classroom windows and take shelter under our desks.

I sometimes wonder if this bred a certain nihilism amongst some of my pals, who later pogoed to the pulsating bass lines of punk bands like The Damned. I could never take the gloomy posturing of punk seriously. During a fete on Keston Common in north Kent on the day of the 1977 Queen’s Silver Jubilee some wag put the new Stranglers album, Rattus Norvegicus, on the PA system. As “Down in the Sewer” drifted across the common that sun-kissed day, old and young alike were oblivious. The revolution was not going to start on Keston Common.

Nevertheless, despite the nihilism of youth and the fear of obliteration by one of Mr Brezhnev’s missiles, last week I made it to 60. What I could not have anticipated aged 15 at the Queen’s jubilee was the opportunity afforded to me by the area in which I live if I survived for six decades.

My actual birthday is 11th November, which was last Thursday, but on Remembrance Sunday on the 14th I was allowed to lay a wreath on behalf of East Devon District Council, alongside so many other wonderful community bodies such as the Scouts and Guides, the Blue Light Services and so on. Thank you so much to all at St Andrew’s for this beautifully considered and well-run ceremony.

Councillors also laid wreaths on behalf of the district at Axminster, Exmouth, Ottery St Mary, Seaton and Sidford. Budleigh kindly invited me too but I could not get there with my family down for my birthday.

This part of our national life is hugely to be admired. As a tolerant country, we make space on radio and television for those who do not approve of the rituals around commemorating service people, and this respect for the views of others and their reading of our history marks us as a great nation.

However, my own thoughts are unequivocal on the subject. Millions of young people (mostly men) have died or been left with traumatic physical or mental injuries after a number of wars. Usually they had little choice in their destiny, and sometimes they were cruelly or even negligently led. But they gave the service they did, leaving either grieving or coping families to deal with the consequences.

In respecting their loss, we honour their contribution and affirm this through the laying of wreaths, the wearing of poppies or just through a few moments of thought or prayer. This year also marked 100 years since the foundation of the Royal British Legion in 1921, set up after World War One when it was becoming clear that ours would not be “a land fit for heroes” unless charity, or the voluntary sector as we now know it, stepped up to the plate.

My own adoptive father, aged 26 at the end of World War Two who’d seen truly awful things, including concentration camps, remained a devoted seller of poppies till the end of his life. I remember nipping over to the shopping parade on a Saturday morning to find him dressed immaculately, perfect David Niven moustache fifty years after the war, tray suspended from his neck, back straight as a rod, selling poppies to local people. He never wore his medals; he was not prideful but rather infinitely respectful, quietly remembering the young friends he had lost.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.