I AM saddened by the symbol of images of armed soldiers placed around the town to remind us of the centenary of WW1: 'Lest we forget'.

Whilst men and women served heroically and with the best of intentions in that 'war to end all wars', surely a more apt symbol might be images of innocent children who have been, and continue to be, killed or injured in wars around the world.

What the current image of armed soldiers doesn't show is that millions of men were killed, or severely injured, physically and emotionally, on the battlefields in WW1, and for what purpose?

To have images of soldiers with guns seems to me to obscure the message, and for children it may even romanticise armed conflict.

Let us not forget that the UK is a major exporter of arms and sells to authoritarian regimes regardless of the motivation to own them.

Most people simply want to live in peace and harmony with their neighbour.

When they flee from war they find themselves rejected at the borders of those same countries who sold arms to the despotic governments who drove them out of their country in the first place! Is that fair?

DAVID CHAPMAN

Ledbury