Kenilworth's Mayor Cllr Richard Dickson has been reaching out to the people of Kenilworth through his monthly column with Kenilworth Nub News.

This month however, Cllr Dickson's words came as a live broadcast on the Kenilworth Nub News' Facebook account, before he volunteered selling poppies with the Kenilworth branch of the Royal British Legion.

For anybody who missed that, here is what he said:

This year, Remembrance Sunday - 8 November – will be a little different from normal Remembrance Sundays. Because of COVID-19 spatial distancing rules, it won't be possible for us to gather as a community to pay our respects at our local war memorial.

But wreaths will still be laid and the two minutes' silence will still be kept. It's just that, because of COVID-19, people are being asked to mark Remembrance Sunday in their own homes or at least in a safe spatially-distanced way.

Remembrance Sunday has always been an important event to my family. My grandfather was awarded a Military Cross for his bravery in the first world war.

By all accounts the trauma left him a different man as a result, although he was always very kind to me. My father was a navigator in Bomber Command in the second world war. But he rarely talks about it, partly because it was fashionable for many decades after the war to deny the sacrifices of Bomber Command.

And as a teenager I was active in my school's Combined Cadet Force.

In itself, conflict – when people disagree - is nothing to be afraid of. So long as the conflict gets resolved peacefully. That's how progress is made. Violent conflict, however, whether it's physical, emotional, spiritual or verbal, is a dreadful thing. Dreadful both for people in the armed services and for civilians.

Dreadful because it creates harmful division within nations. Dreadful because it sets tribe against tribe. It also destroys so much of our environment.

I am very grateful that, because of the work of people in so many international institutions, my generation in my family is the first never to have had to fight in an international war.

Now, whilst this year's Remembrance Sunday will need to be different, there are some things that won't change. Firstly, I hope we'll buy our poppies again and I pay tribute to all the volunteers involved in selling them to us.

And, secondly, the three 'Rs' of Remembrance will still remain. R to Remember the lives taken, the lives ruined and the destruction caused. R to Reflect on how such violent conflict could have been avoided in the first place. And, finally, R to Recommit ourselves to work to live in peace with our neighbours, in our communities and with people, where and who ever they are, who we think are not like us.

This year remembrance in Kenilworth will be different also because, just as Coventry will be marking the 80th anniversary on 14 November of the destruction of the old Cathedral, on 21 November we'll be marking the 80th anniversary of when bombs were dropped on Abbey End and 26 people died.

Recommitting ourselves to work to live in peace – the third 'R' of remembrance - is not easy. As individuals it is about what we do on a daily basis so that we, our neighbours, our community and the people who we think are not like us can be the best that we each can be.

That to me is what peace is. Positive peace, not just the absence of violent conflict. We should be under no doubt that it's far more expensive than waging war, but it's a price always worth paying because the rewards are far greater.

So when I buy my poppy this year that's what I'll be remembering. That building and sustaining peace is truly heroic and glorious.