It's worth remembering that seventy years ago today the Allies launched the D-Day landings, putting 150 000 men onto the beaches of Normandy to push the Nazis out of France. The average age of the soldiers was twenty two, so most of the surviving veterans today are in their nineties. By the time of the next significant anniversary there won't be many of them left. And they did something that successive generations, like us, haven't had to do, which we possibly take for granted.
Photographer Peter Macdiarmid has created a set of Then And Now photos, superimposing photos of Normandy in 1944 over pictures of the same places in 2014. They are very affecting. Here are two of them.
I can't think of any particularly appropriate music to go with this.
