I HAVE been concerned for some time – long before David Cameron’s plea in October – that the Great War should be commemorated in 2014.

This will be the last main anniversary date that will hold any meaning for people living. There is a great danger it may become confined to history books and seem to have little relevance to a world more interested in instant tweets.

The memory of the sacrifice of so many millions of lives is already being forgotten as war memorials are being cast into the rubbish skips, others mutilated, torn down for scrap. How long, in these days of austerity, will the acres of war graves along the Western Front be cared for?

There was no real victory in 1918, but the heroism – on both sides – was evident enough. All nations concerned should reflect on those four years of horror.

Memory of the First World War must never be lost. I would hope that all interested parties in Bournemouth could join together to organise appropriate local events as part of the national commemorations, and that everything be done to mark this historic anniversary.

There are only 20 months to go. The schools should be involved since the younger generations especially must learn of this most bloody of wars.

Could someone or some organisation please come forward to co-ordinate what could, should, be done to make August 1914 remain engraved forever on our psyche.

This is not to foment continued hatred, not to celebrate war, but to ensure those mistakes are never repeated.

JOHN CRESWELL, St Catherine’s Road, Bournemouth