Trevor Yorke - The Trench: Life and Death on the Western Front 1914-1918

The picture opposite is of the Menin Gate at Ypres in Belgium. The caption speaks for itself. Ypres is a sad town but an enormously positive one. Its one of the places that has grown out of its wartime ruins. I find it very moving that its inhabitants have taken the time and the trouble, and have had the spirit to rebuild their town, which was largely destroyed in the Great War. In my mind, it symbolises hope.

Ypres isnt the sort of place you go simply to enjoy yourself. You go for the experience and I think all young people should visit the town and its surrounding cemeteries. You must also visit the excellent In Flanders Fields museum there, which is one of the best museums about the Great War that Ive ever visited. It doesnt seek to glorify the war in any way, it just tells it as it was - and Id urge any visitor to the town to go there and perhaps take along the children (if theyre old enough), in order to give them a better understanding of this most terrible of conflicts.

I always also visit at least one of the wartime cemeteries outside Ypres. Indeed, I came across the name of a Private Peaceful at one such cemetery, and it was that which inspired my book of the same name.

When I came to write War Horse, I decided I would tell the story of that war seen through the eyes of a horse. Joey, I would call him. It would be an English story, but a German one too, and a French one. It would be a tale, as far as possible, of the universal suffering, not just in that war, but in all wars, and on all sides. That is the spirit in which the book was written, and in which the play is acted out now each night, not only in London and in the US, but also now in Berlin.

To tell the story is the only way we have left to remember, and the only way to pass it on. And it is important to pass it on, important for the men who died on all sides, all now unknown soldiers, for those who suffered long afterwards and grieved all their lives. And important for us too. If they gave their todays for our tomorrows, then, I am sure, after all they went through, and died for, they would wish to see us doing all we can to create a world of peace and goodwill, a world that one day will turn its back on war for good. It is through their words and our stories that we must and will remember this and remember them. Then we really will be honouring their memory.

In 2014, as we begin to mark the centenary of the First World War, we should honour those who died, most certainly, and gratefully too, but we should never glorify. We should heed the words of those who were there, who did the fighting, and some of them the dying. To Wilfred Owen, the words Horace had used to glorify war centuries before, Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - how sweet and fitting it is to die for your country - were simply the old lie.

During these next four years of commemoration we should read the poems, the stories, the history, the diaries, visit the cemeteries - German cemeteries as well as ours - they were all sons and brothers and lovers and husbands and fathers too.

There should be no flag waving, unless it be the lowering of the flags of all the nations who lost their sons, unless it be to celebrate the peace we now share together, unless it be to reaffirm again our determination to guard our freedom, but as far as humanly possible to do it in peace. And when we sing the anthems, let them be anthems of peace and reconciliation.

Come each November over the next four years, let the red poppy and the white poppy be worn together to honour those who died, to keep our faith with them, to make of this world a place where freedom and peace can reign together.

Michael Morpurgo