By Dr Brian Iddon, Member of Parliament for Bolton South-east I WAS born in 1940, so my early memories are not of World War Two but of its aftermath -- rationing, utility clothes and furnishings, and people talking about the black market.

A soldier and his wife were billeted with us for most of the war and they became lifelong family friends.

Being born in a small village, most of my relatives worked on the home front, particularly in agricultural production. We were lucky in that food shortages were not a real problem. I lost a cousin whom l had never known, seriously injured in a far away place called Sicily and buried near a city that then I had never heard of, Naples.

Years later, when my cousin Betty heard that I was to give a series of lectures at a big science fair in Naples, she requested that I visit the cemetery where her brother Dick is buried. The Salvation Army had taken her out with her mother to see the grave just after the end of the War, and she has never been able to return.

Standing there in the Cappi di Monte war cemetery before that grave, where a cousin whom I never knew is buried, I felt quite humble to feel that he and the countless others buried there and elsewhere gave their lives for me! It's on occasions like that, on every Remembrance Day in fact, that the full impact of war makes an impression on someone like me that has never actually been there -- the lucky but grateful ones. Conscription ended before I was due to be called up, and I was allowed to go on to university straight from college.

Until the Gulf War I had always hoped that our people would not be affected again by waging war in another country. Alas, the world is just not like that! Sadly Britain has declared war again, they say not against the people of Afghanistan, but against the Taliban and terrorism, wherever it exists.

The mood in the House of Commons during the several debates that we have had has been one of overwhelming support across political parties for the Government's position. The most repeated comments were about the men and women in our armed forces, about their professionalism, and about their bravery. We wish them well, and hope that this dispute will end swiftly and without great loss of life. They are willing to give their lives for us. Let us never forget that!