IN his recent column David Mowat wrote about both our grandfathers who served in the First World War.

My grandfather also fought in the Second World War.

He re-joined the army at the age of 50, served with the British Expeditionary Force in France and after D-Day with the British forces fighting through occupied Europe.

Why did he do it, knowing what war meant having seen the horrors of the trenches?

He acted from a strong sense of duty, believing that the country deserved his service.

The concept of duty has fallen out of fashion.

Yet if we look, we can still find those who hold to it.

We see it in doctors and nurses who stay after their shift has finished because they feel a duty to their patients, in volunteers putting something back into their community, in emergency workers putting themselves in danger to save others.

These people know they are part of something bigger, a community, a nation.

That doesn’t make them servile.

A sense of duty motivates people to strive for better things.

British troops in the Second World War knew mistakes had been made: they were fighting because of them.

They wanted a better world and that’s why they elected Clement Attlee’s reforming government – a man with a strong sense of duty – to bring decent jobs, the National Health Service, and the welfare state.

Few people now remember what life was like before those reforms yet they are the legacy those fighting men left to us as much as the defeat of fascism.

Now, when others speak out of a sense of duty, we should listen.

When doctors and nurses highlight problems in our hospitals, when teachers highlight cuts to school funding or volunteers the reality of food banks, they are not speaking for themselves.

They are acting out of duty for others. This is the freedom people fought for – the kind of patriotism which says, ‘because I love my country, I want to make it better’. It’s not blind or unthinking.

In these uncertain times we can choose to be the best we can be, or the worst.

We should listen to those who speak out of duty and choose to be the best.