Two years ago today I was at Bentley Wildfowl and Motor Museum near Uckfield, it was a lovely sunny afternoon, at some point in the afternoon it became clear from the smart phone that an incident had happened in Shoreham. We had no idea how serious things were until we got home. Over the subsequent weeks I heard stories from a range of people in Sussex Police about how many emergency service personnel had been impacted by what will no doubt be remembered for many decades as a terrible event for all those involved and nearby. Some of these people worked tirelessly, in some cases for up to 36 hours without a break carrying out tasks like securing the site and attempting to deal with the re-routing of traffic. Some of those impacted by the hard work do not even work for the emergency services, but are contractors for a range of businesses. A work colleague was having a BBQ at her house in Lancing and the first she knew was when a relative called to say they could not get to the house because of the crash. It is impossible not to be affected in a minor way by such events, even where there is no personal contact.

It is terrible for the families who lost people in the crash, to see their faces on the front of newspapers today must have a mixed impact.

Yet events such as this are small in scale compared to the tragedies which take place in nations such as Syria and Afghanistan. As the people who plan airshows have changed their plans to try to avoid such events ever happening again, we must apply the same level of care throughout our nation to do all we can to avoid death and destruction happening around the world. Our sales of military equipment and the use of our military resources is something that seems to happen some distance away. Yet for those impacted they are very close and nearby.