TOMORROW, as flags fly at half mast and we bear solemn and silent witness to those servicemen and women who have fallen in the line of duty, we will remember.

We'll remember not only their sacrifice, but also the sacrifices still being made in the towns and fields of Iraq.

There will be moments of quiet contemplation, dignified silences where we can be alone with our thoughts for others. For friends. For strangers. Perhaps, even, for ourselves.

The grief may be collective, but the expression of it is calmly personal.

Unique.

The way it should be.

Remembering those who have gone before has been a cornerstone of human culture since the dawn of time. It's important to understand the past in order to make sense of the present and shape the future, but as we settle into the 21st century there's a danger vital lessons are being sacrificed on the altar of superficiality.

We have an alarming tendency to want to institutionalise grief, market it, display it and then forget it without having properly felt it and absorbed it.

Yesterday, there was a public funeral at St Edmundsbury Cathedral held for the late John Peel.

Like countless others, my life was touched by Peel's quiet enthusiasm for music, but more so by the attitude that accompanied it. He shunned the limelight wherever possible, always aware of the dangers of the Cult of Personality.

On the day he died, BBC3 carried an on-screen strap dedicating its output to Peel as if a TV station can somehow embrace the myriad feelings of that section of the population to whom John Peel mattered.

The public outpouring of grief in the wake of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, was perhaps the most obvious example of this type of grief, this modern mourning sickness.

As people started to lay flowers and sign the books of condolence, others followed suit.

Was it, for some, a duty call for greetings card emotions?

Our roadsides are sadly littered with bouquets and wreaths at the sites of fatal accidents.

I have known some of those who have died in such a way and have been genuinely moved by the sight of flowers left by family and friends.

But, without for a moment degrading anyone's wish to mark the site of their loss and recognising that it is important for people who lay such touching tributes, I do wonder how it has now become the norm.

Would it make the pain easier for me to bear in such tragic circumstances?

Would it even adequately express the sense of loss, shock or even anger that I might feel?

Much like the absurd culture of apology that now exists where apparent miscreants are called on to make a great show of saying sorry without having to demonstrate they actually mean it, it is almost as if we are co-opting such deeds to speak

our most profound feelings of sorrow.

It can be a triumph of shorthand action over the literate, raw sentiment that grieving people experience.

Thousands of people chose to wear their poppies with genuine pride, but how many people buy one simply because everyone else does? The done thing.

So, tomorrow, as we remember, let's actually do so.