Laurence Binyon, “For the Fallen” (1914) “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: / Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. / At the going down of the sun and in the morning / We will remember them.” This is the Ode of Remembrance, read at services across the Commonwealth. Binyon wrote it in the first weeks of the war, before the scale of the losses was known.

John McCrae, “In Flanders Fields” (1915) “In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row.” McCrae was a Canadian army doctor who wrote this after burying a friend near Ypres. The poem is the reason the poppy became the symbol of remembrance.

John Maxwell Edmonds, the Kohima Epitaph “When you go home, tell them of us and say, / For your tomorrow, we gave our today.” Edmonds wrote it during the First World War. It became famous when it was carved on the memorial at Kohima after the 1944 battle, so it now speaks for both wars.

Wilfred Owen, “Anthem for Doomed Youth” (1917) “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? / Only the monstrous anger of the guns.” Owen sets the dignity of a funeral against the anonymity of death at the front. He was killed one week before the Armistice, and his mother received the telegram while the church bells were ringing for the peace.

Wilfred Owen, draft preface to his poems (1918) “My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.” In one line he gives a whole account of what war writing is for.

Rupert Brooke, “The Soldier” (1914) “If I should die, think only this of me: / That there’s some corner of a foreign field / That is for ever England.” This poem shows the idealism of 1914. If you place it next to Owen, you can see how the mood of the war changed. Brooke died in 1915 and was buried on Skyros.

Siegfried Sassoon, “Aftermath” (1919) “Have you forgotten yet?… / Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you’ll never forget.” Sassoon wrote this a few months after the Armistice. He had already begun to fear that people would forget, and that fear is what Remembrance is there to answer.

TL;DR 17

How to Start and Build a Business (173 words)

You need a product or service that people want and cannot easily get elsewhere, that you can deliver at a healthy margin and that a competitor cannot copy rapidly.

Test it before you build it. Talk to twenty potential customers. Better still, get a few to pay in advance. Their enthusiasm is cheap; a deposit is proof.

Keep costs down at the start. Work from home, rent instead of buy and don’t hire until the work demands it.

Watch your cash as closely as your profit. Many profitable businesses die because money comes in too slowly to pay the bills; agree payment terms up front and chase invoices, first to confirm receipt, then on the day they fall due. This was my policy and it created a strong and regular cash-flow.

Let me be brutally honest: starting my business was the best thing I ever did. But it was also very tough, and I have never met an entrepreneur who disagreed.

Expect everything to take much longer and cost much more than planned. And you must be willing to get out there and sell.

First action: This month, talk to the first five of your twenty potential customers and ask what they would pay.

TL;DR 16.

How to Manage Your Personal Finances (162 words)

If Building Wealth (TL;DR 5) is the long game, personal finance is the day-to-day. Get this right, and the long game becomes easy.

Create a budget and stick to it. Be very honest and include the small stuff. Save first, then spend what is left.

I was lucky. In my first serious commercial job, a colleague showed me the power of a simple budgeting and planning spreadsheet; he gave me his template, and I have never dropped the habit of using it to save, build and measure.

Use pots. Many banks now let you split your account into separate pots for bills, food, fuel, holidays and presents. On payday, the money goes into each pot, and when a pot is empty, you stop spending from it.

Build an emergency fund equal to six months of essential spending; it turns a crisis into a breathing space.

Clear expensive debt first, starting with credit cards.

Twice a year, check your direct debits and subscriptions. Cancel what you no longer use.

First action: For one week, write down everything you spend, coffees included.