HOPE and progress come only from choices of peace, said the late Pope Francis.

One of my earliest memories of the wider world is hearing BBC Home Service news readers making announcements about the war in Korea. I was under five, so understood nothing, but I have always remembered the grave tone of the voices.

The Korean War started 75 years ago and lasted just over three years. North Korea, supported by Russia and China, invaded South Korea and captured the capital, Seoul. My knowledge of the Korean War is supplemented by the emotional impact of watching MASH in the 1970s and 1980s; and I was saddened to hear of the death of “Hot Lips” (Loretta Swit, who played the blonde nurse in that mobile army surgical hospital, Major Margaret Houlihan) recently.

Since those early memories, I have been fortunate enough to live largely in a time of peace for our country. This is not to belittle the horror and tragedies of those who served in the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan, but I did not have to go to war like my father and grandfather, nor have my sons.

However, the Korean peninsula is still a place of tension today, as two very different political and cultural systems face each other across the 49th parallel. We see similar confrontations in other parts of the world, and divisions of all kinds seem to abound.

These make me realise how fragile peace is. The risks of war arising from accidents, extremist politicians, ignorance and many other reasons are ever present, which oblige us all to be on our guard against warmongering.

I am reminded of the song, Let there be peace on earth, and how it continues “and let it begin with me”. May the God of peace be with you today.

John Keast,

St John’s Methodist Church, St Austell