Amid all the fuss and uproar over Fifa banning England's footballers from wearing poppies, the true meaning of Remembrance Day seemed to have been lost somewhere in No Man's Land between political correctness and the fight to be the country's biggest patriot.
But November 11 is not about wearing poppies, nor is it about being English. It is about remembering those who sacrificed their lives to fight for freedom - whether they were English, Welsh, American, or indeed Spanish.
While the Flander's Field poppy has become synonymous with the world wars it is important to be reminded just what that little red paper flower you pin on your collar stands for.
So when I was invited to a production of RC Sherriff's Journey's End at Wellington College, Crowthorne, I immediately accepted. Not only does the play resonate personally (the author is a paternal relation) but I wanted to see how teenagers would interpret an event which must seem so, so long ago.
Having previously seen the play at the West End I have to admit I prepared myself for the sort of school productions I experienced while I was a student: scrambling around last-minute to add the final finishes to homemade costumes, scribbling lines on the back of a sweaty, shaky hand and that awkward silence when someone forgets their lines.
But I couldn't have been more wrong. Not only was the play staged in a chillingly realistic settings - mud on the floor, sandbags around the walls - the acting was quite simply superb.
I'm not someone who cries easily (much to everyone's horror I stay resolutely dry-eyed during the Notebook), and I certainly didn't cry at the West End production of Journey's End. But by the end of the first half I was already welling up and by the time the curtain fell I was well and truly blubbing.
Far from just being a module studied in history lessons, the amateur actors wholly got inside their characters. Stripped back, laid bare and emotionally raw, the pupils showed true empathy in their performance.
Wellington's adaptation of RC Sherriff's classic quashed any fears the younger generations are "forgetting" the past. Some will say the private boarding school can afford to pull all the stops out and have a week's worth of commemorative events, and yes, they can.
But this in no way detracts from admirable efforts of the school's headmaster Dr Anthony Seldon to ensure his students remember just what that little red poppy they pin on their blazers actually means.