Last updated 19:26, Thursday, 13 November 2008

THIS week is normally one where we really start to feel the advent of winter; the warmth, colour and excitement of Bonfire Night a welcome antidote to dreary November days.

This time, of course, there was a much more explosive and exciting event to enliven November 5: the election of Barack Obama across the pond has hopefully quickened our pulse and inspired our thoughts, with hopes for a worldwide era of the American dream.

I am excited by America's choice; I stayed up a bit too late to find out if the hopes and dreams of so many had been realised.

I found his victory speech rousing; one part I really homed in on was his hope that America would not in future be known by the might of its arms, but by its democracy.

This echoes perfectly the other big focus of my week.

Ninety years ago the guns fell silent on the Western Front, signifying the end of four bloody years of slaughter. Yet just seven days earlier a young man was killed; hardly a unique event, considering that up to 11 million men died in the conflict. But this man wasn't just a soldier; he was, perhaps foremost, a poet.

Wilfred Owen, possibly our most famous war poet, encapsulates the horror and pity of war. I’ve been enthralled by his poems since I was 14.

And since then I’ve always tried to “do my bit”, however insignificant. This week is no exception.

Not only will I have shed a few (possibly embarrassing) tears on 11/11 for those who died, but I hope that my continuing efforts to give young people an awareness of what was a terrible legacy of the “might of arms” may make a tiny contribution to what should happen; that our futures across the world to be more peaceful.