AS readers will know, Evening News columnist John Phillpott is this week following in the footslogging footsteps of the British infantry through the fields of Flanders.

His reports from the killing grounds of the First World War will move everyone who reads them as Remembrance Day approaches.

From Ypres to the Marne, from the Somme to Passchendaele, the scale of the slaughter was unimaginable. Hardly a family in Britain didn't lose a son, a father or an uncle.

For 60-odd years, their courage and devotion to duty was marked each November with due respect.

But, as we have reflected before in these columns, amid the "every-man-for-himself" mood of the 1980s, Britain took its eye off the sacrifices made by the combatants of the First and Second World Wars and the other conflicts fought by our forces in the last century.

Two minutes' silence every year was, after all, little enough to devote to the memory of those who gave up years of their lives - or life itself - to fight for their country.

Then, the mood changed. As the 20th Century came to its close, our nation realised that it had to do the right thing.

That's why it's so disappointing that the Remembrance Day parade org-anised by St John's and Hallow Royal British Legion looks like it will be called off.

The Legion's branch was unaware that - for the first time - it had to apply 28 days in advance for special permission to close a quarter-mile stretch of the parade route.

"We didn't apply because we didn't know," honorary secretary Bob Peart explained.

Well, difficult though it might be, now is the time for the powers-that-be to do their bit.

Without delay, the Legion should be granted whatever permission it needs to continue with its parade to honour the fallen.