EAST Lothian is gifted with abundant sandy beaches along its coastline.

Since I was a toddler playing ‘sand ice cream shops’ on the Boat Shore at Cockenzie, or as a teenager wandering along Seton Sands as far as Gosford Bay, I have relished the outdoors. My brothers and I loved climbing on the huge concrete blocks arranged along the sandiest parts of the seashore.

We had been told the blocks were put there as a defence against threat of invasion in 1939; our carefree confidence saw them as no more than slabs for playing hide and seek. Living in peacetime, we were oblivious of the advantages and opportunities we had to enjoy. We had no perception of the sacrifices our parents’ and grandparents’ generation had endured in the recent conflicts, the lives interrupted and lost.

As an adult, I try to understand the disastrous impact that war had on every family, whatever side they were called to fight on. The terror is unimaginable.

The general population never want to fight. The act of war, whether in 1914, 1940 or subsequent conflicts, is often instigated by dictators or ideologies causing untold pain, suffering and waste without conscience or guilt.

It is real and shocking that in our modern, sophisticated world of 2022, we are again seeing a war in Europe.

The US and all members of NATO repeatedly warned that Russia will pay a heavy price for any invasion of Ukraine, an independent country of 42 million people. Their threats of retaliation apparently had little impact. The pandemic, recent political decisions and a breaking down of alliances because of Brexit have possibly weakened a previously united front.

My walk along the glorious sands of Belhaven Bay this morning is distracted. I am concerned for ordinary families, only a short flight away, trying to get on with their lives and who are, through no fault of their own, now living through war.