The Candle Float on the River, by the clock tower on Fisherton Street on the evening of August 6 has become, you may think, just an annual Event of the City: There it goes again!

But not so. Its real and serious meaning has gradually been getting through to people: that it commemorates the obliteration of hundreds of thousands of civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

In what may be a war crime, committed by our side.

See more: Annual Hiroshima and Nagasaki Commemorative Candle Float held in Salisbury

And it also keeps us in mind of the very real danger to us, here and now, that these weapons of mass destruction  still exist in the hands of governments, our own and other.

So we reflect that if those rulers, anywhere, were ever to use any of those weapons, then they may probably all get used, and humanity will have extinguished itself.

Quite a thought to remember at this quiet event.

The turn-out to witness this year's Candle Float was larger, because awareness has grown.

Not as much larger as I expected to appear after the opportune release of the Oppenheimer film about the engineer who invented the atom bomb.

It may take time for that powerful movie to reach everyone.

I wrongly thought that the half-closure of Silver Street was in official expectation of our event; however, the Mayor of Salisbury came to us, speaking of peace - and the extra significance of that was, that Salisbury City Council recently signed up to the international movement of Mayors for Peace (hundreds of Mayors round the world).

This new global connection brought our event the special personal support of the Mayor of Hiroshima, and also the gift to us by the children of two schools in that city, who made - and sent from the other side of the world - their own candle floats for our event.

And also to our sister City of Wells in Somerset.

These commemorations may be only gestures, but they speak clearly of people's growing determination to achieve peace in this restless world.

Christopher Browne

Greencroft Street, Salisbury