At the going down of the sun…

This week, the ONLY thing that should be at the top of our minds is Remembrance. Of course I’m biased. I’m a military wife and my flying training began on Yorkshire University Air Squadron (widely acknowledged as being the best one obviously…….) and so the marking of both Remembrance Sunday and Armistice day is deeply entrenched – but actually the importance of it for me goes right back to my childhood.

I grew up in a large and loving Christian family and we went to church every Sunday, but actually our whole lives centred mostly on the church and activities surrounding it. As a result I was in the Girls Brigade and I think we had a parade Sunday once a month. Because I was always tall, I usually got to carry the colour, and I loved all of it. I loved the special belt I had to wear to put the flag pole in, I loved lifting it down and placing it in its stand with the Boys Brigade colour, and I loved the sense of occasion that this brought us every month.

I also loved that my brother was short and never got to carry the flag – which served me right when he got a growth spurt and ended up at 6’4!!!

On Remembrance Sunday, we would march along with all the other clubs and groups in the town, along the high street and up to the war memorial, just like I guess, a lot of people did every year. It was something we all expected to do, to honour the fallen and show respect to our grandparents and their friends who did survive – because my generation is the one which was fortunate enough to actually know people who served in the Second World War – and very occasionally when we were very young there would be First World War veterans too.

I have never missed marking Remembrance even when I was working, and I always really appreciated that we would get a company email every year reminding us of the minutes silence and encouraging us to pause if we could at 1100.

This year, this seemed even more important as we muddle our way through these crazy days where nothing is certain any more. I know it’s hard not seeing our families, I know it’s hard not seeing our friends. We are all feeling this Covid fatigue to some extent and I count myself as one of the lucky few who is not being pulled down by it – so far….

I can’t help thinking though, that whilst what we are facing is incredibly difficult, what our grandparents faced was arguably worse, and they did it with such stoicism…I don’t doubt for one second that there were people who found it very hard indeed, but as far as I know, people did their best and got on with whatever they could, grateful for the blessings life sent their way. I think it’s worth us remembering that it wasn’t just people who were being lost every day then, but there were food shortages, letters were censored, the cities were bombed, and most people only had a “wireless” to hear what little news there was.

My grandfathers were both soldiers. One, I know very little about because he died when my mother was a child, but the other spent the war as a radio operator and was based at the foot of Mt Kilimanjaro where he learned to speak Swahili. He also learned to sing “one man went to mow” in Swahili which he taught me and I have never forgotten because we always used to laugh so much when we sang it together!! It is my good fortune that they both survived the war and came back with tales like this to tell, or I wouldn’t be here at all, but I have no doubt that it was hard for them and for my grandmothers left at home.

Every year, our local town has a Remembrance service in a church at one end of the high street, and then there is a parade to the war memorial at the other end which is supported by both the nearby military bases as well as the Pipe band which is one of my favourite bits! I LOVE to hear the pipers as they make their way down the street and the only other sound is that of marching feet. It’s a really special time but of course, this year, along with all the other parades in the country, it was cancelled. There was still a small service at the memorial and so we went just as we do every year.

I was proud of our little town as there were still around 100 people who turned out to pay their respects and lay their wreaths and poppies. There was still a piper although not the massed pipe band, and most importantly, we still stood silently and remembered…those who went before us, friends we have lost, as well as people we don’t know. It’s important that we continue to remember them.

There is an oft quoted verse that I decided to look up this year to see where it came from. We are all familiar with the words “they shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old” and the verse that follows, but the whole poem is rather lovely and is copied below. “For the fallen” was written by Laurence Binyon, a Lancastrian poet, dramatist and artist who died in 1943. His words in this poem were written because he was so moved by the vast number of casualties in the British Expeditionary Forces in 1914 and particularly at the battle of Mons where my great great uncle perished.

We have obviously had Remembrance Sunday now but as we reach Armistice Day on the 11th, given that so many are at home (although not us up here in our corner of the world!) I really hope there will be some space in the day to take that 2 minutes of silence at 1100 to appreciate the words of another well known poem, that “for our tomorrow, they gave their today”

Poem by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), published in The Times newspaper on 21 September 1914.

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.