julesjones (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
julesjones) wrote2011-11-13 04:13 pm
julesjones) wrote2011-11-13 04:13 pm
Entry tags:
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning
Mostly I listen to the Whitehall remembrance service on radio or tv. This year I betook myself to the village war memorial for our local service, "village" in this case being a suburb that retains much of the village character it had before it was swallowed by the conurbation.
It was, not surprisingly, a very traditional service, politely but explicitly Christian as it was an open air combined service run by the local churches, and with a parade by the local guides, scouts and other youth groups. The memorial is in an open space in front of the library, on the main road. My own estimate was at least 300 people that I could see, with a crowd stretching out of sight round the sides of the building, and spilling out into the road itself. I was told afterwards that there were around 500 in total, and I can well believe it. Apparently it was the biggest crowd for years - perhaps the effect of 11.11.11.11, perhaps the knowledge that the very last of those who remembered the trenches had gone this year, perhaps simply the fact that it was a mild, dry day that made it feasible for parents to take young children. There were a good many very young children, and the silence was not quite as silent as it might have been. Even so, there was a hush over that end of the high street, the hush that falls over a crowd thinking of the dead and wounded of too many wars. I didn't even realise until it finished that the police had stopped the traffic for the two minutes.
No talk of our glorious dead. Just an exhortation to remember the dead of many wars, both military and civilian, and to work to make their numbers fewer in the future. And afterwards an opportunity for individuals to lay their own tokens of remembrance alongside the organisational wreaths. I laid a small wooden cross with the names of my own family's dead of the Second World War -- my reason for going this morning. I do not, can not, remember them as individuals, though they should have been among the ranks of my elderly relatives when I was a child. They died before I was born, and thus I remember them for a different reason.
It was, not surprisingly, a very traditional service, politely but explicitly Christian as it was an open air combined service run by the local churches, and with a parade by the local guides, scouts and other youth groups. The memorial is in an open space in front of the library, on the main road. My own estimate was at least 300 people that I could see, with a crowd stretching out of sight round the sides of the building, and spilling out into the road itself. I was told afterwards that there were around 500 in total, and I can well believe it. Apparently it was the biggest crowd for years - perhaps the effect of 11.11.11.11, perhaps the knowledge that the very last of those who remembered the trenches had gone this year, perhaps simply the fact that it was a mild, dry day that made it feasible for parents to take young children. There were a good many very young children, and the silence was not quite as silent as it might have been. Even so, there was a hush over that end of the high street, the hush that falls over a crowd thinking of the dead and wounded of too many wars. I didn't even realise until it finished that the police had stopped the traffic for the two minutes.
No talk of our glorious dead. Just an exhortation to remember the dead of many wars, both military and civilian, and to work to make their numbers fewer in the future. And afterwards an opportunity for individuals to lay their own tokens of remembrance alongside the organisational wreaths. I laid a small wooden cross with the names of my own family's dead of the Second World War -- my reason for going this morning. I do not, can not, remember them as individuals, though they should have been among the ranks of my elderly relatives when I was a child. They died before I was born, and thus I remember them for a different reason.