Colour Supplement

Articles by Christians around the world

Sunday 29 April 2007

 

The Act of Remembrance

by David Anderson, a member of St. Andrew's Church

 

 

I must thank Katharine for her recent article. It has inspired me to write a bit about the Act of Remembrance.

 

Initially, it was introduced to remember the signing of the armistice which ended the first World War on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, and to remember the service personnel who lost their lives in that war.  It was extended to include those service personnel who lost their lives in the second World War, and it was decided to hold a national Remembrance Sunday on the Sunday nearest to 11th November.  Although the second world war finished in Europe in June 1945, how many of us remember that the war in the Far East lasted until August?  It is from there we get the Kohima Epitaph :

 

When you  go home tomorrow

tell them of us and say

for your tomorrow

we gave our today

 

I am sure quite a few of us remember the post war era when the two minutes silence was held on the 11th November, irrespective of which day it fell.  Buses would stop and the drivers get out and stand in front of the bus for the two minutes silence. It is only in recent years that the Royal British Legion campaigned successfully for its re-introduction. 

 

Since the end of the second world war, serving personnel have been killed every year except ONE.  Katharine mentioned some of the recent conflicts but there was the Korean conflict in the 1950's, followed by Aden, Malaya and, later, the Malayan/Borneo conflict where I lost a very good friend.  This was followed by the Northern Ireland conflict which was to last over 30 years.

 

In Belgium there is the Menin Gate, which was built in 1927, and lists the names of all Commonwealth service personnel who went missing in the first World War.  It is an extremely moving experience to visit the memorial.  Tricia, in her sermon on Remembrance Sunday, spoke of the recently erected National Memorial which was opened to the public on 29th October this year at the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas, Staffordshire.  This new Memorial lists the names of ALL service personnel killed since World War 2, whether as a result of war, terrorism, or even accidents.  There are already 16,000 names inscribed, dating back to 1st January 1948.   We've had the privilege of visiting the Arboretum twice in the last 2 years.  Not only are there  groves of trees or gardens set aside for each Regiment and Corps but also for others, such as the Garden of Innocents which remembers Anne Frank, the schoolchildren of Dunblane and the children in Russia, the Civil Defence, the police forces of our nation and a garden for the Neonatal Society, to name but a few. There is also the Millennium chapel, where the two minute silence at 11am is observed every day of the year.

 

David in the Garden of Innocents

 

When we visited in May this year, we wondered what was going on with an enormous mound of earth in the centre with building materials about.  We found the information and architect's drawings and have since followed the project with great interest.  The Memorial has space for thousands of names to be added.  Let's pray and fervently hope that those spaces will never be completely used.

 

I intend to visit the Memorial in the future, and I shall look amongst the Army for the name of my long lost friend - Dave Waghorn.

 

More information about the National Memorial Arboretum, which is a charitable organisation, can be found here.

 

David

 

 

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