Do we wear our poppy with pride? Or with shame that we personally forked no lightning or again with pride that we never had to but others did for us? It’s a tricky one.
It fell off (damn pins!). I had to scrabble for it. There was no way at 11am as I stood in silence before the war memorial in this little town I could be without it. Because of Ben Parkinson. Because of all the rest. Have you seen the before and afters of L/Bombardier Parkinson? That is the price. That is the living price. They can put you back together at Ramstein or Selly Oak but then I can do a jigsaw. The dead are flown in on C-17s to a military band (and so should it be) but it is the living that haunt us. It is the triple amputees and the blinded and those paralyzed from the cervical vertebrae.
To the Everlasting Honour
of the Men of Disley Parish
who gave their lives
in the Great War
1914 - 1919.
[I assume the 1919 is due to those who died of wounds - and the treaty of Versailles was 1919]
This Cross is placed here in Grateful Remembrance
Ellis ARDERN
Robert ARDERN
Reginald C ARNOLD
E Walter ARNOLD
Harry BAND
Oliver BELL
Joseph BENNETT
Robert BENNETT
Harry N BOLD
Herbert BOWDEN
John BRANSON
Charles BRYAN
Wm M BUCHANAN
Harold CARRINGTON
Arthur CHORLTON
G Charles CLAPHAM
Harold DAWSON
Thomas DAWSON
John DEARNALEY
Harry EDGE
Harold ETCHELLS
H Innes FERGUSON
Arthur FORD
Samuel FORD
John FROGGATT
Richard GARLEY
Tom W GARLEY
James R GASKILL
Albert GASKILL
Herbert GOODWIN
Walter GRAHAM
William HAGAN
Percy HALLAM
Fred HARRISON
James A HARRISON
Ernest HAYTHORN
Wm HIGGINBOTTOM
Ernest HILL
Frank HOLYOAKE
William HOWARTH
Louis INGHAM
John JENNISON
Ernest JOHNSON
Harvey JONES
Ernest LEECH
John LIDDELL
James LOGAN
Frank LOMAS
Luke LOMAS
Percy MASSEY
George MIDDLETON
Thomas MIDDLETON
George A MILES
Roy MILLER
William MOORCROFT
Charles MOTTRAM
Ernest MOTTRAM
James MYCOCK
Frank NELSON
Daniel NORMAN
J Joseph NUTTALL
Ernest PIKE
Frederick POTTS
Thomas PRESTWICH
Harold QUARMBY
Charles RHODES
James H RIGBY
Frank ROXBY
Robert ROXBY
Henry SERPELL
Benjamin SHIRT
Stanley SHIRT
Samuel SHIRT
Albert SMITH
Joseph SMITH
John STAFFORD
Henry TAYLOR
James TAYLOR
Wm THOMPSON
William TURNER
Thomas H WALKER
Harry WELCH
Arthur WHITEFORD
George W WHITTLE
Everett WILD
William WILD
George W WILKINSON
Samuel WOOD
Walter WOOD
Charles WOODWARD
John WOODWARD
Charles WYATT
Frederick YATES
Leonard G B YOUNG
Cyril NIELD
Reginald NIELD
And it goes on for other wars (and just look at the last two names… Brothers? And they surely are not the only ones. This place was decimated.)
Also to those Who Gave their Lives
In the Second World War 1939 - 1945
Frank G ANDERSON
Brian F BALL
Harold BANKS
J Maurice BENNETT
John C BOARDMAN
James BROOME
Percy E DICKENSON
Alec GEE
John E GEE
Cyril HEYWOOD
G Alan McKIE
Leonard T PARKER
William WALTON
Brian WOOD
David B YATES
Robert E ELGIE
1950
Clifford W GOULDEN
I assume Clifford W Goulden was killed in Korea. That was also a war worth fighting. Forty million people don’t live under the farcical rule of the Kim dynasty and I have a Samsung TV on the wall. And an LG Blu-Ray beneath it. What do the poor fuckers North of the DMZ have? Gulags, starvation and the World’s largest hotel that practically no bugger will ever go to. Because you just wouldn’t.
Anyway, I stood in silence and the cops closed the roads and everything stopped and the vicar (she’s a right cow BTW) gave a pathetic speech.
But we all stopped. Hundreds of us. And I had re-jiggled my poppy by then.
We all stopped. The traffic stopped (and would have done without the dibble), I stopped, kids stopped, the elderly stopped their mobility scooters. We stopped because we either never had to do it or we survived. I will not say we stopped for the glorious dead because there is nothing glorious about being dead. We stopped because they fought so we didn’t have to. Note the last name is Clifford W Gouldon and he died in 1950.
We have had wars since. But nothing as apocalyptic as our two bouts with the Krauts. There is a wall in Gateshead and if you uncover the paper… There are crude drawings of Sea Harriers ‘winding Skyhawks into the drink done by me and my brother. AIM-9L - Thank you Ronnie! I have a model of a Sea Harrier FRS1 (Airfix- 1:72). I dunno how my Dad got the kit because I was the envy of all my school chums. They couldn’t be had for love or money.
That is my experience of war. I built a model ‘plane. Thank God!
Amen.
We had a small ecumenical ceremony at the British & Commonwealth Graveyard in Bilbao today. About 50 of us. A service in the chapel with a Catholic priest and an Anglican vicar, poppies, a wreath at the Cenotaph and a visit to the graveyard and the 30 or 40 odd graves of British and Commonwealth servicemen (including a load of Chinese seamen who presumably were from Hong Kong).
The Consul made a speech and what I came away with was ‘they gave up their lives for our freedom so we didn’t have to’.
My grandfather missed Passchendale on sick leave, if I remember right. When he got back all his mates were dead.
There is a village just north of the Trent and off the A1 in Nottinghamshire called Cronwell, it is one of only 52 ‘thankful’ or ‘blessed’ villages in England and Wales, so called since no one from them was killed in WWI.
There are two in Northamptonshire, East Carlton being one, and that is a good hour and a quarter drive before you get to Cromwell, passing near no other Thankful village in-between.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thankful_Villages
I am far away - but there was fighting here to (against the Ottomans) I took the time to honour those who faught.
A small tip you might want to consider Nick.
I am very clumsy - paper poppy things and me do not get on well.
So I wear a tiepin style poppy.
You might want to consider doing the same.
Whenever I hear the youthful teen trots panting out their anti-war rhetoric, I close my ears and remember not why wars are fought, but rather why men choose to volunteer to fight in them.
I remember The Devonshires memorial at the battle of the Somme, which (to paraphrase) says “The Devonshires guarded this hill, they guard it still”.
We can analyse time and again the reasons for both WW1 and WW2, really just different acts of the same play, but what we cannot do is seek to belittle or hold in contempt those who fought on all sides of this bitter conflicts.
Although their are obviously exceptions, by and large they did not fight for riches or land, but for duty, obligation and honour. To understand true patriotism, as opposed to narrow nationalism is to understand how many soldiers, having faced the horrors of war were able to return from their hospitals and infirmaries at home having suffered injuries and the horrible and mutilation of their friends and comrades were able to don their uniforms again and return to the front, often to their deaths.
Remembrance is not about war, but about those who fought and died that we might have today.
Lions, led by donkeys - but lions nevertheless.
(Revised)
Whenever I hear the youthful teen trots panting out their anti-war rhetoric, I close my ears and remember not why wars are fought, but rather why men choose to volunteer to fight in them.
I remember The Devonshire’s memorial at the battle of the Somme, which (to paraphrase) says “The Devonshire’s guarded this hill, they guard it still”.
We can analyse time and again the reasons for both WW1 and WW2, really just different acts of the same play, but what we cannot do is seek to belittle or hold in contempt those who fought on all sides of this bitter conflicts.
Although there are obviously exceptions, by and large they did not fight for riches or land, but for duty, obligation and honour. To understand true patriotism, as opposed to narrow nationalism is to understand how many soldiers, having faced the horrors of war were able to return from their hospitals and infirmaries at home, having suffered injuries and the horrible mutilation of their friends and comrades were able to don their uniforms again and return to the front, often to their deaths.
Remembrance is not about war, but about those who fought and died that we might have today.
Lions, led by donkeys - but lions nevertheless.
John Galt.
Agreed.
Although not directly related to the war in question, we should recall other words given in memoriam and rememberer that fit well with the battlefields of both world wars:
“in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground.
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain”
President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address - November 19th 1863
My wife’s father on being told to request his war medals:
” They knew where to find me when they called me up.
They know where I am now.
let them post me my medals.
Fuck em”
He came back from North Africa with 2 bullet wounds.
Just been watching a documentary on the last day of WW1. The Armistice had been signed, but there were still 8 hours to go before cease fire.
Most of the Generals stood their troops easy to wait out the time, but others, including General Pershing didn’t, and attacked German lines.
10,000 troops died in those last hours. How could those fuckin Generals live with themselves?
General John “Black Jack” Pershing was one of the greatest military minds in US history.
Most of the Generals stood their troops easy to wait out the time, but others, including General Pershing didn’t, and attacked German lines.
10,000 troops died in those last hours. How could those fuckin Generals live with themselves?
As with most things, it’s about incentives. A general is only criticized about numbers of fatalities and casualties if he loses. If the battle is won those pulling the strings don’t really care that much provided fatalities and casualties don’t impact on the preparations for the next big push.
For demonstration of this, read Alan Clark’s “The Donkeys”
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Donkeys-Alan-Clark/dp/0712650350
There is a village just north of the Trent and off the A1 in Nottinghamshire called Cronwell, it is one of only 52 ‘thankful’ or ‘blessed’ villages in England and Wales, so called since no one from them was killed in WWI.
Kind of ironic that one of those, which suffered no casualties in WWI or WWII, is called Upper Slaughter. The Gods, somewhere, are having a laugh.
Excellent post, Nick…
British soldiers were still fighting (to some extent) in 1919 as part of the sadly inadequate Entente intervention in the Russian Civil War, which was focused more on containing the Bolsheviks and on preserving the newly established independent states (by the Central Powers: Finland and the Baltic States; by the Entente: Poland and Czechoslovakia) than on actually guaranteeing a victory for the Russian anti-Bolshevik forces.