May I wish you a happy Remembrance Sunday (as it is called in these
parts). My local chapter of the Royal British Legion, which has rather
adopted me, handed me a small cross to lay among many others in front of
their war memorial in Margate, Kent. On that cross the president of the
chapter had inscribed the words, "In Memory of Our American comrades".
Far away in time and space from home, it brought tears to my eyes .
This memorial, like others in every town and village across the
length and breadth of the United Kingdom, bears the names of every
member of that town who had perished in defence of liberty since 1914,
and for this tiny corner of England the number of names runs into
hundreds. Those who come to these commemorations always repeat the
simple but extraordinarily powerful verse said to have been written by a
young British officer, one of the fallen at the Kohima hillstation in
Burma, on a chit he addressed to his friend at headquarters, and first
inscribed on the Kohima Memorial:
"When you go home,
Tell them of us and say:
For your tomorrows,
We gave our todays."
That, too, brings a lump to my throat, and echoed in my mind as the
chimes of Big Ben were relayed, live, round the country and in Margate,
maroons rocketed high into the sky from the Trinity House lifeboat
station to mark out the two minutes' silence observed throughout this
land, commemorating the moment of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the
11th month when the guns fell silent at the end of the First World War.
And last night, at the annual Festival of Remembrance in the
Royal Albert Hall, a NY fire chief and senior NYPD officer who have been
working at "Ground Zero" were invited to take part in the ceremonies
which take place in the presence of the Royal Family, the Prime Minister
and others including elements of all of the armed forces, voluntary
services and innocent civilians who have been involved in hostilities.
It is, for many in these isles, one of the holiest of all annual
ceremonies, one in which all who attend and tens of millions who watch
rededicate themselves to remember those who have died and those who have
suffered from service to the Crown in time of war. Last night's Festival
also marked the 80th anniversary of the Royal British Legion.
As the band of the Royal Marines played and surrounded by many
thousands of serving British officers and ex-servicemen drawn up in
seried rows, the NY fire chief was brought into the hall on the arm of a
now very frail George Cross medal holder (awarded to civilians as the
counterpart of the Victoria Cross, roughly equivalent to the Medal of
Honor) who had been decorated for his part in firefighting in the London
Blitz. Two of his equally-aged police counterparts brought in the NYPD
man. The symbolism could hardly have been more poignant.
What the American visitors will have made of the event, God knows,
especially the traditional ending of the evening when all on parade
stood to attention, and, as they always do, the 175 standards that had
been chosen by lots from amongst the 5000-odd around the country were
lowered, slowly, until they touched the ground to bless the memory of
the fallen. For five minutes or so, in complete silence, a shower of
poppies then fluttered gently down from above to land on the heads,
shoulders and all around those, well over a hundred feet below, to whom
the burdens of the past have passed, including no doubt those who may
themselves perish in present or future conflicts: it may speak volumes
to those on both sides of the Atlantic. As by tradition is done every
year, all who bore witness repeated together the words of the ode "To
the Fallen," written in September 1914 by Lawrence Binyon, a Keeper at
the British Museum who had been moved by reports of the horrors of the
trenches in Flanders fields:
"They shall grow not old,
as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them,
nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun
and in the morning
We will remember them."
Perhaps there is much to be learned from a nation which celebrates
glorious defeats as well as final victories.
I'm not much of a church-goer, but may I just add, "God bless
and keep you!" to you all on this Day of Remembrance, also your
Veterans' Day, which binds together our past history, present and future
together.
